Singapore

It is stop over time! On our way back to Germany we took a break to explore Singapore and to celebrate Chinese New Year.

After half a day in an airplane and three additional hours in the airplane we arrived in the baking heat. The warm summer days in New Zealand were nothing compared to this. Not being used to the wet heat, we were sweating all day.

We took the MRT (public transport) to our first hostel. The MRT is an easy and cheap way to get around Singapore, I can really recommend it. Sadly, our first hostel was not that good. The bed was way to small for me and the bathrooms were quite dirty. The hostel hosted a lot of people in a very small room and the breakfast was okay at best. Our other hostel on the other hand was much better, with a hotel like atmosphere, clean facilities and friendly staff.

A huge difference was the food. It had more flavour in general and was specially sweeter than the food in New Zealand. We found variations of food we did not knew before, like red bean ice cream. Another difference to New Zealand was the attitude of the people. Kiwis were friendly, laid back and welcoming, while the people in Singapore always treated us as business partners. Singaporeans were always polite towards us, but never as open as the Kiwis.

Singapore is a great destination to be a tourist. It has just stunning architecture, great museums, art galleries and colorful markets. We visited mosques, temples and churches, also many fantastic gardens. It is such a diverse city and has very different corners.

Maeve and I were very lucky with the time we had chosen for our stop over. We were just in time for Chinese New Year, one of the world’s biggest celebrated festivals. To celebrate the beginning of the year of the dog, the hole country was going out. We joined the huge mass of people in Marina Bay, where the famous firework took place in the evening. But the CNY celebration takes longer than just this one evening. Days later we ran into a CNY-parade and the hole Chinatown district was decorated. I am very happy we were able to take part in this madness, this was surely something to remember.

Singapore and New Zealand are quite the opposite in many aspects, but that is the reason, why they fitted perfectly together for this journey, which is nearly over after Singapore. It was a wonderful time and I can recommend everyone to do this or something like this once in a lifetime.

Thanks to everyone who shaped this journey or followed us online. Thank you for listening, I really enjoyed writing this blog.

“The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone.
Let others follow, if they can!
Let them a journey new begin.
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.

Still ’round the corner there may wait
A new road or secret gate;
And though I oft have passed them by,
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”

–Roads Go Ever On by J. R. R. Tolkien

About the Journey, so far

Our time in New Zealand is over, but so many different things will stay with us. We waited so long for this journey to start I cannot really believe our time in New Zealand has come to an end.

Nearly five months ago we stepped out of a plane in Auckland and in a few hours we will step in one again. This journey has been huge. It was in terms of lenght and of distance the longest I have ever travelled so far. We went from Cape Reinga in the far north to Invercargill in the deep south. We saw dolphins, seals, glowworms, Pukekos, Fantails and many more. We travelled through different climate zones and saw so many diverse and stunning landscapes, it is hard to pick a favourite, but if I had to choose, I would pick the hidden Whale Bay at the Tutukaka Coast.

I am now able to see myself in a different light and I have changed my mind about many things. I realised what I need to live. I redefined my goals and plans for the next years and while I had the most awesome last months, I am really looking forward to the next few weeks, months and years.

Travelling New Zealand gave me a new perspective of living and I really can learn a lot from the laid-back Kiwi way. Don’t worry! That is the motto. Everything will work out somehow and if it does not, we do it differently.

We met so many amazing people. They shaped our journey as much as the country did. Some of them were real Kiwis, others were travellers themself. A HUGE Thank You to: Lulu, Emmy, John, Joy, Dean, Constantin, Sally and her family, Franziska, Mareike, Lindy, Gavin, Sarah, Welmoed, Robin, Martina, Julia and her family, Ruojun / Kelly, Shannon, Chloe, Karen, Lars, Sarah, Alina, Anna, Silvia, Celine, Adriana and Nadine.

Of course we will miss this beautiful country, but every end is also a beginning. The road lies ahead of us, we just need to take the next step.

