Photos only. Comments comming later :)
Thursday, March 31, 2011
we, the artists!
We have made one each, so now your turn is to guess who did which. Let's see who of you know us better.
The pieces are carved on a piece of cow bone, but looks really like ivory (marfil, Elfenbein). The lower piece is a mixture of Maori symbols. The Maori were really mastering the bone and stone carving technic.
Daniela can be seen devouring a falafel piece, short before having a look at the 'real' ring, from "the lord of the rings". The designer lives in Nelson and we visited the shop.
The city has also one street which is said to be the oldest conserved from New Zealand. The picture with the classic car. I took this picture just for my mother, since she usually makes the type of question: and how are the houses there?
Next post, plenty of beach photos from Abel Tasman track!
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South island. Marlborough Sounds.
Daniela is writting her 'tagebuch' (diary), so do I with my digital version.
Once we got to the south islands we had some strong rain. We used again the tarp to be able to 'expand' ourselves out of the limits of the van. We had one day of nothing to do, which is sometimes also nice, especially after several days in Wellington.
We were impressed by the grandiose sounds (fjords,fiordos) from the region. To make an idea, here 50km in straight line contain about 340km of coast.
We wanted to train ourselves a bit with the backpacks fully loaded, so we did the Nydia track, for which we had to pack the tent and all the cooking gear. On the way to the camp we visited "pipi beach", in which we could find more sea-stars than actual 'pipi's (Shelves). But we stayed alone... The water temperature of the sea is already Spanish forbidding, but I managed to do a quick jump in/out to refresh since the sun was really strong. The views from the track were also really nice, and we had several fan-tails following us. It is the bird that you see in the picture with the palm tree. Really curious birds!
As you can see in the pics, there were some obstacles in the middle of the path. Looked like it is not very famous, and we had to jump over and under numerous trees which were completely crossed to us.
From there we drove towards Nelson, the bigger city in the region.
Cheers! Till next update!
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Wednesday, March 30, 2011
last pics from North Island
The ferry we took with our Van on the deck. The grey one at the right.
And me having a breakfast coffee directly on the sand (in Levin).
Next post will be South island!
Cheers, JM.
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Monday, March 28, 2011
Wellington, see you north island
I was telling Daniela today while walking the Abel Tasman Coast track that I would always associate Wellington with a thick and yummy Tortilla Española. When we stay in campings or hostels with kitchen we like to cook some more elaborated dishes. So Wellington was tortilla! Well, and Crepes and an Eye Beef Steak mmm...
We went some shopping to increase our Winter clothes stock, that we surely will need in the south island. They were on sale and outdoor things are far cheaper than in Europe. We bought some thick fleece sweaters and even another travel bag, suitcase style to carry back to Germany the stuff we continuously collect.
We visited Te Papa museum, that was a museum how they should be. It had a huge part which was free to see, containing a lot about Maori history and also Flora,Fauna and geologic sciences from New Zealand. It had a part for kids, very interactive in which it was taught how to lower the carbon footprint and kids could developed already their green side.
Impressive was a giant squid showed in the museum, the real animal was there conserved in formal. The exemplar was, if I rember properly, 4.6meters!! The eyes were the size of soccer balls, had three hearts and rotating sharp endings in the tentacles. Really a monster...
We went also to the cinema and saw the impacting "127 hours". Next day was Theater day, we saw some alternative show regarding the cultural shock within Maori and Somalis. Wellington welcomed some years ago several thousands of Somali refugees, and according to the artists, NZ still hasn't been able to really integrate non of them.
In oder to make use of "the city" facilities we also changed the muffler of our Van, which was a bit 'rotten'.
The city is a nice little capital. Less than half a million inhabitants. Surrounded by sea and forests, but at the same time with several skyscrapers around. The only bad thing was the constant strong winds, a bit uncomfortable. Even with that, I keep a very friendly picture of it.
We took a Ferry, for about 3 hours that would bring us and our Van to Picton, the next harbour in the south island.
Like the locals say: Cheers mates!
We went some shopping to increase our Winter clothes stock, that we surely will need in the south island. They were on sale and outdoor things are far cheaper than in Europe. We bought some thick fleece sweaters and even another travel bag, suitcase style to carry back to Germany the stuff we continuously collect.
We visited Te Papa museum, that was a museum how they should be. It had a huge part which was free to see, containing a lot about Maori history and also Flora,Fauna and geologic sciences from New Zealand. It had a part for kids, very interactive in which it was taught how to lower the carbon footprint and kids could developed already their green side.
Impressive was a giant squid showed in the museum, the real animal was there conserved in formal. The exemplar was, if I rember properly, 4.6meters!! The eyes were the size of soccer balls, had three hearts and rotating sharp endings in the tentacles. Really a monster...
