Fourth Week Travelling

Monday: It was quite difficult to get up after such a short night, but I had to be ready for my one-day bus trip to Cape Reinga and the Ninety Mile Beach at ten past seven. We were totally 38 people in the bus. The first stop was the ancient Kauri shop or something like that. It’s a café and a workshop where they create souvenirs out of Kauri-wood. Earlier in my blog I wrote about a Kauri tree in nelson and that I couldn’t see it’s importance, but now I know it better: Kauri trees are the biggest, very old trees in New Zealand and they are protected by the government. It is a kind of gum-tree, because it heals wounds with a natural gum. Because of that and because the wood is very resistant it’s very popular. But people can only get the wood from fallen trees which they dig out of the ground, so because of the protection they can’t fell them. One of the highlights of the tour was the drive on the ninety-mile beach. Driving on the sand includes the same rules as driving on a New Zealand road, but it’s far more dangerous and that’s why I decided to do this tour and don’t drive on my own. If you want to drive on your own, you must have the awareness of the tides, because when it’s high tide, there is no more space to drive and your car sinks into the wet sand. But you can get stuck anyway, if you’re unlucky. There are a number of cars buried somewhere in the sand along this beach. And saltwater is well-known to be very bad for your car because it makes it rusty. At the end of this long beach there are big sand dunes and we had the pleasure to stop there and glide down on the sand with a board. Now we were already close to Cape Reinga, the northern most point of the north island. After a couple of minutes the bus stopped at the nearby carpark and the driver allowed forty minutes to walk down to the lighthouse and back. This cape was a bit less impressive than Cape Farewell, which is on the top of the south island, but still a beautiful place. It’s on the same latitude as Sydney. On the way back to Paihia we stopped for lunch and I started a conversation with two Japanese girls. I brushed up on my poor Japanese and learned some new words which the girls seemed to enjoy. The last stop was at a Kauri forest where a couple of giant, impressive, thousands of years old trees rise into the sky. Back in Paihia at quarter past six Kaori, one of the Japanese girls, asked me if I want to go out for a drink in the evening. It was a pleasure to spend more time with her and Chico. I had a quite intensive one-and-a-half-hour Japanese lesson. I also explained a few differences between German and Swiss-German and tried to teach them our umlauts. At ten o’clock Chico went home but Kaori and I went on the way to the next bar. We walked around Paihia for twenty minutes and finally ended up about fifty metres from the first bar. Kaori played snooker for the first time and then sung a karaoke-song. It was half past one when I eventually went to bed.
Tuesday: I knew the weather wouldn’t be too good today and because I could hear heavy rainfall I slept in. The first thing I did today was calling my rental-car company because I had lost my car key on Sunday evening. Because of the full-on Monday I couldn’t care about that earlier. I thought the key may be in the car, locked, because I remember that I locked the door by holding the handle and not with the key, so the rental company told me to ring up AA for help. After half an hour a guy from this road assistance service came and broke into my car which was quite easy and only a matter of less than a minute. But unfortunately I couldn’t find the key in the car. The guy from AA helped me to look for the key in every possible place and asked me for the exact sequence of events of the loss. I remembered going to my car to get some food, closing the car, prepare and eat dinner and watch TV before I got aware that I lost the key. We really looked everywhere along this track, even in the waste but it seemed to be untrraceable. Fortunately my help finally found the key in a big green rubbish-bin next to my car. Now I remembered dropping something into this bin after getting my dinner out of the car. Unfortunately not only waste but also the keys. I felt pretty silly but at least I had my keys back. In the afternoon I took the ferry to the close village of Russell to see one of the oldest towns of New Zealand. I also went for a walk up a hill but the usually certainly stunning view wasn’t too good with all the dark clouds. Back at the Saltwater Lodge I watched the Olympic Games and the news. Now I wanted to get my entire luggage ready, because I had to drop of my rental car tomorrow and I couldn’t do that with the mess I had in the car. I took my quite a while but I finally had a good system and enough space for everything. Now I just hope that it’s not too heavy for the flight.