Our time in New Zealand may be over, but the journey is not. 27 days are left, until we are back in Kiel, our hometown. Can you guess our next destination? Hint: in this country it is a crime to import chewing gum.

East Coast

The journey continued from Queenstown to Kaikoura. We saw New Zealand’s highest mountain and had our first earthquake experience.

Probably the most touristy town in New Zealand is Queenstown. It mixes mediterran and alpine vibes with an enormous playground for young and old, it is the adrenalin capital of the world. I am no adrenalin junkie, so I neither did bungy jumping or zip lining, for me it was interesting enough to watch the others. Maeve and I ate our best ice cream of the hole trip in an icecreamery in Queenstown, called Patagonia. Our favourite places were the park and Sunshine Bay, which you can access after a short walk through the bush.

A lot of walking was also the program for Mount Cook. We walked the Hooker Valley Walk, saw the nice Hooker Glacier and Mount Cook itself. Mount Cook village is a small collection of houses in a valley with access to many different hiking paths.

Christchurch surprised us with much more construction work than expected. The earthquake from 2011 is still visible everywhere in the city. On the other hand Christchurch had still an English flair and an awesome Art Gallery, next to a nice botanical garden. Another highlight was the friday night food market and the museum. I made my first earthquake experience at one of our nights. Maeve did not noticed it at all, but I was wide awake. It was just a medium sized quake, but for me it was terrifying.

Kaikoura, our next destination, is famous for it’s wildlife. You can encounter seals, dolphins, whales and many different birds. Even on our way into town we saw dolphins and seals. We had some nice fish and chips for lunch (which is a typical Kiwi food), but our day here was very foggy and cloudy.

Today we start our way back to Auckland. Our time in New Zealand is nearly over, but this is definitely not the end of our journey!

Fiordland

The South of the South

We arrived in the very south of New Zealand. Not only did we saw the stunning scenery of Fiordland, but had also some major problems with our bus company, Stray.

After a short one night stop in Queenstown, we made our way to Te Anau. This small holiday village was our New Year’s Eve destination and quite busy, because it is the peak season of summer holiday in New Zealand. Both, Queenstown and Te Anau, are located at beautiful lakes and have a nice waterfront with lots of activities going on.

On the way to Milford Sound we stoped at different other beautiful locations like Mirror Lake. Milford Sound, which actually is a fiord (or fjord as the European would write it), is for many tourists the number one place to visit on the South Island and it was totally worth it. We took an awesome boat cruise and had the best weather.

Gunn’s Camp, our accommodation for the next nights was a very traditional camp, without phone reception, without WiFi, with very limited power and with way too many sandflies. At least we could do some amazing bush walks there and had time to completly relax, without our phones as distractions. At the day we were leaving, we got really lucky, because I was not sleeping to well and woke Maeve up early. We got ready for the day with quite some time until the bus would be leaving, but we discovered, just when we were about to make some nice and relaxed breakfast, the bus was leaving one and a half hour earlier than exspected. We just had enough time to grab all our stuff and go to the bus, skipping breakfast. If we had not got up way too early, we would never had made this and I am not sure if the bus driver would have noticed that we were missing. The problem was: the driver and the other people on the bus decided to do a hike in the morning, but they did not inform us. How are we supposed to know this? If you are travelling with Stray and you hop off the bus, you do not get informed about anything. And this is a huge problem.

Invercargill’s best place to spend some nice hours is Queens Park. It is a wonderful and diverse botanical garden. Further has Invercargill some nice shopping streets, churches and cafés. Still it was probably smaller than most European would expect (same issue with most of the towns in New Zealand). In Invercargill the Stray story continued. We wanted to leave Invercargill in the morning and were there an hour early, because one of the drivers said beforehand they are quite early in Invercargill sometimes. The bus did not come, an hour late neither. We finally phoned the office and found out: the bus got resheldued to the afternoon. Again, no-one told us, they could at least write an email about this. So we spend half the day waiting for the bus and it was still an hour late when it finally arrived in the afternoon.