We went also to the cinema and saw the impacting "127 hours". Next day was Theater day, we saw some alternative show regarding the cultural shock within Maori and Somalis. Wellington welcomed some years ago several thousands of Somali refugees, and according to the artists, NZ still hasn't been able to really integrate non of them.
In oder to make use of "the city" facilities we also changed the muffler of our Van, which was a bit 'rotten'.
The city is a nice little capital. Less than half a million inhabitants. Surrounded by sea and forests, but at the same time with several skyscrapers around. The only bad thing was the constant strong winds, a bit uncomfortable. Even with that, I keep a very friendly picture of it.
We took a Ferry, for about 3 hours that would bring us and our Van to Picton, the next harbour in the south island.
Like the locals say: Cheers mates!
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Palmerston North, Levin and Kiwis!
We had to go to Palmerston North because of our universal charger blew of just before the Rafting. This "Unipal" Universal Charger replaced the cheap one that was stolen in Rotorua. We got another one, which blew up after one hour. Later I was told that Sony batteries have a chip pin (apart from -,+) which none of the universal chargers have, and may result in overheating. Bad luck...
Anyway, we headed south and found a lonely freedom camping place in which we stayed alone, and for free! Next day I wanted to visit a nice bird park in which Kiwis (the birds) could be seen. We saw the half of one, because it had an egg and was on top of it(must for 2months). But man, this birds are big! It looked like a big hun! What we saw that was even more impressive, were some eels being fed. Those animals are also huge, and they were not captive. They could come directly from the sea.
They had some Tuataras too, which are literally living fossils. These reptiles show almost no evolution for the last 200 million years. They were about 60-80 cm long and really looks like prehistoric crocodiles ...
That night we slept near Levin, right on the beach. I could scare sculls, and Daniela took plenty of pictures from the beautiful dawn. Later at 3am I would get a call from my mum warning me about the quake in Japan. We were maybe some 10m away from the beach so we started the engine and drove in the middle of somewhere, where my offline Google terrain maps showed above the 100m level line.
Next day we read on the net that New Zealand had only water warning,but not any big alert. Anyway is better to be on the safe side, when we were in Thailand in the Ko Phi-Phi island we saw in YouTube what happened there in the tsunami from 2006, so we knew had bad could be...
Next day we were heading to Wellington!
Anyway, we headed south and found a lonely freedom camping place in which we stayed alone, and for free! Next day I wanted to visit a nice bird park in which Kiwis (the birds) could be seen. We saw the half of one, because it had an egg and was on top of it(must for 2months). But man, this birds are big! It looked like a big hun! What we saw that was even more impressive, were some eels being fed. Those animals are also huge, and they were not captive. They could come directly from the sea.
They had some Tuataras too, which are literally living fossils. These reptiles show almost no evolution for the last 200 million years. They were about 60-80 cm long and really looks like prehistoric crocodiles ...
That night we slept near Levin, right on the beach. I could scare sculls, and Daniela took plenty of pictures from the beautiful dawn. Later at 3am I would get a call from my mum warning me about the quake in Japan. We were maybe some 10m away from the beach so we started the engine and drove in the middle of somewhere, where my offline Google terrain maps showed above the 100m level line.
Next day we read on the net that New Zealand had only water warning,but not any big alert. Anyway is better to be on the safe side, when we were in Thailand in the Ko Phi-Phi island we saw in YouTube what happened there in the tsunami from 2006, so we knew had bad could be...
Next day we were heading to Wellington!
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Tongariro National Park, comments
Hi! After the freezing rafting experience, we didn't know what was waiting for us. We had already booked the huts needed for the northern crossing at the Tongariro National Park. It consists of 49 km through really mind blowing volcanic landscapes, the ones we all know as Mordor and the Mount Doom.
We slept the night before the walking in a motor campground at Whakapapa Village. Around 1300 meters above sea level, in the morning we had 1°C. Uyyy, we were not prepared for such a walk, for which everywhere there were warning signs about hypothermia and avalanches and other alpine weather dangers. While cooking at night, I read that in 1995 the Ruaperu volcano erupted, and that our car was staying just on top of the lava flow... mmm. Paths for emergency were posted, showing how to react in emergency cases, we should walk 15min to another hotel nearby which is high enough to scape the lava path. Funny though, that night at 3 am, a very loud siren set off, like the ones in the war time. Shit, we were in short pijamas, freezing and we should go quickly to this emergency safe area! But it was nothing, false alarm, as I noticed that nobody else was outside. I thought maybe we were the only ones that had read the safety instructions...
Next day, afraid of the weather forecast about winds of up to 90km/h and cold, we bought some warm stuff just before the walk: thick wool socks, gloves, thermal long underwear... That should do it, and it did. We had lovely weather, sunny but sometimes really windy and cold. But it was worth it, the landscapes were even more breathtaking that when you see them in The Lord of the Rings. The Volcano, its craters, the rocks still emanating steam and gases, and the emerald lakes were just amazing. Best images my eyes have seen up to now. Wait for the panorama pictures and the videos!
