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.