Now we are back in Queenstown, the adventure playground of New Zealand, for the next few days and soon we are heading to New Zealand’s highest mountain. . .

West Coast

Able Tasman, Westport, Greymouth, Franz Josef, those were our stops at the West Coast on the South Island. We had the full range from beautiful beaches to icy glaciers, from heavy rainfall to perfect sunshine.

The ferry ride from Wellington to Picton was three and a half hours long and we had some nice seats at the front of the ferry with a good view … and yes, I got pretty seasick, lucky I was able to sleep most of the time I felt bad.

We did not do much at our short Picton and Nelson stops, because we both got a cold. Getting sick itself is always bad, but it is specially inconvenient and uncomfortable if you are not at home. 

In Able Tasman we already felt much better and were able to enjoy the beauty of the Able Tasman National Park. We did a nice boat tour and a five hour hike through the park and were quite lucky with the weather. We even visited a small seal colony and saw some young seals. To be honest, this was not planned at all. We signed up for a boat trip, not for a 12km hike, because we were not completly well and fit after all. That the hike belongs to the boat tour was told to us right before entering the boat. We learned to really make sure what we sign up for and that hiking is incredible exhausting if you can not breath well. After two nights we left again, traveling to Westport.

Westport is a small town located at the West Coast of the South Island. The best thing about it was the old villa, which was our lovely hostel. Besides this, there was not too much to see there except the typical features of a small Kiwi town. Westport had a lot in common with Greymouth, our next stop, except that Greymouth was a bit larger and had a nice cinema. If you have less time at your journey through New Zealand, I would recommend skipping those places.

On our way to the next destination we made a stop at the well-known Pancake Rocks, took a nice and short walk there and had the best muffins of our hole trip so far!

After those smaller towns we came to the Franz Josef Glacier village and we visited the glacier itself. We both enjoyed the walk to the glacier and we had wonderful sunshine for the time we were walking, the next day was full of heavy rain.

On the way to Wanaka we stoped at the Fox Glacier and had another nice bush walk. Then we finally arrived in Wanaka, our accommodation for Christmas. We celebrated the holidays the best way possible in a hostel . We baked Christmas cookies, made a nice Christmas meal and had very relaxing days. We also saw the famous Wanaka tree and climbed Mount Iron, which was much higher than expected.

South of the South is our motto for the next stops, because Fiordland is waiting for us…

Tongariro and Wellington

It was time for our last weeks on the North Island and we made some very unique experiences like seeing Mount Doom and skydiving.

After traveling to the East Cape and stopping over in Rotorua again, we came to Taupo and the Tongariro National Park.

Taupo is a lovely town at Lake Taupo, which is the biggest lake in New Zealand. In fact, Lake Taupo’s surface is larger than Singapore. Taupo itself offers quite some streets with smaller and lager shops and nice walks, for example to the Huka Falls and the Spa Thermal Park, which has a nice, natural and free hot spring. We also visited the Botanical Garden of Taupo, but it was just an average park with some native trees. Taupo was also the location for Maeve’s skydive. I am not the type of person to jump out of a plane myself, but it was really interesting watching Maeve and the other people take off and land again. She said it was totally awesome, but over to fast. I am sure it was not her last skydive.

One of the top things to do on the North Island is the Tonagriro Crossing or at least visiting the Tongariro National Park. Maeve took the eight hour walk of the crossing and we both took a smaller walk in the national park. It was just a stunning landscape and quite unusual for the North Island. The vegetation is very different than the green bush and you walk between old volcanoes  (including Mount Doom).

As soon as I entered Wellington, I developed a chrush on it. It is a beautiful city with nice streets for walks in the evening, a lot of art and culture, the awesome Te Papa museum and a very nice waterfront. In addition, Wellington has many little cafés and interesting smaller shops, as well as the very big ones. It was one of my favourite stops so far and I am pretty happy to spend a day again in Wellington on our way back.

Now we already been in New Zealand for over three months and we just arrived on the South Island. I am sure there a still many amazing things to see ahead of us.

