Writing back...5 Water park and Kauri Trees

On the way down from the peninsula, we crossed to the eastern side, in between we could see some kauri trees conserved, sadly in the pictures is really difficult to show how big they are.

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

On our way up through the coromandel peninsula we had a couple of very nice sleeping places and amazing views. Here some pictures of them.

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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Writing back...3 Pinnacle hut walking

We decided to walk/hike a route that takes two days, with a stop over for a sleep in a hut. The track was mainly within deep forest, including some hanging bridges and very nice neon green views. They have an extrange type of palm trees, which are not palm but fern(helechos/faren) trees. They are my favorite trees here!

In the picture on the peak, it can be seen up to the eastern coast. The railway where I am standing was used by the locals in the early 1900 for transporting logs,it was really steep. The area was full of Kauri trees but around 1920 they managed to take almost all of them, because they were huge and had a loot of usable wood.

Take a close look at the color from the water that Daniela is showing, this is what we had to boil to be able to drink, coming like this straight from the tap in the hut.

The pinnacle hut was really luxurious for being a mountain hut, it fits 80 people but we stayed only 4 (2 other Germans were there).

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Writing back...2 Driving to OrerePoint

That's how the first beach we saw from NZ looks like. The "sand" was just made out of shells! Really white,and amazingly you can just drive with the car as close to the water as you want.

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Writting Back...1P

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Writing back...1

Hello People! Writing something after a big blogging pause. Actually writing this post for the second time, after one staff member on a Telecom "broke" my mobile phone two days ago, and I had to reset to factory settings it, losing plenty of stuff. Anyway...

Even though Daniela has informed some of you already about our car acquisition and other updates, I will write again for those of you non German speakers.

Once we arrived to Auckland, it took us four days to get our current "allrunner". She, is named "Kea Kauri", remembering a native new zealand bird and also endemic rainforest trees "Kauri", which can grow up to 30 meter high and measure 6 meters in diameter.

Even on those four days, in what it looks loke very european city, we had some New Zealand only experiences... First of all, and quite funny, on the way to Glen Eden to see for the first time the car, we took the train, which, by the way, was exceptionally clean. In every wagon, still diesel powered, there was at least two conductors, selling tickets and "controlling". The wagon we were at, was extremely noisy, so I decided to go to the next one, expecting to find more not so loud. I told Daniela to wait for me, and since I was on the other wagon I turned around, decided to go back and pick Daniela, since this wagon was much quieter. In front of me was one of the conductors, probably the biggest and ugliest of all of them, asking seriously 'What are you looking for here?'. I did not know very much what to answer, just a simple 'a quieter wagon?' She was really upset and pointed to a sign above the door I have just trespased, which was saying "no passing through. Staff only". I told her I have never been in any country/train in which you are not allowed to change wagons, she just replied 'Welcome to New Zealand'. She said she would go to pick my "wife", and they both came to my wagon in the next train stop. First indication about how much overprotective they are in this country...

Another nice story, we went to withdraw some money to pay our Van, funny though, that for the 4000$ we needed, the ATM only gave 20$notes, so look at the bed...

The other picture about the 'backpacker' karma, was in the stairs of the hostel where we were staying in Auckland, I've just found it really funny.

Well, those were mainly our first days without wheels. Then we decided to buy the van, which we found in internet "www.trademe.co.nz" and was almost exactly what we were looking for:

Long wheel base, not so many Kms, Manual, Diesel and AWD (all wheel drive, or how they call it here 4WD-four wheel drive). We wanted high roof, but they just didn't exist at the moment on the market. For my German Cologne-based bulli freak-friends, who like to know the inside: it's a Nissan Homy DX '93 2.7D, with 218.000kms, 85PS and hehe,... AWD non-seamless disconnect.

AWD it's here recomendable, it can rain a lot and we have been already driving gravel roads for longer than 40kms, some moments requiring 1st gear...

The Van belonged to an English guy, and anybody that has been to Ireland or the UK will know the devotion with which the British adore carpets...
They are however not the best suited for a campervan flooring, so we decided we would "upgrade" it to a PVC based one, removing the motor-oil-colored previous carpet.

The pictures with the new result are on the camera, so we'll show them later.

In the next post, the pictures!

Cheers.

J&D

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Earthquake in Christchurch.

Hi there, as some of you may already know, yesterday there was an earthquake in Christchurch, greater than 6 in the scale of ...?... and more than 65 deaths.

We are OK, still very far away from there. Hope to post something in the near future, but WiFi is difficult to find in the areas that we move.

Cheers to everybody, Daniela & Juanma.

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