Dani Abroad

South Island Part 2

2012-01-01T00:36:00.000-08:00

South Island

After Queenstown we drove down to te anau to do our fitness marathon (2 days hike) and visit the world famous milford sound. We prebooked at a place called Banyard Hostel which is located on a hill opposite the beautiful mountain ranges of the fjordland area (sunset inclusive for 25NZD)...

We spent one night there before we got on kepler track. it's really worth doing it. :-) we didn't do the full track because that would be too heavy and we weren't really well prepared (basically the only guys doing it with running shoes and also the only ones bringing beer along :-)). we really had a good time there altough the weather could have been better. Below another impression from the track...

We were pretty happy after two days to take a shower again. clothes smelled and things were dirty. :-) Hiking in New Zealand --> off the bucket list.

The next big thing we were about to experience was the milford sound located around 130km north of te anau. A beautiful place in general and the drive to the sound is very scenic with heaps of stops along the way. there were the mirror lakes, massive waterfalls, kea (worlds only mountain parrot, they are evil I say) and just beautiful mountains, lakes and valleys.

In the sound we did a boat cruise to see penguins (they are very little, so please feed'em), dolphins (saw none because the boat wasn't attractive enough), seals and waterfalls... very awesome in general.

We came home that evening knowing that this is one of the best places in New Zealand.

After Milford Sound we had 2 days spare and didn't really know what to do. We figured out two possible things. Either we go down south direction Invercargill or we head over to the east coast to Dunedin. Apparently Invercargill supposed to be a shithole so we went to Dunedin and we didn't regret it a single minute. Dunedin is really beautiful and we had a good night out there...

We saw beautiful buildings, chinese garden, the most amazing thing in the world: Cadburry Chocolate Fabric and the Speights Brewery. If you can make it to dunedin. Please visit the brewery. it is amazing... :-) Cool guide and unlimited refills on the tab by the end of the tour.

We drove back to Queenstown after a wild night out in Dunedin. :-) We stayed a couple of days there... Did downhill biking, river sledging and cliff jumping. it was pretty funny. Queenstown was also the last stop for two members traveling with us. Unfortunately Jenny and Stefan left the group to either travel with parents or had to fly home. :-) After a couple of days Kelly had to fly home as well so we were only 3 left. I suggested we should go to see Mount Cook and then drive on to Christchurch to relax the last few days there on Banks Peninsula.

Mount Cook was truly beautiful. We catched a wonderful day without clouds.

We stayed the night in Lake Tekapo. The town itself is nothing special rather uninteresting but they have a Spa there and a beautiful little chapel which makes a lovely picture...

Next morning we started early to go the Akoroa on Banks Peninsula near Christchurch. Again we had beautiful weather and when we got there Banks Peninsula presented itself from the best sides. The whole area is really lovely and Akoroa itself has definitely charme. Akoroa was the first and only try from france to settle down in new zealand. They failed in general but the village kept its flair and the road names are still in french.

After that we got back and had to spend one night in Christchurch. Everyone said that we should skip it but we got there and had an afternoon to spend. we managed to get into the CBD with a bus and saw all the demolished and broken buildings. it was really impressive.... We spent the night there in a f**** up hostel with a junkyard right in front of it... Check.

After that we flew back to lovely auckland and closed the chapter South Island.

Next thing to come is Fiji... :-)

South Island Part 1

2011-12-04T21:57:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

it has been a while since I last posted something. If I get it right more then a month. This was mainly because I travelled south island of new zealand. To sum it up: it was awesome. see below for the full travel report :-)

Getting there
We took a rather unconventional way down south. Most people would fly with the plane or rent a car and drive down but we decided to take the train. There is a special service from the transscenic company providing scenic drives from auckland to wellington, from picton to dunedin and from christchurch to greymouth over arthurs pass. we went for the one heading south to wellington. it took us 12 hours and we renamed the train to "overhanger" because most of us still had a good one from the farewell party of AUT the night before. :-)
We got to Wellington friday evening and were astonished by the beauty of this city. it's pretty lovely situated in a natural harbour. CBD is pretty flat but as soon as u get out of it, it gets pretty hilly. :-) one picture below for an impression:

We had a good time there thanks to our special host Sophie Ashworth who pretty much showed us around the whole town and hosted us for the time being there. :-) Thanks again.
On monday we then headed off to south island with the interislander ferry. the cruise took us 3 hours trough cook strait and Marlborough sound towards Picton. It was awesome in terms of scenery and relaxing because the ship was sooo big that you could feel any waves. :-)

We got there without any troubles and picked up our car for the whole south island adventure. An 8-seated car for us 5 people. We later named it Aragorn! :-)

Day 1
Day one was rather short. We drove from Picton over the scenic route towards nelson. The road lead along some beautiful bays of the Marlborough Sounds. We stopped more then once to take pictures. Below you find a nice impression from that day.

We spent the night in a backpacker in Nelson called Paradiso. It was a really nice place with a pool and free soup and breakfast. It was also an awesome day, pretty warm so we chilled the rest of the day around and reading books and dozing a little bit. Soon things are about to change...