(This blog post has taken forever to write due the horrible WiFi in New Zealand.)

Glowworms and Hobbits

It was time to visit the famous glowworms in Waitomo and Hobbiton, we had our touristy week and it was definitely worth it!

We had much more time in Waitomo than most tourists, because we stayed for two nights in a hostel and most visitors just spend a few hours here. On the other hand, Waitomo is very small, so you can see the whole village in a hour. At the first evening we tried the Buffett, that was advertised in our hostel and were quite disappointed. The advert was not wrong, we just thought about something else when we heard Buffett and “all you can eat”. When we arrived at the restaurant, with the free shuttle, quite some people from the shuttle made a face. In front of us was just a big pot of stew, some rice from the rice cooker and potatoes. We tried the make the best out of it and enjoyed the nice view at the restaurant.

Next morning we visited the famous glowworms. First we did a two hour tour in the Ruakuri Cave, which was very interesting and we were in a nice and small group. We saw our first glowworms, which are actually cannibalistic maggot with shiny poo. Further this cave had stunning speleothems, which you can see at the pictures below:

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The second cave we visited was the one and only Waitomo Cave. It was unbelievable how many glowworms we saw. It was like looking at the stars in the sky. Sadly, we were not allowed to take any pictures in the Waitomo Cave.

At the very top of our New Zealand must do list was always Hobbiton. The famous movie set in Matamata is a highlight for every movie-nerd. Hobbiton is a beautiful small village of Hobbit holes and gives you a real feeling of being in the Shire. At the end we even had a beer at the Green Dragon, which is due the high number of visitors in the Shire now the busiest pub in New Zealand.

At the end of our very touristy week we stayed in Rotorua. Rotorua is a very special town, because it has seismic activity nearly everywhere in town. There are a lot of hot spring, geysers and colourful ponds. It was amazing just to walk through the park, seeing the activity. On the downside it smells constantly like rotten eggs in Rotorua.

After Rotorua we did a nice, but short trip to the East Cape and the east coast. We had some beachtime and saw the most eastern point of New Zealand. At the end we arrived in Rotorua again and celebrated Maeve’s birthday at the local food market. Today we are leaving, going to Lake Aniwhenua.

Raglan

We arrived at the west coast and stayed in Raglan, the surf capital, for two nights. Most of our time was spend at the beach with the stunning waves or in our accommodation, the Solscape eco retreat.

For an insight into this short stop of our journey, have a look at those pictures (more information in the description of the pictures):

Early morning view

At the beach

The view from the hostel

Raglan’s famous waves

Where we sleepy, old train wagons

The “garden” at our accommodation

Inside our wagon, we shared the room with four other people

Stranded in Hahei

​We hopped of the bus in Hahei and took some time to explore the Coromandel Peninsula, but we had much more time than expected.

Originally we had a different plan: spend two nights in Thames and a few in Hahei, then hop on the bus again. Then our bus driver told us there is not much to see in Thames and advised us to go directly to Hahei. Since we would do a short stop in Thames anyway to buy food for the next days, we agreed on going to Hahei directly. He was right, there was not much to see in Thames and we were pretty excited to see the beautiful east coast of Coromandel…

But just as we arrived in Hahei, we wanted to book our next bus to Raglan four nights later. Suddenly the website had huge problems and we were not able to do anything at all for the next few hours. The next day we tried again, I even phoned the Stray office only to find out that the bus is full. Additionally the next bus, two days later, was full too. This is the reason, why we had to stay eight nights in Hahei, instead of four, because only then we would be able to catch a free bus. Honestly, there are worse places to be stuck at and we had a great time, but eight nights was a long time. We learned to book our bus sooner, especially with the main tourist season coming now.

Our accommodation in the Hahei Holiday Resort was a group of nice cabins and exclusive for people travelling with Stray. The resort was close to the beach and we did some nice group BBQ and bonfire with all the other Stray-passengers there.

