Hei kona ra! This blog will stop updating.

Hmm, now there's a dead blog if I ever saw one! Last post published 2.5 years ago? I don't think I have to bother to say "sorry to my readers" because surely there are none left anyway... Which is alright: my virtual life, my blogging experience, phased out just when my actual, real life got much more exciting because Ishbel entered it. And that's the way I want to keep it. To put another twist to it: when life here in Aotearoa stopped feeling like an extended holiday and more like, well, normal life, the urge to post about it somehow disappeared. Thus, it's time to close up shop and say goodbye.

Flicking through my old posts I noticed lots of broken links to photos which I tried to remove and a shocking use of the English language which I haven't tried to remove at all.

Keep in touch, see you around, take care, und auf Wiedersehen.

ANZAC weekend

ANZAC Day is a public holiday in Australia and New Zealand, to commemorate their respective losses on the warfields of World War I and II. "ANZAC" means Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. A whole week of emotional build-up culminates in the official celebrations on April 25. It is a very serious, heart-felt event, reminding the nation of the sacrifices made by previous generations to secure today's freedom. It's not at all conceivable to have a similar holiday in Germany, but that's fair enough, I guess.

Anyways, we use the long weekend (with ANZAC Day being a Friday) for a trip to Tongariro National Park, to hike the Tongariro Crossing.

Friday April 25, ANZAC Day

Awesome weather in National Park, sunshine and blue skies. We start the hike together with about 300 other people. Ah well, the joys of doing things on public holidays... However, Gabby, Tim, and me climb Mt Ngauruhoe, and the masses disappeared after that. We spent a whole hour on the summit, enjoying the spectacular panorama. That meant more hurry on the rest of the way, trying to catch our bus back to National Park (which we did!). Then, another hour's drive to Taupo, where we enjoy a free hot bath in the natural hot springs in the city's park. Awesome tip by Gabby, well done! :-)

Saturday April 26

Standard tourist program around Taupo: Huka Falls (impressive amounts of water), Craters of the Moon (disappointing collection of steamy mud pools). Then off to Waitomo, where Kat, Danny, and me go underground for some black water rafting. Very funny, and exciting, as the guide sends us off to explore some part of the cave on our own. Good fun!

New Year's Diving at Cape Brett

With Gabby and Phil, and about twenty other people, I headed out to Cape Brett in the Bay of Islands, for a relaxing dive trip. Having brought in all gear by boat, we had an awesome time diving off the shore, eating more crayfish than was good for us, and eventually hiking back out after New Year's.

Christmas Canoe Trip

Christmas celebrations are difficult for those in New Zealand whose family is somewhere on the other side of the globe. And it's also difficult to feel like Christmas if the summer is just about to kick off. Anyway, a group of us teamed up to spend the Christmas days canoeing down the Whanganui River, one of the ten Great Walks of New Zealand.

Dec 24, Christmas Eve

We hired canoes, waterproof barrels etc. from Wades Landing Outdoors. As usual in New Zealand, organized outdoor fun is not for free, but at the end of the day, it's worth the money.

We set out from Whakahoro with fine weather, and after a hard day's work of paddling arrive at John Coulls Hut. The river valley is amazing! Really beautiful, stunning scenery, and lots of fun. Wide, slow parts of the river mix with "rapids" that are kind of exciting.

Dec 25, Christmas Day

Unfortunately, it rains basically all day. However, we have to reach the Tieke Marae, our second night's stop. During the day, we set off to a 1 hour hike to the Bridge to Nowhere, a massive concrete construction in the middle of the bush. It connects two footpaths, but was once built to provide easier access to the land for farmers. After the farming ideas were abandoned, the bridge remained as a symbol of incompetent landscape planning and a tourist attraction.

The Marae campsite is overcrowded, and we find space only in the marae itself. The punishment for that offense was due the next day.

Dec 26, Boxing Day

The third day's trip is the shortest one, only 22km. We take our time, especially since we are promised to come across some real rapids. And indeed: 200 meters from the landing site there's a nasty rapid that is difficult to master for all of us. However, I am the only captain who manages to capsize his vessel. Well, technically we did not capsize, just took so much water that the canoe sank below the water line. Anyway, a little too exciting an end for a real fun trip! However, nobody was hurt, nothing was damaged, and we put up a little show for those already waiting at the landing site.

Kiwiana

An (almost complete) list of activities I have embarked on since returning to New Zealand, that are more or less Kiwi.

Surfing

Was about time to get the surf going! The arguably most kiwi-like fun sport had eluded me ever since my first arrival. But now it's full on!