Day 2
We got up early to head of towards Abel Tasman National Park. The smallest of NZ's national park but for most the most impressive of all... We weren't disappointed. Again we had a perfect day, sun was shining all day long and we got there at around 11am. We decided to go for a short hike along the coast line. We saw some really nice beaches and could chill also in a very decent bay called Apple Tree Bay, altough we haven't seen any apples :-).

After the 3-4 hours hike we drove on to Cape Farewell which is basically the most northern point of the South Island. Unfortunately the weather got a worse so we pretty much just did the picture and drove back to Motueka to spend the night there. We stayed again in a very nice hostel called "The White Elephant".

Day 3
Off we went from the Tasman Bay towards the Westcoast first trough the Motueka Vally and then towards Westport. We had lunch on a sandbank of the Buller River. Apart from the millions of sandflies all over we were pretty much by ourself and could enjoy a good lunch before we drove on to Westport and the seal colony.
After that we were pretty much done actually for the day. According to the travel schedule we would have stayed the night in Westport (which supposed to be a shithole) but we decided to drive on towards Greymouth and also see the Pancake Rocks on the same day. So we drove on heading for the Pancakes while fuel got dangerously low (and I can tell you I was scared as shit that we run out of fuel).

The pancake rocks were pretty amazing so wasn't Greymouth. Same as Westport Greymouth is pretty shit. It lacks everykind of loveliness and atmosphere. It's just a random town with ugly building and no beach altough it's located to straight next to the see. The hostel was pretty average as well. We just stayed in and watched a movie. It's like Greymouth sucks out the energy of you, pretty triste. :-)

Day 4
We were pretty happy to leave Greymouth the next morning heading off down the westcoast towards the two world famous glaciers Franz Josef and Fox. We were again pretty lucky with the weather. It was sunny and warm what actually is pretty rare because the Westcoast of New Zealand is one of the regions which gets the most rain all over the world. They have around 200 rainy days a year. We were lucky. No rain all good. So we drove to the first glacier and Franz Josef pretty much fascinated me a lot. It is a pretty amazing place to be and we also decided to have lunch there on a stone admiring the beauty of the place.

We drove on to Fox Glacier which was a little bit less cool mainly because the weather got worse and we got some rain as well. After seeing it as well we drove on to Haast. A small town before the highway turned away from the coast and headed inward to Wanaka. We stayed there for the night. The hostel wasn't really worth noticing. It was pretty average and the owner was a weirdo. The town itself is a total rip off. Fuel was 20 cent more expensive then usually, also the general store was f***** expensive. We payed 90 bucks for a few things and some beer. Too much for some of us.

Day 5

Happy to leave Haast we drove on the Highway up the Haast Pass direction Wanaka. It turned out to be one of the most scenic drives I ever had. It's basically one road leading over a pass. Left, Right and Above only pure New Zealand Nature.

It took us around 3-4 hours to get to Lake Hawea at the other end of the scenic drive. It is another deep blue lake with an amazing background (Mount Aspiring National Park equals Awesome). We stayed there at the beach relaxing, swimming (altough water was like 13 degrees cold) and reading (The Hobbit, ultimate New Zealand Book).

We drove on to Wanaka later on. Wanaka is Queenstown's little cousin and got a reputation for being a lovely little place and good alternative for those people who want to escape the hustle and bustle of Queenstown. We found an awesome pub with local 5$ tab beer, meet a few locals (good storytellers with moustache) and just enjoyed life a little :-). Our hostel was called Matterhorn and was pretty average. Nice clean room, good facilities but nothing special. Still recommendable for a night or so.

Day 6
Queenstown Baby.... We made it to Party Central of South Island. Queenstown is a pretty amazing mixture of a Winter Ski Resort and a Sommer Action Place. So basically they have party all year long there. We got there and stayed for 2 nights at a place called Alpine Lodge which was ok but again no thrills. We were more focused on the activities. We signed up for Bungy Jumping (the biggest one in Australasia) and Horse Riding (I didn't want to do it, the stories from my dad when he did it with my sister back in france was toooo present :-)). Bungy Jumping was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. I can remember the skydive we did in Bay of Islands. That was Kindergarten compared to that. It was sooo thrilling. To explain that in total I would write a whole book, so I'll explain it in detail on demand when I'm back in Switzerland. :-)

The day the other guys went horse riding (apparently they've been on the set of the new Peter Jackson movie "The Hobbit") Stefan and I chilled in Queenstown, went to the driving range and did some shopping. It was a pretty relaxing day. We also got a new member in our Huggentobler Travel Group. Kelly Ah Kien joined us for a week. Happy to have her on board. :-)

Yeah. This was the first part of my travel to south island. I'll soon post more about my trip to Te Anau, Milford Sound and visiting a brewery in Dunedin. Stay tuned. :-)

Final Exams, Melbourne and the good life

2011-11-09T03:50:00.000-08:00

Writing a blog is a cool thing if you find enough time to actually write it. :-) It has been a while since the last entry. Time to update you guys... Altough not really alot happende ;-) haha.