The first thing we visited was the Hot Water Beach. On this beach you can dig your own hot pool at low tide. The seismic activity under the sand is heating up the water until it is very hot. Actually the first hole we dug, the water was too hot and we had to do another one. It is an awesome natural phenomenon, which you can even enjoy in the rain.

Hot Water Beach was great, but the number one tourist activity in Hahei is walking or kayaking to Cathedral Cove. It is crowded in tourists everyday, but we were lucky to have the place nearly for ourselves, because we got up very early, watched the sunrise at Hahei beach (6am) and walked directly after the sunrise to the Cathedral Cove, arriving there at 7am. It was just stunning walking in the cove, it is much bigger that it looks like on photos. We relaxed for a while next to the cove and made our way back when it started to rain. At the end of the walk back we were soaked.

 

We celebrated my birthday at the beautiful Hahei beach with blueberry cake and even went swimming. The beach is really long and has a lot of white sand and small waves. Some of the beaches in the area, including Hot Water Beach, are not really safe for swimming, this one is.

 

Hahei has a restaurant and a cafe, as well as a small general store and a place for take away food. We did a very nice Beer tasting in the restaurant at my birthday. The beer they served was crafted on the Coromandel Peninsula. In the cafe we had hot chocolate and spicy chai latte on other days.

The time in Hahei was very good, even if we had one or two rainy days. It was a bit hard to let the friends leave we made there and to always integrate into a new group of people.

 

When we finally left Hahei, our trip went from the east coast to the west coast. We passed Hamilton and arrived at our new destination: Raglan.

Paihia and Cape Reinga

After one month of wwoofing and one month in the same area, we were really excited to start using our bus pass.

We left Whangarei in a Stray-bus. It was the first time we used the bus pass “Everywhere” and were positiv surprised by the friendly driver who even drove us to the campground in Waitangi.

The following days were filled with exploration in Paihia. The first day we took one of the beautiful bush walks to Opua, but we calculated the distance wrong and ended up doing a 27km (!) trip instead of 17km. We saw a lot of the bays and beaches the Bay of Islands has to offer, but at some point our legs were just too tired to enjoy them for long. At the end of the day we just fell fast asleep in our tent.

We did a bus tour to Cape Reinga, the most nothern point of New Zealand and a spiritual place important to the Maori. They believe it is the point where your soul enters the journey to the afterlife when they die. Also it is the place where two oceans, the Tasman sea and the pacific ocean meet. On our way to get there we drove over the 90 Mile Beach, which is exactly 55 miles long, and had a chance to try sandboarding, which was real fun!

Russel, which lays right across from Paihia, is called the hellhole of the Pacific, because of the city’s past where traders and pirates walked, drank and lived there. It takes just a few mintues by ferry to get there, but we were quite a bit disappointed by the small tourist village in front of us, when we stepped from the ferry into Russel. The village seems to have fallen asleep and it is actually quite boring, if you got lured there by it’s exciting past. The only things reminding you of the past are the small museum and the bullet holes in the walls of the church. Russel might have been the real life Tortuga we know from the Pirates of the Caribbean, but now it is just a few shops, restaurants and a nice view. Nevertheless, I have to admit that it had amazing ice cream, we tried triple chocolate, maple-walnut, salted caramel and white-chocolate-raspberry . It was one of the best so far!

A nice, not too long, walk is from Waitangi to the Haruru falls. On 10km you see a wide range from local bush to mangrove forest. We spend quite some time having lunch at the falls and enjoying the view.

It was amazing, how easy we got in touch with other campers and travellers back at the campground, especially with the german family we met. They even invited us for a great BBQ evening. Most travellers we talked to were very polite, friendly and open, making it a joy to talk to them and exchanging experiences.

We had our own little Halloween party at the beach, surrounded by seagulls (scary animals 😉 ), with fish and chips and more ice cream, at the end of our stay. It was a nice way to spend our last evening in Paihia and the Bay of Islands.

The next morning we made our way to Auckland for a short stop by bus. We left Auckland early the morning after. Now we are on a peninsula famous for being the Kiwi’s favourite holiday destination.