During the walk we slept in two huts, and we met some interesting people, a veterinarian Israeli, a whole school sports class with their teacher and an Australian. The last day it was a long walk, we did 8.5hours with the big backpacks... After that, relax... and assimilation of the nice images.
We slept the night before the walking in a motor campground at Whakapapa Village. Around 1300 meters above sea level, in the morning we had 1°C. Uyyy, we were not prepared for such a walk, for which everywhere there were warning signs about hypothermia and avalanches and other alpine weather dangers. While cooking at night, I read that in 1995 the Ruaperu volcano erupted, and that our car was staying just on top of the lava flow... mmm. Paths for emergency were posted, showing how to react in emergency cases, we should walk 15min to another hotel nearby which is high enough to scape the lava path. Funny though, that night at 3 am, a very loud siren set off, like the ones in the war time. Shit, we were in short pijamas, freezing and we should go quickly to this emergency safe area! But it was nothing, false alarm, as I noticed that nobody else was outside. I thought maybe we were the only ones that had read the safety instructions...
Next day, afraid of the weather forecast about winds of up to 90km/h and cold, we bought some warm stuff just before the walk: thick wool socks, gloves, thermal long underwear... That should do it, and it did. We had lovely weather, sunny but sometimes really windy and cold. But it was worth it, the landscapes were even more breathtaking that when you see them in The Lord of the Rings. The Volcano, its craters, the rocks still emanating steam and gases, and the emerald lakes were just amazing. Best images my eyes have seen up to now. Wait for the panorama pictures and the videos!
During the walk we slept in two huts, and we met some interesting people, a veterinarian Israeli, a whole school sports class with their teacher and an Australian. The last day it was a long walk, we did 8.5hours with the big backpacks... After that, relax... and assimilation of the nice images.
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Hotsprings, Taupo and Turangi
Hi people! We found a library with free WLAN, so I uploaded quickly some pics, and promised to write the comments later. Here they are:
After Napier, we headed towards Mohaka river, where we had read that we could have nice hotspring baths in the middle of the nature for free. The half an hour drive, through steep gravel road, sometimes in first gear, was really worth it! What an amazing place. I guess New Zealand is one of the very few countries in the world were those kind of things can still be found for free.
There were two big bath tubes, more like little swimming pools, since they fitted about 6 people. They were just in the middle of nowhere, with no light and the only mechanism of a flap that could be used to stop the continuous incoming flow of hot water. The first night we met on the pools another young German couple, but after half an hour we were left alone. Very very nice! We were so happy with the place that we decided to stay one more day in the camping area, which was also nice. We met a french family, who were living in Azores Islands and were travelling together with their three children. We had dinner with them, cooked with firewood in a special barbecue container that the Kiwis often have in camping sites. They were really nice people, sadly I can only remember the name of the little daughter:Elvira.
From there we drove a long way to the Taupo lake, which by the way is bigger than the whole Singapore country. We slept there also two nights in a free camping next to the river, which by the way rose quickly, after several hours of non stop rain! We were really happy that we bought a cheap tarp (eine Plane), which was supposed to be used as a sun protector, but ended up allowing us to sit dry under the rain.
The lake Taupo feeds a river which has a very powerful waterfall, see the picture!
We also visited a little art-café, pottery type, that my Mum and Daniela's would love to see. Antonio Gaudí style of broken stark-coloured porcelain mosaic.
For the next days the weather forecast was still predicting rain, so we decided we could do some activity in which water made no difference. So we reserved a half-day grade 3 rafting experience. At the beginning Daniela wasn't very happy with it, but later she loved it too. From this day, for obvious reasons I have no pictures taken with my mobile phone. So sorry...
After Napier, we headed towards Mohaka river, where we had read that we could have nice hotspring baths in the middle of the nature for free. The half an hour drive, through steep gravel road, sometimes in first gear, was really worth it! What an amazing place. I guess New Zealand is one of the very few countries in the world were those kind of things can still be found for free.
There were two big bath tubes, more like little swimming pools, since they fitted about 6 people. They were just in the middle of nowhere, with no light and the only mechanism of a flap that could be used to stop the continuous incoming flow of hot water. The first night we met on the pools another young German couple, but after half an hour we were left alone. Very very nice! We were so happy with the place that we decided to stay one more day in the camping area, which was also nice. We met a french family, who were living in Azores Islands and were travelling together with their three children. We had dinner with them, cooked with firewood in a special barbecue container that the Kiwis often have in camping sites. They were really nice people, sadly I can only remember the name of the little daughter:Elvira.
