Airlie House New Plymouth

... around it. I thought it must be a volcano but haven't seen anything written down anywhere. Once we got to our hostel we meet a really nice Dutch guy who we got chatting with and he said that he had walked most of the Mountain today and it was beautiful as just after leaving the car park he walked above the cloud and in front of him was blue skies and a snowy peak. He could make it to the top and they advise you not to attempt it without Crampons as its so steep and icy til the end ...

... Die Gartentage sind eröffnet!

Beim ersten Zusammentreffen merkt man bereits, dass die Barbara eindeutig aus Deutschland stammt. Die Verhaltensmuster von Kiwi und Europäer sind total konträr. Wenn die englisch-stämmigen Damen Sicherheitsabstand wahren, und mal sanft mit Smaltalk und leisen Fragen und Erkundigungen ums naheliegenste Thema beginnen, sind wir deutschen(ich zähle mich mal kurz dazu ...

... to sugar loaf marine reserve and we saw some seals. Then we climbed paritutu rock 500meters or so and had some great views from the top. By the end of the day was very tired...the map seems so small but we walked about hour and half that day. Nothing compared to the next... Sunday I went on a walk through pukekura park and enjoyed the rainforest walks and lake, enroute to the beach. Walked into town and along the 7km beach walkway to fitzroy beach, where i had a 1to1 ...

... Bahn musste ich mich nochmal anstrengen. Irgendwann war dann die Stunde, die ich mir vorgenommen habe, zu schwimmen, endlich um und ich habe mich eine gute halbe Stunde in den heissen Pool gesetzt und mir von so einem Strahl den Ruecken massieren lassen.

Was fuer ein toller Tag, denn nach dem Sport bin ich noch stundenlang durch einen Park spaziert, in dem ich einen Zoo entdeckt habe. Tolle Tiere gab es dort. Kann leider grad keine Fotos hochladen ...

... Zanziba. Happiness - proclaims a red and white art work at the Kiwiana boutique - is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away. Such moments seem everywhere - but I think I'll trot off to find a few in Bhutan.

We started out our day thinking we would head on north and see where we would stay for the night...our goal was at least to get to New Plymouth. Our first thought was breakfast so we ask at our hotel for a recommendation and headed there. It was good enough and they were a Pepsi account. All the better. As we started our trek for the day we are feeling like we have come to the end of our sightseeing and how could we possibly top what we have seen or done thus ...

... and they had delicious organic beer. They were known to be the "Smallest Brewery in NZ" When we actually arrived in New Plymouth, we went to the information center in town and the woman working there said that there was still nothing available, but that her friend, Pamela, would be more than happy to take the 8 of us in for the next 2 nights. We thought it was crazy, but we went to her house anyway, thinking we were just going to use her backyard to pitch some tents ...

... local museum as well as renting bikes and rode up the Coastal walkway. The weather had gotten warm again so I totally found the sun!! We ate ice cream and discovered why NZ eats the most in the world per capita! -a flavor unique to NZ is Hokey Pokey ( bits of chocolate covered toffee in vanilla ice cream). It's hard to leave a friend, and one who lives where it is 25 degrees Celsius not Fahrenheit, but we are coming to the end of this journey ...

... stench and bubbling hot pools in the park. We also kayaked all the way round blue lake then met Emma and Carl for dinner at an old police station now a pub called the pig and whistle. A good catch up was had and much laughter. Rotorua day 3 we packed it all in - Antony did a freefall extreme sky dive simulation, then we luged down the slopes of rotorua, then sledged down the river katiaki before having a mud bath and sulphur spa in the awesome surroundings of ...

... We were having visions of not making it, because the van was making some interesting noises. Thankfully we made it to New Plymouth in the end though. Taranaki is a quiet region. But that was fine with us because by this time we had booked our boat to the South Island. Due to the holiday's if we didn't book it now we would have had to waited until into January. We were just killing time a bit. Although we did find a deserted black volcanic sand beach called Ohawe, and Mt ...