Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2012!!

Anna & Guido

Two lovely people and a tramping trip from hell!

After a  4 hour trip on two busses we arrived in Tauranga where we were picked up by Jan and Marjorie. They are friends of my grandparents and we had never met them before or seen them on a picture. Luckily they recognized us and we were on our way to Mount Maunganui, the city where they live. They live in a retirement village what was absolutely wow! Very nice bungalows with beautiful gardens with all the service you want. They do your garden, maintenance on your house, they have a pool, sauna, spa, gym, activity center, library etc. My first question was what the minimum age is to live there. It is 55 so we have to wait some years but I can definitely live in such a surrounding when I am older.

When we left Auckland it started raining and although the region around Mt. Maunganui is known for its sunny weather, it was also raining there.  Despite the rain we went  on a trip with Jan and Marjorie to Rotorua. We have visited a Mauri village there with hot pools. It was nice to learn a bit more about the Mauri and their history but after seeing it ones you have seen enough for your whole trip!

After two very pleasant days with Jan and Marjorie, it was time to pack our backpacks and entering the woods. We had our mind set on a national park called the Kaimal – Mamuka Forest Park and we wanted to cross the park from the north to the south, calling the North/South track and it was 82km long.

When we entered the park, it was still raining. The first day was full of cave walking, river crossing and climbing trough the forest. It took us 5 hours to get to our first place to camp….but it was still raining and the ground had turned into a swamp so it was impossible to pitch a tent. But luckily there was a hut also so we slept in the hut. There was nobody else so we had the whole forest for ourselves…I thought. But during the night I woke up because I heard something moving around the hut. I woke up Guido and then we heard scratching on the door…Aaahh!! Oh no, it were only possums who were knocking on our door.

The next day it was still raining and we had already a bad feeling about the river we had to cross.  But nevertheless we packed our bags and went on our way to the river. We could hear the river far before we had reached it what was not a good sign. And when we arrived at the river it was one black raging and angry river and impossible to cross. We walked along the river for two hours and we had tried every track around it but we were stuck! And after 5 hours of walking in the now pouring rain we were back at the hut. Soaking wet, 13 degrees and no heat…

What we didn´t know that day that it would be raining every day and that it was even on the news how badly NZ was hit by the rain. Mud streams whipped away houses etc. and we were hiking in the mountains. We really were ´crazy Dutch people´.

After 6 days of struggling trough the forest, risking our lives in flooded streams and rivers, taking enormously long detours around rivers, sliding trough the mud up and down hill a thousand times, we were fed up with it and on day 6 we climbed out of the forest.

Afterwards we found out that that track was the only non flooded track left in the forest so even when we wanted to stay in the forest  a bit longer it was not possible. After we climbed out of the forest it was still another 8km walking in the pouring rain and I was so happy when we finally arrived in a city where we checked into a motel!

We bought a bottle of wine, sat into a nice warm bath and enjoyed luxury as never before!

Off course, the day after we left the Kaimal park, the sun started shining again and we took the bus to Mt. Maunganui and walked along the beach for approx 7km before we arrived at Jan and Marjorie. Oh, they were so glad we arrived safely! And so were we.

After another nice day at Jan and Marjorie’s, we had to say goodbye and get on the bus back to Auckland.

We had a wonderful time at Jan and Marjorie´s. They are such a nice people! Thank you, Jan and Marjorie for the lovely stay! We had a great time.

And as for the tramping trip…it was wet and slippery, hard work with bad weather. Not as we would hoped for. But nevertheless, it was a great adventure we will never forget!

Cheers Anna

Auckland

After being in Auckland two times, but only less than 24 hours every time, we thought it would be nice to spend a little more time this time.

So we booked ourselves a hotel for 4 nights and went into the city.

Auckland is a well organized city with millions of places to eat. Eating out is cheap. It is even cheaper than cooking yourself, as we found out yesterday.

But it is not only wandering around the city, eating everywhere and lay back, we are also in the city for some serious shopping! And the weeks before Christmas are really great to do some shopping in Auckland. The streets are nicely decorated with Christmas tree’s etc. and everybody is shopping their ass off for Christmas presents. There is also sale everywhere, what saved us a lot of money.

Our shopping mission was to buy a tent, mats, etc for our hiking-trip next week.

