Catching up on the tale of Jakob the Welner

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So, it is finally time for a little catching up on my adventures so far even though I havent' barely started yet.
Due to experiences with other peoples travel blogs and their reaction when they return home, I've decided only to write here a brief outline of my jurney stating the most important elements and digging deeper into only a few when I find it necessary, for the simple reason that I'd like to have something to tell when I get back home as well, and I won't be able to explain myself fully with only text anyway.

So... starting out with the flight.. no observations apart from the food being better that I'd thought and the space between the chairs being smaller.. luckily I had 3 chairs on a row all by myself on my flight from Heathrow to Hong Kong, so I could almost lie down, which resulted in some jealous looks from the travelers on the other rows but a nice sleep for me.

I arrived in Auckling without even the slightest amount of problems and got picked up by a Kiwi ( from now on referred to as Chris ) whom I know through Anne ( old classmate from primary school for those of you who wouldn't have guessed ). He drove me back to his place where I could crash the next couple of days until I'd recovered from the zombie state I was put in by jetlag. After a short slumber at his place we headed out for a beer with some of chris' friends. Good fun... and sandwiches!

The day after, a saturday I believe, chris' roomies started talking about heading out on the driving range which eventually ended up with me playing 9-holes of golf and I was actually enjoying myself. Talking about life-changing experiences when you're out traveling, eh? Well, no actually. I'm still against calling it a sport, but it WAS satisfying to hit that little ball with all you've got and see it flying.
For now it's an only-NZ-experience though, so don't get your hopes up back home 😊
Later that day chris and hit girlfriend took me to this sweet as beach called Piha which is a 30 mins drive out of Auckland and is notorious for its extreme undertow but famous for the looks and good surfer waves. After ordering some food for dinner chris and I took a swim and I some photos. After eating we continued on to another beach just in the area to catch a good sunset, which didn't happen though cos of some clouds liking the horizon as a good place to hang out.
On returning from that day I fell asleep like never before and woke the next morning around 8 as fresh as I've ever been and finally free from the jetlag.

What the sunday had to offer pretty much sums up to watching the end of a yacht race from the top of an old bunker / volcano with Chris and his girlfriend, chilling out on a bar with a pool and attending my very first Kiwi barbecue which is a highly rated happening during the Kiwi sommer.
As for the bar with a pool, I had one of my less bright days as I managed to jump in wearing both my wallet and mobile. At least that's what I think happened. I found my wallet where it should be, right in my pocket, but as a result of me being under water, it wasn't doing so good. My mobile on the other hand wasn't in my pocket, which could both be a good and a bad thing in that particular case but after making sure that it wasn't at our table, nor in the car and wasn't even turned on any longer, the suspicion of it being in the pool somewhere couldn't be helped. As it happened the pool was pretty cloudy though, so even after having searched it for a while with goggles and all we couldn't be completely sure that it wasn't there but after leaving our contact details at the desk we gave up and left.

On a side note, I've noticed now that I'm not doing a very good job keeping all this brief so I guess you'll all have to suffer from info overflow and I'll probably even be doubling back on it as soon as I return. You'll just have to live with that, I guess.

Very well, continuing on to the next day without further ado.
As my plan were to leave Auckland and head north in a not so distant future I spend this day and the next stocking up whatever I 'needed' and sorting out whatever else that would make sense to do.
This included opening a new zealand bank account, getting a new phone and a little bunch of gadgets including bluetooth headphones, an external harddisc for backup of my laptop and a nice and portable laptop mouse, so I'm going strong on electrical devices! Apart from that I was joining Chris on his job as a promoter for a New Zealand Iced Tea brand called Teza, driving around in a grass covered car visiting cafes in the Auckland area. It's amazing the amount of attention such a vehicle actually gets and even more amazing how peoples comments seem to be syncronized into pretty much 'How often do you have to cut it' and 'can I touch it' where the latter is most definitely the most reasonable comment, I'd say.
As it happened Chris was also going up north with his job, leaving wednesday the 4th. which suited me fine so by joining him I got a free lift and a great companion on the trip. We headed north too early on the 4th and traversing through loads cafes on our way north we reached Whangarei around 1'o clock from where I booked a hostel - Hone Heke Lodge - in Kerikeri and a bus going there later that day. Finishing up the last cafes in the area I took my leave and headed for my first 'being alone' experience so far.
Didn't last long though as the hostel hosted quite a few openminded backpackers who I spend the rest of my day attending to. Some of which were swedish and have invited me to thair place in Auckland which should be quite something.

