Paihia Star Motel

... ging es auf Walsuche - am morgen wurde hier naemlich einer gesichtet (hier kommen unter anderem Orkas hin!) - doch den haben wir leider nicht gefunden.
Nach einem Halt in einer einsamen Bucht machten wir uns auf den Weg zurueck nach Paihia.

Am naechsten Tag wollten wir dann nach Kerikeri aufbrechen, um dort auf Jobsuche zu gehen (haben von dem Hotelrezeptionist einen Tipp bekommen). Vorher guckten wir uns aber noch die Rainbow-Falls hier an.

We continued our journey north and made a diversion to Matauri Bay which, whilst completely beautiful in its own right, has become infamous as being the place where the French decided to sink the Rainbow Warrior back in the 80s.



The boat lies about a mile off-shore as it was anchored just off some islets. Greenpeace had been giving the French some serious "jip" in nearby French Polynesia over their nuclear testing. Obviously ...

... from swampland and make many beautiful things out of them. The Kauri Kingdom was established after the two owners found a big old Kauri tree and made a staircase out of it. When you walk up the stairs you walk up through the trunk of the tree. They then built their shop around it and produce things like chairs, dining furniture, bowls, ornaments etc. It was all very expensive but understandably so. On the way back to Paihia we stopped at a fishing village for fresh fish and chips and ...

... the air and swam all around the boat. Further around the islands we found another pod of around 50 dolphins including a mother and baby. It was amazing to see them so close and I got even closer! One of the members of staff pushed me under a bar by the boat, this meant I was hanging down and peering under the catamaran (She had hold of my feet). I was the only one that did it and a dolphin appeared and knocled me in the nose - it was ...

... through *ny shen*****ns. 25/01/09 Is yet *nother e*rly st*rt(7.15 yoinks!) *s we *re off to C*pe Reing* the furthest point north in New Ze*l*nd *nd 90 mile be*ch which *pp*rently is only *bout 60 miles long. After * few stops to pick people we pick up some supplies *nd we *re on our w*y. We do * mini tour of *n old Gumdiggers site, I will let you look up wh*t th*ts *ll *bout, but there is *n old stump of * K*uri(NZ *nswer to ...

... some fish, and some Lord of the Rings backdrops. The bays up here are really gorgeous. Paihia itself is quite small, but it's a nice small town. It gets extremely busy up here come summer time. This internet is so slow, and these computers are so ridiculous that I had 80 minutes of internet/computer usage time left this morning and ...

Collected our Campervan and set on the road by 11.30, picking up supplies in a supermarket then onto the Bay of islands. New Zealand roads are great and well signposted. There is a hell of a lot of road, drainage and watermain works being carried out all across the north island but the construction companies and the council workers would put our lot in Ireland to shame with regards to health and safety and ...

... s Land oder auf's Meer, es gab einfach immer was zu schauen! In Whangarei haben wir dann ne Mittagspause eingelegt, laut meinem Reisefuehrer hatte ich von der Stadt irgendwie mehr erwartet, also fuhren wir nach dem Essen gleich weiter, wir hatten ja noch ein Stueck vor uns bis zur Bay of Islands. Die Wasserfaelle wollten wir uns allerdings noch anschauen. Doch bis wir die erreicht hatten, hat es aus Stroemen geregnet. Aber irgendwie hat das ja zu den ...

... when she dropped them off his face was a picture. Anyway they were left in the middle of nowhere and on we went, although we had a bit of a laugh about it, and I bet Nance that they would be back on the bus tomorrow!! The weather was frankly awful most of the way, lashing rain, and not good visibility, which was a bit of a shame as we drove through some amazingh scenery, one valley was used a lot for filming on the second Lord of the Rings film, but we certainly did not get ...

... as I was waaay too busy stuffing my face with the most amazing blueberry muffin. It was just sooo very good. After our little break we headed off again, we were now travelling up the west coast of Northland, I was very surprised when I saw how hilly it was, I mean I knew that there was going to be mountains and volcanoes around, I just didn't really expect them to be there, you know, and it was sooooo green, I can't even describe how green it was, and they were ...