OliD

Isn't it funny how dreams sometimes become reality? Unfortunately in my case it was a nightmare. I dreamed that I found my car keys pierced through my wonderful new toy, a polarising filter. As you can cleverly combine, my polarising filter broke. My car keys weren't part of it, I just found the poor filter broken in the camera bag. But still! On the day we started on the Routeburn! Could that have been any worse? So that certainly did bother me during the first few steps on the Routeburn, but since New Zealand's landscape fascinates me over and over again, I quite quickly forgot about the horrific nightmare that came true. This time we decided to camp, because the huts on the Routeburn are just way too expensive and fully booked anyway. So that was ... read more

Wow where to start.. First off, if anyone of you reading this should ever get the chance of doing a multiple days walk you should absolutely go for it. The Heaphy Track was the most memorable experience of my New Zealand trip so far. Secondly, always have a tent with you if you're travelling in your own car, it makes you so much more independent. And at last, if you ever get to meet two kiwi girls and you're able to go out clubbing with them, don't hesitate, go for it and prepare for good times. This to start off, but let me tell you more about the Heaphy track. We didn't have the start we wished, unfortunately the flight to our planned start got called off due to bad weather. But after a couple of ... read more

Once again, heaps of things to tell you about! After my time up in the north of the North Island I went on to discover what was happening in Thames, Whakatane, Rotorua, Taupo, Whanganui and last but not least NZ's capital Wellington. But Moana wasn't my only travel companion this time, I was accompanied by a wonderful girl in Whangarei with whom I decided to travel for a bit. For a bit turned out to be two weeks since we got on so well together. When we got to Thames after quite a long drive we thought about doing a longish walk called the Pinnacle Walk the next day, but as we got up in the morning it was pouring down. So instead we decided to move on, since Thames didn't seem to be an exciting ... read more

Believe it or not, I saw a whale! No wait, I saw whales! I was chilling on the beach with three friends I met at the hostel when suddenly one of them leaped up and yelled: "Hoooly sh*#t a whale!". There they were quite far away jumping high up leaving a massive splash behind when they hit the water. Even in that distance (approx. 1km) they seemed massive. People pay loads of money to see something like that and we saw them whilst sitting in the fine, white sand! Other than that nothing too exciting was going on. On Saturday night there was a huge backpacker's night out as they called it. On that night all the backpackers hostels around that area go out to four of the nightclubs in Surfer's Paradise. There were about 150 ... read more

So this is it, I'm really doing this! Today's the day I leave home for 5 months, going to Australia and New Zealand. Super happy this is happening and can't wait to get started! So far I've just booked my flight to Brisbane where I'm going to arrive on Friday 5:30 in the morning local time. Nothing else booked, no hotel no place to stay. I'm doing this because it makes things much more exciting than it already is. I have a flight to Auckland a week later on the 15th, Australia is just a stop before my proper journey begins. In total I'm spending 4.5 months in NZ. I wonder how it all turns out! I hope I'll be able to keep you guys updated fairly regularly.. Bring on Australia! : )... read more