New day, no plans. Having a feeling that I should maybe do some touristing, but then again. I'm in no hurry 😊 Only a short while after having settled for a no-plan plan kinda day though, I get sabotaged by Chris calling and offering to pick me up at the hostel as his job pointed him in the same direction as me. With that actually being a good excuse to get out of bed, I'm all for it. So, joining him we take care of the last couple of cafes in the area and manages to pick up an address and a pin for a so called hidden and secret beach not far away that only the locals knows about and with that almost sounding too good we take off, heading for the unknown adventure. After having diven for a while and now being on a gravel road we locate the gate, put in the pin and goes through (we didn't manage to find the right gate straight away though which could have been another fun adventure if we'd managed to get that gate open :D ). with some small 10 minutes more of driving along the bumpy gravel road we finally appear at the most amazing beach called Taronui Bay. Only people we see is this guy and his dog and an older woman walking along the beach.
After haven taken a swim we head out for a little adventure wanting to see what's behind the peak of the beach but in getting there we have to cross a little stream with a bunch of rock which we later found out housed pretty sharp oysters as well ( This is still influencing my ability to walk streight as the cuts were pretty deep ) but worth it nonetheless as the other and newly discovered part of the beach were even more amazing and pretty much shouting for us to jump in.. and we listened.
On returning from the beach we baught a bit of beers, food and snacks and ended the day at Hone Heke Lodge in Kerikeri chilling out, playing cards and chatting.

Next day Chris heads back home to Auckland again and I'm alone for the second time, now a bit more eager to make something of the day so I take a bus to Paihia wanting to see some Maori festival showoff stuff that people have been taling about for a while. That proved to be a bit boring though and the most interesting part was to eat a deep fried hotdog.. special!
With nothing fun about that I head home again. Next day isn't any more interesting apart from it being the plan this time around and I only get to book a ticket for a sailboat trip taking place the next day and get a pass for the Magic bus something.
The 8th, being the next day, opens a lot brighter as I've actually planned something. I get picked up at Paihia Warf by the yacht and we take off into the Bay of Islands. This is one of the most amazing places I've ever been and the pictures I took should prove my point as well. We started the day with some snacks and stuff aboad and caught a good wind to get us going. Everything was good and we sailed until midday where we stopped over at one of the islands for a little hike and a great view. With that done we were ferried back to the ship for lunch and some snorkling/kajaking around the cliffs of the island. Done with that and sailing back home, all was good.
When I arrived back at Paihia, my plans were to book a hostel there as the Magic busses doesn't do pickups at Kerikeri where I was living and I wouldn't be able to make it in time to catch a morning pickup if I stayed in Kerikeri. On my way to the hostel I had in sight though, I came by a helicopter which I had to take a closer look at and suddenly found myself saying yes for immediate takeoff. Funny.
Turned out to be the perfect time for a helicopter ride though, and it was super! Most funny was the takeoff and landing though, as the rest was 'just' a good view. You didn't really get a feeling of flying apart from when the pilot did sharp turns so looking to the side was looking straight down. I also got some neat pictures from that ride which can be seen here and on.
After that, I booked the hostel and was hoping to catch the last bus back to Kerikeri but that bus had for some reason disappeared and I ended up hitchiking home. Nice to try that.

At the moment I'm lying on the floor at my dorm at The Mousetrap in Paihia typing on my lappie and has been doing that for the last 2 hours to make sure that you can all catch up on whatever I've been doing and I realize more and more how far off I was in the beginning about making it brief. Maybe it'll be more so in future posts. Who knows.

Just for convenience, I'll add that I will be picked up by the Magic Bus to morrow for a one day trip to Cape Reinga which is the most northern part of NZ and rumor has it that they have the same visible borderline between the pacific ocean and the-other-one which you can see from cape reinga. I'll furthermore go sandboarding down the dunes at the tip of NZ which I'm looking forward to!
The day after I'm planning to take a one day kajak hike around the Bay of Islands looking for whales, penguins, dolphins and the likes. From there on I guess I'll be going back to Auckland and the continuing downwards but I don't know yet. Will update this blog again some day when I find the time and a feeling that I have something new to tell.

Cheers all and take care.
- Jakob

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Comments

[Laust Deleuran]

Good to hear from you
Hi Jakob. Just met in at work and got your mail and blog post. It's really good to hear from you, but it's also kinda annoying to watch your beautiful pictures, when I soaked both of my feet just yesterday from snow. Looking forward to hear more later - and get a better look at your pictures. But for now, I have to work :) Take care! /Laust