New Zealand & Fiji

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After a 13 hour flight to the other side of the world, crossing several time lines which made us lose a whole day and took us out of the Spanish speaking countries we arrived in New Zealand. Almost with a slight feeling of surprise we realized everyone spoke English here and it was not hard to find some toast and eggs for breakfast.

We spent the next two weeks touring through NZ in our camper. It was a great relaxing way to move around and a very nice change from all the bus trips (we've calculated we spent over 400 hours on the bus up till now, that is more then two full weeks!) With our budget and time span in our mind, we unfortunately had to make some choices and decided only to do the north Island this time. Before all the Kiwis out there start to shout......... We will go back for a separate holiday to see the south one day, we know it supposed to be an amazing place..

But focusing on the north Island was amazing, the scenery is beautiful and the people were great! We ended up driving over 3000 km. All the way to the most northern tip of port Reina to Wellington in the south. And just the feeling of waking up in the van, opening the curtains and find a different view every day - from amazing coastlines, beautiful mountains to stretched out fields of green grass-. It's an awesome feeling of freedom driving your home around in search of a nice scenic spot to prepare your lunch. And what made it all the much better are the people. the locals were always willing to give us some friendly advise, just to have a little chat or to supply us with some fruit from the garden or their catch from the sea.
One night we were just settling in for the night with our van parked -at one of my favorite spots on the top of the Coramandel-, close to a boat ramp, when a fisherman knocked on our door. And before we knew what was happening we were left with a fresh fish in our hands for diner. And if I say fresh, I mean very fresh. After a big discussion and a thorough investigation of the life chances of our poor fish, we realized that even though we could detect some slight movements he would never come back to life. The next hour was spent in a very bloody way and eventually -traumatized and all- we sat down with our diner, contemplating the possibility of becoming vegetarians. The great outdoors living :-)

FIJI
BULA!!! (Hello) Welcome to Fiji. What lucky people we are, to be able to spend two full weeks in this great country. Admittedly the first day in Nadi was a little bit of a culture shock as in this city the people were a little bit too friendly with the offer of services...
But travelling out of the city, we met nothing but sweet people, cute kids and relaxed atmosphere. This is the Island life you always dream about! First we spent 5 days on Mana Island where the backpacker resorts are built under the palm trees with a view of the clear blue sea and with the locals as neighbours. On arrival we were welcomed with a great Fijian song and I found myself spending the next days walking barefoot in my sarong, a white flower in my hair and a big smile on my face. And it only got better when we ventured under water. The diving here was fantastic, beautifull coral, groups of sharks, lonely turtles. elegant rays and curious batfish. And after every dive we came back up to see a clear blue sky and the picture perfect Islands in the distance.
For the second half of our stay we travelled towards The Island Taveuni. To get here we took an overnight ferry- which wasn't too uncomfortable, but Mark's vest got stolen and it left me with over a hunderd bedbug bites all over my body. But at least the Ferry didn't sink, which was the main thing and it brought us safe and sound to one of our favorite places on this planet; Taveuni, also known as the garden Island. We ended up in a great little cottage, set amongst dozens of fruit trees in a beautiful garden, all owned by Jim. We found ourselves caught up in his lifestories, tasting the fruits growing in the garden and watching the sunset from his veranda. Jim told us, he didn't need to travel, he found his little heaven on earth. We couldn't disagree.
The waters surrounding the Island are famous for the amazing softcorals and after hearing and reading all about these apparently amazing colourfull dive sites, we had to check this out for ourselves. Unfortunately the conditions (and our guide) weren't great and this resulted in mainly a lot of current, but little else.
After one more day of exploring this georgous Island we had to make our way back to Nadi to catch our flight to Australia. Luckily we found a cheap flight (in a tiny 8 person plane) and could avoid the ferry.
The flight was a great way to end our stay here as the view of the green / blue sea, corals and Islands was magnificent.



(Sorry the pictures will follow soon!!)

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