Glorious Kiwi Ending

This is our last blog post about the remaining time on the North Island. We visited some friends, tramped in the Mt Taranaki National Park, stayed in New Plymouth for a week and went hunting and fishing up in Northland.

Here's a broad map of our travels:

Crossing the Cook Strait with Tobi - whom we met for the second time by chance. Thomas sewing shoes for the last time.

The last bit of South Island 

Preparing Sushi with Hong back in Wellington 

Yumm! 

 Seit wann kommt der Döner aus Griechenland?

Starting the tramp around Mt Taranaki in great weather.

 But not for long, clouds and rain came in - but very interesting remains of outflowing lava streams

 crossing a very scary landslip

 You can see the way nearly until the end... but it takes so long to get there!

 Waking up in beautiful weather the next day and looking at our day track on the ridge.

Looking back onto the mountain... 

 ... and onto the plains.

These little seeds kept backhooking into leg and arm hair, even Lina caught some after not shaving for a few days. 

 Arriving in New Plymouth at Lois' and Trevor's house. Here we made Applestrudel for them and their friends.  How we met them?

An old class mate from Lina's Primary School gave us their contacts after finding Lina on FB while we were already in New Zealand. They immediately responded and invited us in after tramping. They even left us their house and car for the weekend =) Such great people!

 Every night we could watch a beautiful sunset.

 Looking onto Mt Taranaki from New Plymouth (on top of a little vulcano).

 A roadtrip to the Three Sister - the Wharariki Beach of the North Island =)

The Three Sisters

 A morning bike ride with ross - Lois' friend.

 Riding through the Rewarewa Bridge - a symbol for New Plymouth connecting the waves of the ocean and the mountain. Pretty cool!

 We waited 10 minutes to take this shot. Afterwards we found out that you can press a button to start the fountain =)

Weaving flax flowers in the park. 

 Our daily activity - boogy boarding at the beach (17:45 - 18:15 o' clock)

Having a romantic dinner by ourselves. 

 After a week in New Plymouth Lois and Trevor paid us a bus ride to Auckland so we could stay a day longer - so nice of them!!!

Back in Auckland - getting used to not greet people on the streets again =)

 We stayed at Sophie's flat and had a great time. Also in the city, we were keen for a swim

We also really wanted to go fishing again, so we drove back to Northland. We visited Jason in Wellsford (whom we met in Taupo)...

 ...and tried to go fishing but anfortunately his Dad had wrecked the boat. At least we got save out of the water again.

 We also visited Darcy for a couple of days =) Here he prepared a Semi-Hangi, pork with vegetables in oven bags.

The next day we went pig hunting with him and four dogs.

 Having climbed the top of the ridge... still relaxed

 Suddenly the dogs start chasing a pig into a creek were we caught it.

After one of the dogs dropped the bare camera into the creek, we got lost in the huge forest and tried to find our way out along a different creek than Darcy thought. All the way we carried the pig on the back (50 kg). After 6 hrs we hated the pig and wished we could just leave it there.

Thanks to God, the driver who was supposed to pick us up at a certain bridge, waited for us at another bridge which we happened to come out, too, although we followed a different creek!

 So after 6hrs, about 7km of carrying the 50 kg pig (Lina had a turn, too!), we made it home safely and had our share for dinner! hmmmm, fresh pork =) Self carried tastes so much better.

 The next day we went fishing. Much easier but just as successful - we caught 37 Snapper in about 40 minutes, a Sting ray and 2 Kahawai.

Darcy didn't even have time to finish his cigarette, because he was busy unhooking the fish the whole time

Back in Auckland with Carlos and Keyla having a fish n chips picnic (the Snappers)

 Such great friends! The Kiwi at the bottom was one of their cute goodbye presents =)

Not only Lina but also the heavens cried when we left.

A 54 hrs journey can be quite tiring. The first time we got bored was during our 18 hr stop over in Taipei. Our new song is called: Time goes by - so slowly (no cover)

 We finally decided that alcohol could help =) and Chinese food (we only carried cookies).

After this long trip we made it home safely and got picked up at the train station by our families.

Thank you New Zealand, it was such an adventurous, great and life-changing journey.

Sweet home Karamea and tramping like 100 years ago

 Hey everyone! After traveling and sleeping in a tent for about a month we got kind of homesick and went wwoofing for some time. First in Punakaiki, then back to our foursquare-family in Karamea and then back on the track - the longest, wildest and most isolated we've done! Here's a map of our recent travels.

 

A walk along the beach at low tide, right in front of the house of Bruce and Rae, a lovely couple we stayed with in Punakaiki.

After getting some fresh mussels from the rocks we learned how to prepare them.

 The next day we did a bike tour to the so called pancake rocks!