Yeah. Already end of the semester. The past four months went by like nothing. Just was I working my way through the auckland airport customs, nek minnit end of november. Why do good things always have to pass by soo fast?
Final exams mean also the end of my time here in auckland. Soon we'll be heading towards south island with a short stop in Wellington to visit one of our friends there.

Final Exams are nothing compared to the ones we're having back in Switzerland. The setup is different. ZHAW sees the final exams as mostly the only test in a paper, so it's mostly worth 100%. AUT handles it little bit different. In every paper I had you can do 50% of the mark during the semester with mid-terms, projects or weekly tasks. It does take a lot of pressure for the finals from the students. So from me as well. In most of the papers I already had like 40% out of the required 50%. So it was pretty laid back to go the exams.
My first paper was all about IT Services and how an IT department provide them to the organisation. I actually really liked the paper altough it was pretty easy and the some of the students couldn't really agree with the way the lecturer ran the classes. They mostly struggled because the lecturer tried to approach the whole topic from a practical way. And as I personally don't give alot about theory and I'm interested in the practical implications it was really enjoyable. Furthermore I saw a little bit more into the general setup of an IT organisation. It was a real good paper. The test in the end was pretty easy and I'm sure I get an A- at least for it. :-)
Another paper I had was Customer Relationship Management. This was my free-choice paper and it was really worth taking it. The lecturer is a really experienced and well-prepared guy who always lead through the paper in an informative and entertaining way. The test was then a little bit harsh. As most of the exams the test was meant to last 3 hours (what is damn long). We got three questions very generally formulated and had to answer them. This means you have to produce at least 2 sites of A4 of text for each question. For me this was a new experience and I had to struggle with it. But I manage to answer every question and I hope the grade will be good enough. :-) Altough I will pass it anyhow.
THird exam was all about Operation Management, means Supply Chain Management, Forecasting, Scheduling and so on. The lecture in general is really bad. Unprepared teacher, non-sense slides and unmotivated students created a anti-learning environment. :-) The test itself was pretty easy and I passed the paper with a B.
My last exam is tomorrow. Internet Application for Engineering it's called. As I really don't know what I scored with my project (building a homepage) I'm more nervous about the exams compared to the others. Plus we have to answer questions about 8 different programming languages (HTML --> I know not actually a language, CSS, Perl, XML, Java, Javascript, PHP, ASP) and I really mess and mix things up here :-)

I hope it all turns out good and I pass every paper. :-) Everything else would be shit...

Last weeknd I visited a friend in Melbourne and it was great. Melbourne is such a lovely city (no liquor ban in public areas wuhuuuu!!) and I just been there on a very perfect weeknd. Sun was out most of the time, we had 30 degrees and could go swimming in the sea.
I got there saturday morning at 10am after a rather short night. The night before we went to the concert of "the naked and famous". A really famous kiwi band who just won 5 NZ Music Awards the night before and start to have big success oversee. The concert was pretty good. For a taste of their music klick on the link below:

So I left Auckland direction melbourne pretty early in the morning. :-) Flight left at 8.20am so I had to be there at 6:45am. Pretty early for a late riser like me. :-) And they really gave everything. I got stuck in security checks first in auckland, then two times in Melbourne. I guess it was of my hungover looks :-) I got into town with the bus and got picked up by Michelle, another ZHAW student studying International Management and spends a whole year there. As the weather was really really nice, sunshine and 30 degrees we went to St. Kilda a rich suburb south of the Melbourne CBD. It was packed with people and the feeling was completely different then auckland. We were a big group all studying at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). As everywhere there were a lot of norwegians, danish and german people. And some mexicans as well... The setup was pretty similar to Auckland when it comes to students. :-) We enjoyed a good barbeque at the beach. City of melbourne provide free BBQ places in the park. It was definitely the right thing to do. :-)

In the evening we hit the night life of melbourne. It was really nice. I enjoyed good company and good drinks.

The next we got up a little bit later because we were pretty hungover. We shared a really good breakfast at one of Michelles friends working place. We decided to go downtown and walk around a little bit. Melbourne is famous for its small laneways. In there you find lovely restaurants, bars, shops and more. They say, the harder it is to find the better the laneway is. :-) So we walked a little bit around and decided then to hit the tourist shuttle that drives around the city. it was pretty cozy inside so we just relaxed and enjoyed the mumbling information the bus driver gave. In the evening we went dining in the HARDWARE lane (pretty nerdy I think but I love it). I had paella and it was really good even the mussels. After that I tried my luck in the biggest casino in the southern hemisphere. :-) Luck wasn't really on my side. I lost my money but had a few expensive thrills. We kicked the day out with a few beers and went to bed early because we had heaps of stuff to do the next day.