From there we drove a long way to the Taupo lake, which by the way is bigger than the whole Singapore country. We slept there also two nights in a free camping next to the river, which by the way rose quickly, after several hours of non stop rain! We were really happy that we bought a cheap tarp (eine Plane), which was supposed to be used as a sun protector, but ended up allowing us to sit dry under the rain.
The lake Taupo feeds a river which has a very powerful waterfall, see the picture!
We also visited a little art-café, pottery type, that my Mum and Daniela's would love to see. Antonio Gaudí style of broken stark-coloured porcelain mosaic.
For the next days the weather forecast was still predicting rain, so we decided we could do some activity in which water made no difference. So we reserved a half-day grade 3 rafting experience. At the beginning Daniela wasn't very happy with it, but later she loved it too. From this day, for obvious reasons I have no pictures taken with my mobile phone. So sorry...
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Thursday, March 24, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Napier and Cape Kidnappers
Napier was a small city, but almost with everything we needed. We slept two nights there, because in order to get to Cape Kidnappers, we needed to walk in low tide (and we didn't know that the first day).
But we had no problem relaxing on the beach, some of them with round stones, others with completely volcanic black sand.
The next day we walked through 10 km of beaches next to cliffs, in order to get to the cape, where almost 4000 gannets come every year to breed.
These birds are pretty big and make really funny sounds and dances. Impressive views from up there.
On the way back, we found a fisherman who came with a quad, and he offered us a ride back. Mmm, that was an experience too, sometimes we had to get out of the quad because the sea water level was so high that the quad did not have power enough to go!
Waikaremoana and little lake
Then we headed to the Lake Waikaremoana, and walked 1hour up to another smaller lake which was incredibly transparent. The weather was not nice at that time so we only spent one night there, and we drove towards Napier.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Minguinui 2day walk
The picture with the horses was taken where we were sleeping, looked like there was some wild horses around which added charm to the little waterfall we had there. After staying one night there, next day we started a 16+18km walk which came with a surprise. We found, 3 hours after the start, a big ground slip that was cutting the way, we had to bypass it by crossing the river. That was a bit scary but we didn't want to walk back.
Later that night, when we arrived to the hut, we met a Kiwi (not the fruit, not the bird but a citizen of New Zealand) and Astrid, a German girl from Cologne whose parents live in Dülmen too. Coincidences of life...
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Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Test with new application
Hi, this is just a test. I am trying another program in my mobile to upload posts to the blog. The other program gives problems when in areas with low GSM coverage (which is here almost everywhere) ...
In the photo I am pointing to the "Mount Doom"...
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Writing back...6 Waitapo Thermal Park
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Writing back...5 Water park and Kauri Trees
Next to this place we visited a WaterPark, for which we made few pics but plenty of videos, there were a lot of interesting gadgets and mechanisms driven by water. The nicest of all of them a big clock with a pendulum.
We headed towards Waihi, where in the early 1900 a huge gold mine was exploted for thirty years. We walked around the river that they used, and we looked at the railways that they had in operation, plenty of tunnels through the mountains. We walked also through some of them. Interesting, the buildings they used to get the gold out of the rocks where already ruins. Strange to see ruins which are only a century old, they looked more like 500 years old.
We continued and drove to "hot water beach" a long sand beach in which you can make a whole on the sand, and in some places really hot water is coming out. Amazing place! We made a whole big enough to fit both of us, and we stayed for around two hours inside. We had to mix the hot stream often with cold water to lower the temperature. There were a lot of tourists, but it was still fun and relaxing.
Near there, there was a nice hidden beach called "cathedral cove" which had a very nice geologic natural formation, like a big arc between two beaches.
We drove down to Tauranga and enjoyed half a day boat trip on a catamaran looking for dolphins, to swim with them. Unfortunately in this time they had baby dolphins and in new zealand it is forbidden to swim with them. But we saw plenty of them, and they came really near to the boat and were kind of playing with it.
Then a catastrophe occurred, we drove to Rotorua because nearby there is some thermal nice places. But we wanted have a look at the museum of art and history and learn some stuff about the Maori people (aborigines from New Zealand). While we were in the museum, someone broke into our van, stealing all our chargers, Danielas toiletry bag and our camera.
We were really angry, but while at the police station we were told about the earthquake in Christchurch, so we still were happy that it could have been much worse...
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Writing back...4 North Coromandel
In order to get to the PortJackson bay we drove for longer than 35km on narrow gravel road while it was dark and raining... it was a bit of a rally feeling, but driving a rhino. After the drive we were regarded with a very long and lonely beach, where we could again park literally on the sand a make use of our Thailand's hammock. The first day rained a bit, but later it was really nice, we even had a short swim onto the sea. The Pacific ocean is a 'boy's colder than the Mediterranean...
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