Blogs from Wellington Region, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 14

After an adventurous morning of jumping out of planes we headed to Wai-O-Tapu thermal area - a much calmer environment! Here we saw lots of craters and mud pools that were a variety of different colours due to the minerals in the rocks; there were green, red, orange, blue and black, all were very impressive if not a little smelly! The following day we drove down to the coast stopping at Himatangi beach. There was not a lot to do here, so we walked along the beach and then chilled in the sun in the caravan park....a hard life. Next stop was Paekirikiri (or something like that) on the Kapiti coast. We had bought some grub to do a BBQ but unfortunately everything was in place but the gas in the gas bottle - so instead ... read more

New Zealand thoughts & observations 1. Language - it takes awhile to pick up on the pronunciation and terms. Some examples: W sounds like da Kiwis tend to raise their voice as they finish talking, often I am trying to figure out what the question is and they are simply saying I’m done talking, your turn. 2. Terms - Kiwis have a lot of terms that are different than US English and for the most part very descriptive. An example is an auto body shop is where the panel beaters work. The shop is called a panel beaters shop. Kiwis always use the term scheme for plan. They have saving schemes, retirement schemes and business schemes. A section is basically what we call a building lot. There are enough of these that are just sort of ... read more

Panorama: Wellington Harbor We left Wanganui Friday morning, after sensibly deciding not to kidnap Billy. I'm sure he's much happier chomping on twigs by the river than cooped up in the back of our van. We've decided to get our very own Billy one day, when we've got somewhere suitable to keep him. And we nearly fell over when we realised it's now February! Someone's messing about with our heads, it can't be February already?! We hit the road again, and had a look around Palmerston North City Centre for about an hour, long enough to get some lunch. We then headed on south along the kapiti coast road and after driving through several places, we stopped at Paekakariki Holiday Park for a night. I don't mean to make this into a whinge-blog, but it's such ... read more

Hi everyone just a quick update since the hostel I'm currently at has free internet which is great. Right now im in Wellington, the capital of NZ, the southernmost city on the North Island, I hopped off the Kiwi bus for several days and have been hanging out with the 2 english dudes I met in Fiji, so far we climbed a small mountain, went bowling, played some cards, watched a movie, went swimming, and drank some beers. Had some fun nights in Wellington with some people I met on the kiwi bus just walking around and taking random pictures and buying extra large sunglasses from the dollar store. All of them have moved on to the south island which was sad.... Had an awesome new years, didnt feel too bad the next day, not as ... read more

Halli Hallo meine Lieben, so ich weiss im Moment gar nicht wo ich anfangen soll, da sich in den letzten Wochen soviel getan hat.... Ich fang einfach mal an Bin Mitte Oktober aus dem Chateau abgehauen, im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes, bin aufgewacht und hab mir gedacht, nee nee hier muss ich weg... Hab die 2 Jungs (Richy und Tom) angerufen, die ich im Chateau kennengelernt habe (die sind eine Woche vorher geflüchtet) und man glaubt es kaum, aber es gibt echt noch Gentleman die einen wirklich holen. Also hab ich die Höhle des Löwen verlassen und bin mit den beiden Jungs (die beide ein Auto haben JIPPIE) herumgereist. Wir waren in Napier, eine sehr schöne Stadt mit ihrem ART DECO, d.h. alles oder fast alles ist im 20iger Jahre Stil. Wir haben immer irgendwo am ... read more