Nearby Melbourne is the great ocean road. A lovely highway next to a beautiful coast. So we left Melbourne really early and headed towards geelong and the great ocean road. THe weather got better the further we got. Sun came out pretty fast and after 2 hours the clouds were gone as well. :-) Another awesome day and australia gave everything to please me and make my stay unforgetable in terms of weather. ;-). We saw the twelve apostles, wild koalas and awesome beaches. the perfect getaway for a day. Here are some impressions from the trip (not seen on facebook ;-))

We came back just at the right time. Michelle spent her evening with two of her friends soon leaving Melbourne to go back to the US. I decided to join two of her friends for a comedy evening. It was pretty funny. I shared some good laughs and meet some really cool people. We kicked the day out with a few australian beers on a roof top bar. it was really nice.
Next morning we had to get up early again to return the car. Unfortunately we received a parking ticket over 73AUD!!! fucking expensive. We dropped the car and had breakfast. After that unfortunately I had to leave back to Auckland. Time passes by always sooo fast when it's good. Thanks again Michelle. I really had a good time at Melbourne. :-)

Not much to say about this part. But I really start to enjoy my time here. Of course I did it before but overtime I do get a certain feeling of being actually at home here and that definitely took some time to get it. It is actually a pity that my time here is already over and we are heading to south island. Altough I'm really keen on seeing it, it's hard to say goodbye to some of my friends I met here. :-)
The past weeks have been amazing. I did soo many cool things like surfing, fondue and lord of the rings marathon. Thanks to everyone who has been part of that. It was just simply great :-)

Auckland, Piha Perfect and Rugby World Cup

2011-10-17T02:34:00.000-07:00

If there is one thing which drives most of the kiwis crazy then rugby. And when the biggest event in rugby history takes place in New Zealand everyone is standing black to support the All Blacks. It's a crack how good the atmosphere is when New Zealand and every other team plays at the RWC2011. I said to myself I wanna see that live in a stadium and really feel the vibe and the tension of a live game. Already back in August we bought 8 tickets for the game South Africa vs. Samoa. The worldchampion against the best team from the pacific (currently ranked 10th of the world). The whole game took place in the north harbour stadium in Albany, Auckland. The game was sould out and the weather was ok despite the gusty wind blowing in the stadium. :-). Our group had a blast especially because Loris and Janine are big springboks fan, so the name of the south african team. it was a good game and the spring boks really deserved the win. Below a nice picture from the stadium:

That was friday evening. On saturday loris and I went jogging. While jogging Loris came up with the idea to try our luck to get tickets for the UK derby England vs. Scotland. Said and Done. 2 hours, a shower, a dinner and few beers later we stood in front of Eden Park. We actually managed to find tickets for 50 instead of 300 bucks!!! Wow! Worth joining the party going on around Eden Park. We met awesome people really nice dressed in their countries color. THe game itself was really thrilling. The winner progressed to the quarterfinals. In the end england won with a last minute try and secured their place in the quarters (against wales). It was a memorable evening with lots of fun, beer and nice atmosphere.

One of our mates here in Auckland is lucky to have a nice house in Piha, a small town 1 hour away from Auckland right on a beautiful beach. He invited us over for a nice weeknd chilling at his mansion. :-) 8 fellow AUT students followed his call and so we spent an awesome weeknd there. Just to listen a few of our activities:

- Surfing

- BBQ

- Being Rapstars

- Cookshow with Daniel Olliver including Tasting of the delicious Creation

- Pool Billiard

- Shisha Smoking etc.

Here a few impressions from the weeknd:

Especially the surfing part was interesting. As I am new to that sport I really had to struggle with the conditions in Piha. The sea was pretty rough and the waves just smash you away most of the time... :-) Already on friday I went for a 90 minutes surf lesson in Muriwai with Jaclyn and Jackie (two american girls) and stefan. We were told the basics, how to read the beach to avoid getting in rips, how to stand up and how to protect ourself in case of a washmachine... :-) it was pretty hard and really frustrating when you only drink saltwater and u can't stand up one single time. :-) haha. But it got better on day 2 and latest on day 3 it was a hell lot of fun... :-)

The rest was really "Feucht und fröhlich". We enjoyed a good time in Piha. THanks again Aaron for having us over to your place. :-)

Yeah. Perfect Piha and Rugby World Cup are just a few things I'm doing here. We also did Roadtrips (1000 kilometer in two days (Auckland, Raglan, Waitomo, Taupo, Mt. Ruapehu, Rotorua, Auckland including Snow, Thermal River and Hot Spa)). Waitomo Caves was one of the most amazing experience I had so far. Waitomo Caves is a huge cave system 2 hours south of Auckland. You can make guided tours through these caves in form of Blackwater Rafting. It's pretty amazing. We saw big spiders, glowworms, did some small waterfalls and a lot of fancy stuff. :-) Really worth the trip.

Another cool thing was the weekend we spent in Bay of Islands. Bay of Islands from my point of view is one of the most beautiful places i've seen so far in New Zealand (right behind Auckland ;-)). It is approx. 2.5 hours drive north from Auckland. The biggest town in the bay is Paihia. A small village lying in a beautiful bay opposite to Russell, the former Hellhole of New Zealand. Russell was famous for their hookers, nightlife and a lot of boze for the fishermen when they came back from their trip. This was back in 1800. :-) We spent a few hours in Russell right then when they did some improvised street theatre where they replayed how it was back then. We saw hookers, conservative ladies and everything. It was pretty entertaining.