Fishing

Well, it's not the first time, and it wasn't the last one either, but look at this beautiful Trevally (at least that's what we think it is):

Beer Brewing

Susan and Christian's amazing birthday present: a beer brewing kit! So, with some equipment from flatmate Dan and fellow amateur-brewer Phil, the job is now to turn this:



into beer. We'll see how it goes...

Bungee Jumping

My flatmates (aka The Sneaky Bastards) felt like giving me a special birthday present and tricked me into doing a bungee jump off Auckland Harbour Bridge. And this is the photographic evidence:

Shanghai & Hangzhou

On the road again: on me way back from Germany to New Zealand.

Day 1, Tuesday

Arrival at Pudong Airport from Frankfurt. Flying with Lufthansa creates nostalgia: overhead TV screens every tenth seat row, some crappy movie -- that's the old days. Take the Transrapid Maglev train to the city -- ah, good old German engineering! It's a surprisingly shaky ride, though. But what to expect, at (allegedly) 430 kph. After being ripped off badly by a taxi driver (as of 10/2007: never use a dark-red coloured taxi in Shanghai), I find myself in the city centre. Have lunch with Monica in a nice Korean restaurant near her work. Spend the afternoon in Shanghai Museum (really good!), and the evening at Monica's and Christian's place.

Day 2, Wednesday

Take the morning to visit some of Shanghai's remaining old quarters behind the Bund, and the more touristic areas around Yu Yuan Garden. Have lunch with Monica in a nice Taiwanese vegetarian place. In the afternoon, stroll through the former French Concession, including Fuxing Park. Chinese parks are cool, with all the dancing, t'ai chi, and gambling that is going on.

Day 3, Thursday

Out and about: take the train to Hangzhou, mainly to see the famous West Lake with its artificial islands, bays, and dozens of little sceneries. While the train ride is very smooth and easy, thanks again to Monica for organising the tickets, my hostel, and for generally helpful tips. I'm lost in translation in the hostel, absolutely nobody speaks English. How exciting! I walk around the lake, that takes about half of the day. It's a really nice place! For dinner, I treat myself to specialty 'Beggar's chicken' in the 'oldest restaurant of China', the Louwailou. Next morning, I catch a train back to Shanghai.

Day 4, Friday

Arriving at noon back in Shanghai, go for lunch with Monica and Christian to a Macanese place -- again, very nice food. In the afternoon, go with Christian along Nanjing Lu to the Bund, take in Shanghai's skyline. Take the ferry over to Pudong, and get impressed by the building projects over there. Pay 80 bucks to go up Oriental Pearl Tower, but get rewarded by the view over the city (smog clouded though). After that, stroll through the biggest of Shanghai's shopping malls. In the evening, meet up with Monica, and walk along the Bund, for some nice "Shanghai by Night" views. We have dinner in a Chinese Noodle place, which is pretty nice.

Day 5, Saturday

Very lazy day, basically nothing happened.

Day 6, Sunday

Go for a walk around the neighbourhood with Monica and Christian. Through several parks (boating tour!), and shopping malls, always on the hunt for the ever elusive bargain.

Day 7, Monday

My last full day, I spend it trying to shop for souvenirs, presents, and the one or other item for myself. Go for a last walk through the city centre. In the evening, Christian and me attend the Shanghai Oktoberfest. Sweet as! A giant beer tent, an original Bavarian band, many drunk Chinese -- and most importantly, free beer (and food). Next morning: Departure to NZ! On the way to Auckland, enjoying Air New Zealand's in-seat on-demand entertainment system... Much better.

Hong Kong & Macau

A short summary of my stopover in South East Asia.

Day 1, Friday:

Arrival in Hong Kong. Take the subway to the hotel (morning rush hour, exciting!). Check in at hotel, which turns out to be a nice, clean place. Well, it's expensive enough! Walk through Kowloon, and along the waterfront of Victoria Harbour. Visit my tailor :). Turns out, weather is insane: 33 deg Celsius, 70% humidity. Very unhealthy for a European idiot to walk around in that heat! In the evening, visit the Ladies' Market and Temple St Night Market; that's the places to go for cheap copy clothes, watches, handbags, shades, etc.
Lunch: McDonald's
Dinner: Some Chinese street restaurant at Night Market; whole fish, deep fried; HK$80

Day 2, Saturday:

Take the subway to Hong Kong Island. Walk up to Victoria Peak ("The Peak"); again: an insane operation, they built that tram up the hill for a reason, stupid... Views from the summit are awesome, Hong Kong's skyline is incredible!
Lunch: McDonald's
Dinner: "Gaylord" (sic!) Indian Restaurant, Kowloon; excellent lamb, HK$175

Day 3, Sunday:

Today the mother of all stupid ideas: going for a day hike through Hong Kong Island's bush backcountry; ends up as my latest near-death-experience. Take the sub to Quarry's Bay, willing to hike the first two day-stages of the Wilson Trail down to Stanley Bay; in the process crossing HK Island from North to South. Hike is amazing: great views over Hong Kong and the Chinese Sea; I drink 4 liters during the day but it's sooo darn hot, it's just not enough. Hanging out at beautiful Stanley Bay helps to recover; later, take the bus back to Central, and the ferry to Kowloon; nice views, again!
Lunch: water, water, more water!
Dinner: "Garden Restaurant" Kowloon, Chinese, good stuff; HK$120

Day 4, Monday:

Visit to Macau; the jet-ferry just needs an hour from Hong Kong. Spend the day walking through Macau's centre, which is, ahem, easily manageable; visiting (air-conditioned) museum's at noon helps against the heat. Return to Hong Kong at night, take the tram up to The Peak; awesome views over Hong Kong's skyline.
Lunch: McDonald's
Dinner: Hagen Dazs icecream

Day 5, Tuesday:

Trip to the New Territories. Visit the "10,000 Buddha Monastery" in Sha Tin (which supposedly contains some 12,800 buddhas; i didn't count). Turns out, some of the better (and interesting) museum's are closed on Tuesdays; what a crap, how am I supposed to survive the day?? Return to Hong Kong, hang out forever in the Science Museum, pick up my suit, generally take it easy. At night, final visit to the Temple St Night Market, see an open air Cantonese Opera (strange, and very colorful), and go for some bargain hunting.
Lunch: McDonald's
Dinner: Some Chinese street restaurant at the Night Market, average, HK$60

Day 6, Wednesday:

Departure. Back to the land of beer and sausage, maglev and autobahn, poets and engineers.

Christian's Party

Okay Yvonne, this one's for you: you wanted pictures, you shall have them! I am afraid, however, some of the best action happened off the camera. Especially the Geburtstagskind had a very special night.

I'm a PADI diver, that means I'm cooler than you!

Yeah yeah yeah! Check this out: I'm an "Open Water Diver" now, after spending $264 on a course (which is not much), three pool training sessions (which is much), five hilarious PADI videos (which is way too much!), and two day's diving in the murky waters of Lake Pupuke . And now check out the fancy card they gave to me:

Black Muddy River

It's that time again: a hike into the muddy realms of the Waitakere Ranges! It may seem that I don't do anything else these days, but let's face it: if you're too lazy to plan bigger trips and too anxious to take off some days from work, you have to stick to the rain forest outside your door! But then again, it's also nice out there...

The Goldie Bush Track it was, combined with the Mokoroa Stream Track. The latter features a very nice waterfall, but also the need to cross the stream about 20 times -- which posed a bit of a problem, since water level was way higher than average, leading inevitably to wet feet and almost some bigger mess.

Hiking the Waitakere Ranges

While the summer was reserved for all kinds of beach-related activities, now the time has come to run around in the bush, i.e. to go hiking! Unfortunately, New Zealand's notorious wet weather makes that a rather muddy experience this time of the year. The Waitakere Ranges are a prime destination, with their being quite near and offering the complete bushwalk experience. Mental note to myself: Never Again Forget Taking a Torch! Last time darkness caught me as I ran too deep into the forest, forgetting about the time. Got lost, too, but that just makes things more interesting, I think.

Beach Impressions

Even a rather regular late summer day may be well spent on the beach! Bethells Beach is, besides Karekare Beach, my favourite west coast beach: not as crowded as Muriwai or Piha, endless sand, and dunes, and water, and waves, and so on...

Trip to Northland and Coromandel

Okay, here we go, finally: the work off of my trip to Northland between Christmas and New Year's 2006. It's been ages ago but since it was such a nice road trip I'd like to share it with you.

December 25: Together with (back then) neighbours Tim, Florian, and Phil, I set out to the Bay of Islands. It's nice there, but we head further north.

December 26: We stay at the North Wind Lodge in Henderson Bay, about 30km south of Cape Reinga. Very nice backpacker, operated by an elderly german couple. Majority of guests speaks german as well. At night, we try to go fishing off the rocky beach, but no luck; instead, almost get stuck as tide comes in.

December 27: We set out to a very nice hike near the Cape; okay, it starts off and finishes on cow pastures, but inbetween: bush, beach, sand dunes, wild coast, giant sand dunes, more coast, swamp, and much more bush. Awesome! Very impressive wilderness, and besides our little group nobody's out there.

December 28: We visit the Cape itself, and afterwards go sand boarding and surfing at Ninety Mile Beach. The Cape itself lacks sensational or spectacular revelations, but hey: it's one more thing to tick off on our "tourists must do"-list!