Wednesday: I was ready to leave Paihia at eight o’clock, but unfortunately the reception opened only at half past eight, so I had to wait. I knew it’s going to be quiet short on time to be in Auckland at half past twelve, the time I had to give back the rental car. I couldn’t really rush to Auckland, because there was too much traffic and too many big, slow trucks. I finally arrived at the Youth Hostel shortly after noon, checked in, put my bags in the luggage room and hurried to the rental car company. Twenty past twelve and I still had to fill the tank up before giving the car back. I though I’d ask the rental company where the next petrol station is, but then I drove past their office, too late to turn. I had to go around the block and surprise: there was a petrol station. I finally arrived at 12:33, only three minutes late and that, of course, wasn’t a problem. I was on my way to the tourist information office when I decided to do a one-and-a-half-hour boat harbour-tour. The weather looked quite good, when I booked it half an hour before the trip. Unfortunately it was raining, when the trip begun, but it only held up for a couple of minutes. The view of Sky City and the harbour area was stunning and the price for the ticket included a ferry to Devonport and back, on any day. For today I had enough from exploring, but I still wanted to go to the I Site to plan the next one and a half days. In the evening it was News and Olympic Games on TV again. But then I bumped into a girl from Germany and one from Spain, no from Bask land. I knew them from the hostel in Paihia and had a long conversation with the two. I was happy to have a bit of a contrast to watching TV.
Thursday: Today I wanted to stroll between Auckland’s two harbours, the coast-to-coast walkway. I wanted to take the bus to the far harbour and then walk back for the indicated four hours. I didn’t quite understand the bus system here, but a guy from the reception had explained me where to go and which bus to take and I managed to reach my destination. Unfortunately it was pouring down on the other side of Auckland, but the rain fortunately stopped after a couple of minutes. Then it was from park to park, heading to downtown Auckland. Including shopping in a supermarket, a halt for lunch and a couple of short sit-downs it took me four hours and forty-five minutes to walk to the other harbour and now I made use of my ticket to Devonport. I had a couple of very good lookouts on my long walkway, but the sight from Mt Victoria in Devonport was the best. Simply gorgeous, on one side Sky City, on the other side a lot of little islands and pure nature. I had a map to do a self-guided tour around Mt Victoria to see all the historical buildings here, but I was simply too tired now and decided to go back to the hostel. And when I walked downhill it started raining, so the decision was good anyway. I finally arrived at the hostel at six o’clock in the evening, nine hours after I had left it in the morning. First I talked to Stefanie, the German girl, about her travelling. She had the same problem that I was facing a couple of weeks ago: She couldn’t decide, whether she wanted to travel by bus or rent a car. I don’t regret that I decided to travel by car. I had more freedom and never had to carry my luggage. Very comfortable but naturally more expensive. Then I watched TV again for the rest of the evening. I was shocked when I heard something about my alpine guide Gottlieb Braun-Elwert, something about an accident or something, I couldn’t catch it.
Friday: I intended to go to a local market in the morning before I left Auckland, but unfortunately the luggage room is only for early arriving people and not for leaving people and I wasn’t the only one who had to put all their luggage in the lounge and were waiting. I made use of this time to write my diary. Because of my obsession with TV I didn’t update it since I left Paihia, and then I went online to check my e-mail and see, if Daniel wrote me. Unfortunately he will not be able to pick me up, because he had a car-accident and can’t drive at the moment. I was shocked when I read, that Gottlieb Braun Elwert, my guide on the snow-shoe hiking trip suffered a heart attack while doing a hiking trip with the New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark. (To read more, click here) I still had to go to the airport, and carefully as I am, I arrived there already at one o'clock, two hours and fifty minutes in advance. Waiting for boarding I spent another ten dollars for internet to update this blog.