Actually we stayed in Paihia in a hostel called Mousetrap who was pretty much booked with german work and travel people. :-) They are everywhere and the amount of german we meet is increasing daily ;-) We spent a good night out on friday and had a nice hangover program for saturday doing a trip first to Russell and then a boattrip through the bay of islands. Little historical fact: As mostly everywhere in New Zealand James Cook discovered the bay and counted more than 1000 islands, so he decided to gave this bay the name it's having til today. We had the chance to see dolphins, the hole in the rock and spent an hour on one of these beautiful islands. The big highlight then came on Sunday. We had a voucher for a skydive in Kerikeri, a town approx. 20 minutes away from pahia. Oh boy was I excited. I never did that before but it is amazing. Altough we had to wait for 3 hours it was worth every minute and every dollar. :.-) 16'000 feet jumping high. Oh boy. I do have the video from the jump. Amazing. Still getting excited when I see it.

Yeah. The end of the semester is getting closer. We are now in the last week of school finishing most of our assignments and getting prepared for the final exams. In every paper I could do work in advance and I'm pretty happy that I got an average of around 80 percent. This makes the final exams a lot less stressful as I'm only required to score 35%. But nevertheless I'm willing and keen to get good grades down here not that someone maybe has the idea to say that i'm only partying. ;-)

See y'all soon. Next entry will then be the last from Auckland as we are soon heading off to the South Island. :-)

Samoa

2011-09-27T17:54:00.000-07:00

Hey there,

it has been a while since I last wrote something in my blog. Sorry for that but New Zealand keeps my very busy. :-) There were a lot of things going on since I last posted something. But let's start one after another. This entry is about samoa... :-) one of the coolest and most adorable places on earth.

After a tough finish in week 7 of the semester with some due assignments we could finally head of to auckland airport. Our plane left at Tuesday evening 8pm and due to the looooong travel we arrived Tuesday morning at 1am. :-) Some of us enjoyed the flight with a little nap. Others relaxed and enjoyed the on-board entertainement system.

We arrived pretty late in the night but still there was a nice little band playing local music for the arrival passengers. The whole airport reminded me a little bit of the one in Koh Samui. Pretty basic, everything is open, no closed rooms, very simply but straight forward.
We got ourself a cab and drove to our stay for the time being in samoa. It's a nice little hostel called Moana Lisa next to Apia. It is very basic but the rooms were big enough, tidy and with air condition... everything we asked for as we are only stay there for the night. the rest we'll be traveling around the island and enjoy the country side. When we got to the hotel, we checked in one day to early as by my fault I booked wrong (thank you 23 hour time shift). But no problems at all for the guys working there. We already got the first impression on how friendly and relaxed samoan people can be. :-) Tired and a little bit tipsy (yes we enjoyed a drink after arriving) we went to bed. There were big things on schedule for the next day.

We got up early next day and enjoyed a nice breakfast before we had towards apia, the capital of samoa with around 37'000 citizens living there. The cab driver took us to funway rentals, a small rental company outside next to the wharf of apia. After a short chat with the guys there we decided to go for a big bus (13 places for 7 people). As I was the only one above 25 once again I had the pleasure to drive... :-/ But as the maximum speed on Samoa is 60km/h it is a pretty decent pleasure. Here btw a picture of the bus:

As soon as we got the car we picked up some money and drove on to the first attraction. It's called Fatumea Cave Pool. It is a fresh water pool below a beautiful church. By the way, I haven't seen sooo many churchs on such a small area. Between the airport and apia (approx. 30 kilometer) there are more than 100 churches. But back to that cave pool. it is a really lovely place, right next to the ocean where you could go for a swim and for some cliff jumping (up to 6 meters maybe) what we extensivley did... We also came across another AUT group. But they only stayed there for a short time and soon be gone. Here the a nice picture of the area.

After that we headed on to a pretty disappointing waterfall. we just did the shoots and soon left back to apia just to find a nice little spot next to the beach where we relaxed and took a swim. Back in the hostel we took a swim in the pool, drank a vailima (a really good locally brewed beer) and then went to town for dinner. We finished the day of with some drinks and snacks and a sisha in the hotel. The next day to come.

Day 2

Again beautiful weather and temperature outside. We enjoyed the continental breakfast and were soon gone to the next spot. There was an area near apia called "the sliding rocks". It sounded promising so we went there. It was pretty funny. There is a river which contains special algae which made the rocks pretty slippery so u can slide down the different cliffs into big pools of water. it was pretty funny altough I almost broke my back whilst sliding backwards. :-) After a few slides, group pictures and sunbathing we moved on to the southside of the island. We found a pretty cozy beach and stayed there the afternoon snorkeling, sunbathing, relaxing and throwing around germans. Well heard, check that:

The day went over and we finished of with a nice pizza downtown and some drinks at the hotel.

Day 3
This day should by far become the best day in samoa. we headed off to a place called To Sua trench. It's considered as one of the main attractions on the island. Why's that? Pretty obviously because of a trench, some blowholes and a lot of action. :-) Some of us got almost washed away by the waves crashing on the stones there. Pretty rough coast there. Here some pictures to show you the beauty of this spot.