December 29: We cruise south to Hokianga Harbour. Premiere for me: flat tyre on the road, must change tyre, and get a new one in Kaitaia. Seems I went too rough over Ninety Mile Beach the day before... As if that's not enough: a speed camera catches me at 61 kph in a 50 kph area. Speeding with spare tyre on? I'm living on the edge, that's for sure! Day gets better afterwards, we have a nice backpacker with loads of german tourists, as usual.

December 30: Albeit bad weather, we set out to see some massive Kauri trees in Waipoua Forest. And indeed, the trees are massive, but also is the rainfall. So we don't spend too much time appreciating nature and head back to Hokianga. Weather gets better later, more hanging out outside.

December 31: We cross over to the East Coast, to lovely Moureeses Bay near Whananaki, north of Whangarei. We meet a bunch of nice people there and for once there's more Kiwis than Germans around. There's a hell of a New Year's Party and I'm very glad there's no pictures of it!!

January 1: Hangover day. Not much more to say. Hanging out at the beach, trying to recover.

January 2: We leave Northland, head back to Auckland, where we pick up Katie and go on for the Coromandel. We stay in Tairua at the east coast, in a backpacker with nice location but somehow grumpy hosts. Hmm, not so nice... Strange: not so many Germans there?! But beautiful views into the harbour inlet:


January 3: The east coast beaches of the Coromandel are to be explored. After hanging out at Tairua itself, we head on to Hot Water Beach, where we (among literally 100 other tourists) dig a little hole in the sand to create our own hot pool. And yes, it's really "hot water" and not "lukewarm water" beach. We proceed then to Cathedral Cove, a very nice beach!! Bit crowded, but it's worth the 30 min walk!

January 4: After all that hanging around the last days, it's time for some hiking action. Unfortunately, only Flo has the same opinion, the others are more of the hang-around-type. So we do the Pinnacles Track in the morning that I have done before, but this time it's all the way to the top and in high-speed-mode, too. In the afternoon, we take on some of the walking tracks in the Broken Hills that cross through old gold mines in part. We didn't find gold, only glow worms and mud. A lot of mud.

January 5: That's been it! We drive back to Auckland, pick up Gabby at the Airport (who certainly had a great time in spanish winter?!), and look very much forward to going to work on the upcoming Monday.

Home, sweet home... again!

I know I haven't published anything in quite a while, but that's only because I'm still working on the pictures of my Xmas/New Year's trip. I promise, they will be uploaded soon, and some nice Northland scenic views are waiting for you!

In the meantime, let me tell you that I have moved places again, after my contract with Massey Uni accomodation expired. Yay, finally free!! I moved in at a place in Browns Bay two weeks ago. It's a great place to live, with very nice flatmates and the beach and shops five minutes away. But don't worry, Uni is only ten minutes away (20 min by bike) and be assured, I will go on working hard on my PhD thesis! Pictures of the place may follow soon.

PS: Thanks to Bernd for showing me the Kiwi way of life!

Sydney

On my way back to Auckland, i stop over in Sydney for three days. It's great to leave gray, rainy, cold Europe behind and come to such a marvellous place! And three days are just enough to walk around Sydney's city centre, check out the harbour and spend time on some of the dozen beaches.

Day 1:

• Arrival at the airport, take the train to Central Station.
• Check in at the youth hostel, which is okay: clean, good facilities, quite new. Lacks a bit of atmosphere, but you don't need that to sleep well.
• Walk through Central Business District, Hyde Park, National Domain, Botanic Garden to the harbour, to the Opera House. Then through 'The Rocks', Sydney's oldest quarter to the Harbour Bridge, there climb on top of one of its pylons.
  
• Walk back through the centre, get tired, nevermind!, check out Darling harbour, Chinatown, have dinner at a Chinese Noodle Bar.

Day 2:

• Take a bus to the eastern suburbs.
• Starting at Coogee beach, walk north along the coast (find myself in the 'Sculpture by the sea' festival) to Bondi beach, then further to South Head, the harbour entry point with cute lighthouse.
  
• Take the ferry back to the centre, find a hidden but very crowded food court in Chinatown, where there are five Caucasians among two hundred Asians, and have some proper dinner.
• Take a walk to the harbour and enjoy the skyline and Opera by night.
  

Day 3:

• Take the ferry to Parramatta, the most western suburb you can reach in the harbour. Stroll around there, but didn't find the historic city centre. Anyway, how historic could it have been?
• Take the ferry back and the next one to Manly, the most eastern suburb on the North Shore of Sydney.
• Take a stroll along the beach, and finally take a rest in a small bay.
• Take the evening ferry back, make my way to the food court, have "sizzling king prawns", feel good.
• Chat to some german blokes at the hostel (every second person speaks german...), prepare to leave.