Blogs from Bay of Islands, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 6

1.12.11 Arrived early morning into Aukland at 4 o'clock and jumped straight on the kiwi experience bus. We travelled up to the Bay of Islands driving through scenic countryside with hundreds of cows. The driver guide was your typical kiwi with all the bad jokes. Sweet as bro, get amongst it and cool narnas finished every sentence. We checked into our first hostel in Paihia my first taste of shared dorms. What a first time experience it was, we were stuck with 4 Germans who must have lived there as all their stuff was thrown all over. It was a bit intimidating and wasn't awkward at all! It was a bit of a shock to be in bunk beds but im sure ill get used to it as its all part of backpacking. We went for ... read more

just about to leave the bay of islands after spending a fabulous 3 days here seeing the sites and doing a bit of lazing on the beach. Even ventured into the water although it is a little cold. Went to the treaty house and saw the huge maori canoe the waka see picture. Also walked to a few viewpoints through the bush to catch the vistas. Moving on to south of Auckland tomorrow and the Coramandel.... read more

I started stray yesterday & haven't stopped since. We drove north from Auckland & went to a nature reserve at Goat island for a ride on a glass bottom boat to see some fish, mostly snapper. Afterwards we went to stroke a Kiwi, the only one that you can touch in New Zealand, which was amazing. We are staying in the Bay of islands, which is really beautiful & the landscape is so green. Today we took a trip up Ninety mile beach & went sandboarding down the dunes across a stream so I got a bit wet but it was great fun. Then we went to the northern tip of New Zealand & saw the Tasmin sea meet the Pacific Ocean before heading down to see the Kauri trees that have been buried, preserved & ... read more

The Tumbleweed is blowing through the empty camps of the home nations teams and a second rate France team is on their way to getting stuffed in the Final game. The referee for the Wales/France game is hiring Salmon Rushdie’s bodyguard team and the Kiwi’s are all smiles now. Anyway Roy, Orbison will soon be singing “its over” and we can all go home, or in our case head north to Oz. Earlier, on the road up from Wellington on our way to Auckland we stopped at Whangeria where the minor road that follows the river is constantly being washed out due to the rain leeching away the sandy soil taking the road with it. There is a permanent team who work at keeping the route clear, with part of the road being a gravel track ... read more

Day 10 & 11 - Tauranga Travelled from Auckland to the little coastal town of Tauranga, stopping briefly at Matamata (a town where the Hobbiton sections of the LOTR films were made which we found pretty exciting even though we were only there for a couple of hours! We finally had some sunshine, so broke out the shorts and sandals, but did not predict the cool sea breeze... We took the local bus to Mount Mauragui - a sharply rising extinct volcano that juts out into the sea. Decided on the path round the base rather than the steep climb up to the top, and were rewarded by seeing seals on the rocks which was pretty cool! Apparantly there were whales around as well but unfortunately we didn't spot any. Day12 Travelled inland to Rotorua, and ... read more

Morgen's wurden wir, wie gewohnt, von der Sonne wachgeküsst. Wie bereits noch am Vorabend beschlossen, mieteten wir uns ein 90 PS Speedboot an, dass ohne Lizenz gefahren werden durfte. Bei uns in Deutschland wäre das mal wieder unmöglich gewesen. Nach kurzem englischen Briefing des Skippers, vertraute er uns im sicheren Glauben uns das Boot an :-). Nun konnten wir 4 Stunden lang eigenmächtig das Ruder (und den Gashebel!!!) in die Hand nehmen und die Bay of Island erkunden. Die Bay of Island besteht aus insgesamt 144 kleinen und großen Inseln. Innerhalb dieser Inseln sollen sich des öfteren Delphine und Orcas tummeln. Leider konnten wir, bis auf Albatrosse, keine Meeresgetiere sehen. Umso mehr Zeit hatten wir, das Speedboot voll auszufahren. Über 1 bis 2 Meter hohen Wellen schossen wir, dem Gashebel am absoluten Anschlag und mit 6 ... read more

NZ Day 25. So, it started raining yesterday on our way back from Cape Reinga- about 2ish. Well it did stop a couple of times overnight, but pretty much continuous rain since then. We rang the national highway phone this morning to check if the highway we wanted to travel on was open. They had no reports of closures so off we set for the east coast & the Bay of Islands & a town called Paihai. Struth...has there been some rain. At first there was some puddles in the paddocks & a bit in the drains alongside the road. Then there were small lakes & then there was water everywhere....& I do mean everywhere!! I have never seen so much flamin’ water.....some of the creeks had burst their banks & it was going in every ... read more