They funny thin about the trench was, that you could do cliff jumping as well. On the picture of the trench above you could see the steep ladder. It is possible to jump from top of it down (approx. 10 meter). Really funny but also hurtful if you do it wrong. :-)
After the trench we went to a beach called Vauvau Beach. Really beautiful and pretty remote. We were on the beach by ourself pretty much like mainly every beach we went to. :-) Again we gained some nice impressions.

This was also the first day we were really able to find coconuts on the beach. Coconuts ready to eat, what we did from now on. Thanks to Loris for being the finder, and thanks to troels for opening them. :-)

Day 4
was pretty lazy. We went to a beach called "Return to Paradise Beach". It's named after a famous movie we've never heard of. We enjoyed the whole day there snorkeling which was pretty amazing, playing beach volleyball and rugby with a coconut. :-) pretty relaxing and enjoyable. :-) To give you guys an impression what it looks like:

The evening was close so we went back to the hostel to prepare for a legendary night on a party boat in apia harbour called "rock the boat". I can't tell a lot of things about it, most is confident and shouldn't leave samoa. :-) but a few impressions anyhow:

Day 5

started with a hangover and a few awkward moments :-). But we got over it pretty fast and latest after the very delicious continental breakfast everything was gone and we hit the streets again. Our destination today was the falego bay. Another nice place to visit. There are two ways to get there. One normal and one adventurous way. We decided to go for the second one but soon had to resign because we got on a street only suitable for 4WD and our bus obviously isn't made for that. So all the way back to start and go the shorter but average way we thought... :-) On our way suddenly something happen. Stefan sitting next to me started to sweat really badly and didn't respond to faceclaps and questions. We knew that it was something related to Diabetes. Troels our lifesaver reacted the right way and gave him pineapple with a lot of sugar in it, while I was driving a hundred km/h on samoan streets straight to the next hospital. Fortunately on the way stefan got better and ate a lot of dextrose. we stopped and gave him some time to recover. Thanks god he became better altough still a little bit shaky. We soon were able to continue driving to falego bay but before I had to smoke a really strong cigarette to calm down. Ahhh my nerves. :-)

As soon as we got to the pass heading into the bay we knew why we wanted to go there.

de bay itself as soon as you are down at the shore is pretty average. altough we didn't catch the best day. weather was pretty cloudy. But still we enjoyed a nice day in a beach fala. The right thing to relax from the shock...

In the evening we headed back to apia and enjoyed some good food in the city and kicked the day out with a few beers in the pool. :-)

Day 6

DIVING!!!! Yes we made it. We dived on Samoa. Basically it was Troels and me who got to the only diving school on the island. They were pretty cool there and our south african dive guide did a very good briefing. Our group consisted of a women with her son (australians and absolute beginners, first open water dive), an irish/welsh-couple living in new zealand, a danish and a swiss guy (troels and me). We got to the first dive spot pretty quick. and we soon found ourself in the water on top of a big underwater pinnacle. Very nice. A lot of corals and small fishes. The dive was planned to go around the pinnacle, trough a small hole in the rock and back to the jump-in site. Unfortunately the two aussies had some problems. the son couldn't get down and the mam went down like a stone... Rough start but we managed to go on and had an enjoyable dive. We were also able to see a group of eagle rays. Very majestetic. Divespot was called Gilligan Islands.

Second dive was pretty average. Didn't see a lot but enjoyed a nice and relaxing dive with the others. I filmed both dives and I was very keen to see the result in the evening. :-) it was amazing. good sharp pictures of nemos and eagle rays. :-) We got back to the hostel pretty early and enjoyed the rest of the day at the pool sleeping and relaxing.

Day 7

Already the last day. Nothing much to say about it. Relaxing at the pool, eating fresh fruits and enjoying a really nice dinner at the hotel restaurant. :-) Sashimi was great. Our flight left at 2am and we all went back to AUckland just having a little bit of a feeling to have enjoyed paradise for a few days. AWESOME!!!

Weekndtrip to Coromandel

2011-09-05T06:37:00.000-07:00

This weeknd we went on a roadtrip to coromandel and yes it was boys time. Stefan, Loris, Troels and Daniel. We rented a nice car and left Auckland Saturday morning. It was a beautiful day. We could really feel that spring is coming.

The first goal was to get out of auckland. we did this the fast way via Motorway. As soon as we left auckland behind us we took the long way around over the pacific coast highway. To have a good overview about the trip, see the map below:

The first day we drove from Auckland along the firth of Thames to Thames, crossed the coromandel peninsule and drove to Tarua. We stopped there because the countryside is amazing. There is a small hill right next to the town and we climbed it to take some pictures.

We then drove on to Whitianga where we're going to spend the night. We dropped our baggage and drove back to the Hot Water Beach. This place is very unique. There you can dig a hole in the sand and the water which is coming out is hot (what a surprise!!!). So you can dig your own hot pool to chill and take refreshing swims in the ocean (frickin cold) :-) Here another impression.

we chilled, drank a few beers and watched nice racked ladies while they dig their hole (nasty :-)).

When we got back to our hostel in Whitiange we made a very delicious dinner and enjoyed the evening with beers, shisha, cigarette and a stunning performance from our maestro loris on the piano. :-) In general we were pretty tired and we went to bed quite early (with the compulsory white wine to finish it off).