It took us only one day to complete our mission! So now we are wondering around the city, eating out, relax and setting new daily goals. Yesterday it was our goal to find a Laundromat and get our clothes washed. It took us a morning of walking around in the suburbs and we found one and now our clothes are finally clean! I have no idea what our goal will be today, maybe just relaxing.

Tomorrow we are travelling to Tauranga where we will meet Jan and Marjorie. On Wednesday we are going on our hiking trip of 7 days. The weather predictions don’t show really nice weather (read not sunny all the time) but I am sure we will manage.

Cheers Anna

Live life to the max or, as some friends say, are you tired of living?

After seeing some sharks in the water, we decided to take things more seriously and we booked ourselves a lagoon trip with ray and shark feeding.

We were picked up at 8 AM (!) to be driven to a resort full of honeymooners. That was even more scarier than the sharks later on. The tour also involved Dolphin watching. As we found out later, it was in a sanctuary, so no wild dolphins for us.

After an hour boot ride, we were forced into the water in the middle of the lagoon. There was already a boat and the hungry sharks were swimming around (about 100 sharks everywhere). So, as brave as I am, I went in the water first, after the guide off course. I was putting my mask on when something grabbed me from behind!!!....it was a sting ray swimming against me. That’s what the sting rays give you in return that you feed them. They start to cuddle with you. Before you know it, they were harassing you! There was a lady on the boat that was very scared of the rays, because of what happened to Steve Erwin. Luckily, I could take her fear away by introducing another bigger fear. I told her: “look underwater”…and her beautiful honeymoon face turned from nicely tanned to white..hundreds of sharks were swimming in between us!

Off course, my husband was gone from the group before everybody literally had hit the water. He started to swim away from the group immediately to start filming the rays and shark in clear water and not in our self-made, foot kicking blur water. Wonderful for him but I felt a little bit vulnerable between the sharks with no husband. They always go after the less strongest prey…but I came up with a solution. I was going to stand in the middle of all the couples! Hundred meters away Guido started laughing! It was a wonderful solution but didn’t work when all the couples were snorkeling away to a coral garden a few meters away. I had to face the sharks. They even came so close I accidentally touched one. But, hey, after swimming with so many sharks, I do feel less frightened and when we see one during snorkeling I always think ‘thank god, it is only one’, so in some way I have lost my fear.

After seeing all the danger in the water, we decided it was time to feel some fear on land. We found a rental company who rents scooters without needing a driving license. So it was time for me to feel what Guido feels whenever he is sitting next to me in the car. A few exceptions: it was a scooter, not a car and the road is not of such a good quality (read big holes everywhere). And to make it a bit more scary, we had a scooter that was so aggressive on the gas that you could fly with it if you had a runway.

After a couple of kilometers, Guido felt 16 again and I was still thinking about our travel insurance. Do they cover road accidents? But luckily, I had no more time to think about it as were we approaching every bump in the road with more that 50km/hour! We have seen all the nice beaches and viewpoints etc at the island and we were around the island in no time.

The main goal to rent the scooter was for me to go out for dinner and have a drink and Guido could drive me home. So just before sunset we went to the other side of the island with little gas in the scooter but we would fill it up over there. When we arrived at the gas station it was closed….as all the gas stations on the island. There was nothing left than to drive back to our hotel with the hope the scooter did not run out of gas. As this could be a long night with a lot of walking, we decided to skip dinner in Cooks bay and to head back. After a few kilometers the out-of-gas sign started to blink and I started to worry. After a nerve-wracking 45 minutes, we arrived safely back in our village! The reserve tank was big enough! To celebrate we did not had to walk we went out to dinner at the restaurant near our bungalow and allowed us to drink and not drive!

I think we have seen everything on this Island and we have had a lot of fun but we are also happy to change surroundings and we are taking the ferry back to Papeete tomorrow.

I want to note one thing about the controversial shark and ray feeding. Feeding the wild animals is, what I think, the worse thing to do. You make them independent and it is not as nature has designed. Here on Moorea the feeding is also a part of their culture. It is something they have always done. Off course, it is now only being done because of the tourists and it is still wrong but it was nice to hear shark feeding can also be cultural. And maybe these black-tips don’t know better for many decades that human feed them….

Cheers Anna