They're famous, because at high tide the water splashes up really high and over the years has formed some blowholes, where water hisses through like steam from a kettle.

 

25 km back to Bruce's house, quite hard with the wind and bluffs (not in this picture, though!)

 Beautiful sunset right in front of their house again! At high tide, there is no beach!!!

Cape Foulwind on our way up to Karamea.

 As the tide was coming in, there were some spectacular waves crashing onto the rocks.

 It happened to be Valentine's day, so Lina got really lucky: We went to a cafe for the first (and last) time in New Zealand. It was perfect! The muffins, the coffee, the view and the music =)

 

 In the evening (having caught nine different rides in a day) we got back to Karamea and the happy squeak we heard, when Juliette saw us walking up the driveway, just filled our heart with joy! Back home again =) 

And back to painting the house (though they didn't really want us to ;)

 

Super-stylish outfits !!!

The night we arrived their eldest sun Matt, who lives in Christchurch called and said, that he was gonna play at a seven rugby tournament this weekend, so the parents decided to drive over and offered us to come with them and do some hiking on Arthur's pass. We had actually always wanted to do that, but skipped it, because we were running out of time. So it was like a little present! 

 

 On the road to Christchurch...

 ...amazing scenery!

!!! For some reasons we can't make the pictures bigger from here on,
but just click on them to see them enlarged!!! ;)

 

A new bridge through a gorge, before the road had been zig-zagging up the mountain on the right side.
 

We lost our camera on the track to Avalanche Peak, which was totally in clouds, but when we got up there a french couple took two pictures of us with their phone and emailed them immediately (as they had internet up there =)
 

It even cleared up, so that we had the most awesome views of mountain ranges, glaciers and snow fields through retreating clouds.
 

Back in Karamea we visited uncle Ed in his milk shed (500 cows in a herd milked in this circle within 1,5 hrs by one man!)....
 

...spent awesome days at te beach...
 

...bodysurfing, playing soccer and cards, reading....

... and having barbecues while fishing with a torpedo line.
 

For Example at uncle Ed's birthday =) This is our very first selfmade carrot cake.
 

A four wheel drive advertisment.

 

And one of the huge snappers we caught on the torpedo.
 
After a week we departed again with a heavy heart, but charged batteries ;) and set off to the longest tramp we've done in New Zealand. The Leslie-Karamea track that passes two saddles, follows two different rivers and connects the east and west coast on the top of the South Island.

On the first day we climbed up steep parts, crossed a lot of creeks...
 

...and some swing bridges before we slept in a tiny two bunk shelter after having a camp fire to warm up.
 

The next day we climbed the first saddle and reached the top just half an hour before the clouds came in (they were moving really fast)
 

The first view into the Kahurangi valley.
 

A beautiful gorge where the Karamea river is still very small, just coming down from the saddle.
 

This night we camped on some sandy river flats with this amazing view. At night it was still warm at the fire and the sky was so clear that we discovered the southern hemisphere stars and made up a lot of funny star pictures.
 

The third day: a sunny clear morning, still a bit fresh in the bush.
 

Tramping along the river most of the day, spotting a lot of trout (Forellen) in the clear water.
 

Day 4: Crossing many creeks and streams. The stick is really handy to avoid slipping (should have done that earlier).
 

In the hut we read that walking along the riverbed (not the track) should be really nice...
 

 

...but you had to ford the river in every bend (Kurve) and as we were totally unexperienced, it got quite dangerous sometimes, when the current was strong and the water up to our waist.
 

We're thankful that we didn't fall into the river with all our gear. Somebody was definately watching for us. In this way we got to see beautiful views of the surrounding mountains that would have been hidden from the official track (bush).
 

Just before leaving the Karamea river and heading up the Leslie (to the right). The two rivers meet and go down the valley you look into.

 

Our awesome camping spot on the Leslie Flats the 5th morning. Looks quite nice but was definately spoiled by thousands of sandflies that kept biting us.

 

 

Our lunch break after climbing up the first 500m of the second saddle.
 

Another superb view of the valley we just came from.
 

Surprising: having reached the top of the saddle your were surrounded by snow grass...
 

...and then the mountains appeared all around us! WOW!

 


 We definetely know where we're going (just because everyone keeps taking pictures of track signs and this is our first one).


After making a detour we arrived at this ancient overhanging shelter (blackened from the many camp fires). We had to make our own bread for the next day so we made tortillas.
 

Having breakfast with a robin (little tame bird next to the water bottle) on the last day.

 

Passing by another shelter with a cool swing.
 

6 days of tramping, super fit, ready for anything!
 

A long way down from the carpark - into the clouds.

Before crossing the Cook Strait again back to the North Island, we visited some friends and had a lovely time in Richmond, Renwick and Picton again =) Thank you everyone!