The next day we went to the famous cathedral cove next to Whitianga. It is a quite amazing location. The beaches are white, the sea is deep blue and the rain forest wild green.

The picture just shows the actual beach with the cathedral on the far left side. Most of these amazing beaches you can enjoy for yourself. At this time of the year, there aren't many tourists so it's nice and calm. :-)

After that we drove on to one of the top 100 kiwi must do locations: New Chumbs Beach in Whangapoua. It is a little bit tricky to get there (Rivercrossing, climbing over a lot of stones and mastering another Jungle trail but we are used to that and got rewarded with an empty and wide beach.

Here we really relaxed, layed around in the sand and enjoyed the beauty of new zealand. It got already quite late so we had to move on if we want to get back to Auckland not too late. We got in the car again and moved on over a nice pass to Coromandel town. We didn't really stopped because it looked nice but not really special. Maybe we missed something but yeah, we can come again. ;-)

Before we left the Coromandel Peninsula we had the chance to see one of the most beautiful sunsets ever.

Hunua Ranges

2011-09-05T05:44:00.000-07:00

This will be a short entry I hope. :-)

One weeknd after our fabolous trip to Whatipu and Piha some of us needed an inspiring and creative break from good ol' auckland. So Susi suggested to go to Hunua Ranges which is an area southeast of auckland.

We decided to go on a sunday and we wanted to go the easy way. We had a waterfall and and a water reservoir on the schedule but yeah, we wouldn't go to New Zealand if we wouldn't love the adventure. But again one after another.

We first visited the Hunua Falls. This is a waterfall and to be honest impressive but standard, nothing special. It was a nice place to have a hangover breakfast (yes again, i'm guilty). We soon moved on to the water reservoir whit a huuge dam at the lower end. it is quite impressive but nothing compared to the ones in switzerland. Kiwis tend to build very nature friendly. So instead of a massive concrete wall we found a gentle terraced hill with sheeps on it. :-S strange. Next to the reservoir there was a gravel road. We decided to walk along the road and see where it leads us. And now the crazy things started...
When we started to walk down the road there was a car from the auckland city council overtaking us. followed by the car there was a dog. Soon the car was gone but the dog was still here and followed us. And he didn't wanted to leave. so we walked maybe 1 hour with that dog with no sign of the owner.
Suddenly we saw a sign leading into the rainforest (it is really one and it looks like one, true story) saying that this is the start of "ERNIES TRAIL". Why not give it a go? so we found ourself on that trail. We soon realised that this wasn't the average sunday afternoon trail; we had to jump across streams, climbed upon fallen trees, wating through swamps and all that with a mental dog (we called him ernie :-)) who jumped and ran around like an insane. We walked on that trail for at least 1 hour and got to a point where we realised that this will lead us around the whole reservoir (which is actually quite big). We met another group of well equipped, retired people. We asked them how long they've been on the road and what we can expect? The answer was disillusioning; they've started at 9.30am and have been hiking for already 5 hours and we only covered maybe 30 percent of the whole track... We were on the edge of a point of no return. A short democratic decision made us going on. This decision had only good sites: First, the dog joined the other group (yeahhh!!!). Second, what came was one of my best NZ experiences:

We walked through the forest for 5 hours. got back at 6pm completely exhausted and tired but absolutely happy. Ernies Trail has pushed us to the limits and maybe a little bit further but it was well worth doing it. :-)

Here the after picture:

Piha & Whatipu

2011-09-05T05:18:00.000-07:00

Hey,

it has been a while since I last wrote something in this blog, to be precise more then 2 weeks. :-) Since the northland trip a lot of things happened. let's start with one after another.

Whatipu, Piha or pure natures magic
Only a few kilometers west of auckland are the Waitekere Ranges. It's a huge national reserve area with beautiful beaches, amazing forests and awesome roads to drive on ;-). Susi, Stefan and me formed the travel group for the day. Germany, Austria and Switzerland representing. ;-). We left Auckland in the morning and once again with a hangover from friday evening (how could it be different). It took us 1 hour to get to Whatipu, a beach which is located on the southern end of the ranges. it is really remote and stunningly beautiful. it is almost impossible to describe it, this is why you see the picture below:

truly an awesome place to go for a brunch (missed breakfast that day :-)) To give you another impression:

I was already quite impressed but this should only be a warm-up for what is coming next. So we sat in the car and headed towards piha. Piha Beach got the reputation for being magical and that's a proven fact. The beach is amazing.

We enjoyed a delicious but greasy burger and a short footwalk along the beach. We were lucky as the weather was awesome and the sunset we enjoyed was truly one of the best i've ever seen.

We shared a great time on that trip and the three of us were already really keen to see where it takes us next. :-)

Juicy Northland

2011-08-15T18:18:00.000-07:00

Pictures can be seen here: PICTURES

Yeah. Another roadtrip, this time in a rental campervan from juicy rentals (link).

