Kia Ora from New Zealand (North Island)!

Hello from New Zealand!

It's more difficult than we thought to find internet cafes, and when we do find them, they're usually closed. We do follow your comments through Marcel's Blackberry. Thank you so much for all your comments, we enjoy getting them. We were discussing how long ago it was that we've seen snow and ice that actually stayed for more than a week. Did we really have an elfstedentocht? Wow...

Anyway, here are our stories and pic's of the first half of our New Zealand trip: North Island.

New Zealand North Island

Janaury 2 - 8, 2009

Auckland
January 2- 3, 2009

How time flies.. With Fiji being just a fresh memory, we are already at our new destination. Hopefully time will not fly as fast.
We arrived at Auckland airport, and needed a bit of a look around how to get to the city center. We ended up taking a shuttle bus that took us straight to the Skycity hotel. Auckland is not a bustling city like we expected. Maybe it was because January 2nd is also a public holiday in New Zealand and Auckland was pretty much deserted. It was a bit busier around our hotel, which was situated right smack next to the Skytower. We could see it from our hotelroom and even see (and hear) the bungy jumpers. We decided not to do the jump as it really isn't a jump, you hang from a cable that lowers you down at a fairly decent speed for a lot of money.

We had dinner in the Observatory restaurant on top of the skytower. A seafood buffet with a great view. But where there's a good deal there are always a lot of Dutch people, some of which we were to encounter at every location in North island. Afterwards we wanted to have a drink at the bustling quay. We found the quay, but where were the bars??

The next morning we strolled through Auckland and bought a new superduper camera with mega-zoom in, like, 5 minutes (that's all the time we had before being picked up by the campervan company)! Just so we could provide you with nothing but the best pictures! We want you to be impressed :-).

Picked up the campervan in the afternoon. Cooool! But... where will we put all our stuff?? We managed somehow to cramp the contents of our 2 suitcases and 2 rugsacks in the camper. Next challenge was for Marcel to drive that big thing AND do that driving on the left side of the road! He did well, bravo Marcel!



Goodbye rainy Auckland and hello rest of New Zealand!
But... WHERE are the sheep?? No sheep in sight.

Coromandel / Cook's beach
3-4 january 2009

We decided to take a little detour towards the Coromandel peninsula to try out our new camera (and camp the first night!). Coromandel peninsula is nice and scenic, but nothing else to do, really. Here are some impressions (still no sheep..):

Rotorua
4-6 January 2009

Quite a big part of the North Island is made of a geothermic/vulcanic area. We stayed in Rotorua which is full of hot mineral springs and geysers. We enjoyed our afternoon resting in the hot mineral baths of the Polynesian Spa, hmmm..... This area is also known for its traditional Maori cultral experiences. For that we visited the Mitai village; that was quite an experience with traditional Maori dance, lessons in culture and good food made the traditional way, buried under the ground on hot coals (“hangi”). Some impressions:

Lake Taupo
6-7 January 2009

On our way to Lake Taupo (still no sheep, only cows) we passed by a magnificent geothermic park; Waiotapu. It's impressive to see all that hot water and mud coming out of the ground creating wonderfull colors and scenic views. Once in Lake Taupo we found a great campingsite with view on the lake, soooo romantic. We made our own dinner in our campervan while looking over the lake and the mountains behind.

The day after we got up early to go back into town. It was time for some action; jetboating! Imagine going on a river with 80 km/h and making a 360° spins, and only barely missing trees and the water edge?! That was soooo cool! This was at the famous Huka falls (worldfamous, surely you've heard of it?? :-)).

Wellington
7-8 January 2009

Our last stay at North Island was Wellington, the capital of New Zealand (no sheep..). We arrived late, on our way we saw some fantastic views of where The Lord of the Rings was filmed. There are much more of these sights on South Island, we'll keep you posted on that.

In Wellington we just enjoyed a good dinner and a drink at a bar full of crazy people. And then we headed of tp South Island with the ferry. Hopefully weĺl finally see some sheep.. maybe it's the recession?