We started Friday Morning at 8am (how early is that? haha). A group of around 15 people heading towards the the Strand to pick up their cars. This worked good for two cars but unfortunately the 3rd car wasn't working properly. :-) So we had to wait. The guy from juicy alwas said: "5 minutes". We decided to leave after 45 minutes. The other van can catch up. :-)

So we were on the road direction northland and paihia. We took the long way around Helensville with a lot of stops to enjoy the beautiful surroundings new zealand has to offer. It is simply amazing. Sometimes it reminds me of switzerland or europe in general but again it is different and I like it. So we drove up to Whangarei but made a short stop a few kilometers before Whangarei. Thanks to our navigator Stefan we found a very nice lookout point over a beautiful bay with some nice little yachts in it and a beautiful oil refinery next to it. Sweet!
Next stop Whangarei, picking up some sandwiches at Subway and then drive on to the Whangarei falls north of Whangarei. Beautiful. We stopped there for lunch and taking pictures. We as well climbed behind the waterfall. It was really slippery but we enjoyed it alot altough i looked like running trough the jungle for a week; really dirty. :-)
It was already pretty late in the afternoon and we wanted to be at Bay of Islands before it's dawn. So we drove the rest of the way straight arriving right when sun was about to set. One thing needs to be mentioned about bay of islands: it is amazingly beautiful there. U got a huge bay with a lot of small islands in between. The forest looks like rainforest. It is a really nice color mix (green forest, deepblue water, yellow beach). We enjoyed a short stay at the beach and then try to find a nice spot for the night. :-) this lead to a pretty intense discussion. Imagine 15 people to discuss about the place to go. I don't want to explain that any further because we finally managed to get a very sweet spot on a hill overlooking the whole bay of islands. The view was fantastic. So we set up the place, started cooking, drinking, smoking shisha, making party. We had an awesome time. Some of us didn't exactly know where to stop and starting chasing sheeps in the middle of the night... it was really funny. Enjoying live til 4.30 in the morning.

Second day. Getting up was really hard but we managed it. I had a huuuge hangover all inclusive. haha. Doesn't matter. The group planned to go kayaking. I couldn't join because of my ongoing backproblem (Hate it!!!). I just took a quick swim in the ice cold see (around 15 degrees i guess). After that I enjoyed an hour of relaxing in Paihia town together with our mexican connection and two german girls. At that weeknd it was jazz festival in town so all the bands played at random spots. It was a relaxing hour with delicious fish and chips. and it went by way to fast. ;-).
After filling up our alcohol and food reserves we hit the road again direction Cape Reinga. Streets were amazing and I'm still regreting that I didn't do my motorbike license back in switzerland. This would have been awesome. Naah!! On our way we made a short stop on 90 Miles beach. This is a 60 miles long beach and actually an official state highway as well. there are speed limit shields on the beach. But it is considered dangerous to drive here. You have to be fully aware of the dangers of tides. THere are a lot of cars stuck on the beach and got flooded. Our car insurance didn't cover these kind of accidents so we decided to drive on the normal road.
We arrived in cape reinga when it was already dark. so we just took a short walk to the world famous lighthouse and took some pictures. The weather was pretty bad (all windy and rainy). So we were quick about to leave the place and find a spot to sleep for the night. Some suggested to stay on the parking place but this was rejected by navigator stefan and explorer daniel. We saw a beauitful place on the map just a few kilometers away called Tapotupotu Bay (see that link)... simply amazing. It was next to a small bay who is completely dry during fall of tide. So we set up our 4 campervans in a square to protect us from the strong wind there. we enjoyed another great night with midnight walks through the dry bay to beach front while full moon was on. It was amazing. We played card games and "Never have I every ...". It was pretty interesting to hear other people speaking about themself. Beer and Wine helped the situation a lot. ;-) haha.

Next morning: Awesome to wake up on such a beautiful place. Pictures doesn't show shit about that place but i swear when I start talk about it you'r going to feel a little bit how it was. :-)
Weather was really nice on sunday. So we made our way to cape reinga. The looks were amazing. The lighthouse, beaches and the two seas colliding. On that point you see the tasman sea and the pacific colliding. Waves from both sides crashing on each other right in fron of cape reinga. it is amazing. It is also one of the most sacred spot. Spirits of death maori people travelling on their journey to their afterlife passing cape reinga as one of their last stages on mainland. For Maori people this is one of the most sacred spots in their believe. Furthermore there is a very old tree who is said to be 800 years old. it's said that tree is where the maori spirits descend to the sea and travel on to the north for their final place to rest. Te Reinga means “the leaping place of spirits (souls). The girls preferred to walk to the lighthouse again while the boys again walked down to the sea and ended up on a beautiful beach right in front of the clash of the oceans. it was amazing. Moments like this make you feel very little and small when you see what nature can do. Astonishing! we relaxed, took some pictures and head back to the lighthouse.
Unfortunately we had to leave quite quickly because it would take us around 7 hours to drive back to Auckland. We hit the road again and drove more or less straight back to auckland. Unfortunately we weren't able to see the huge sand dunes :-( But who said, that it was the last time on Cape Reinga. This place is magical. U could really feel the spirituality of that place. I would come back any given time to see that. :-)

All in all it was an awesome weeknd. I enjoyed it a lot. Not only seeing all the beautiful places but also to meet new friends and to share thoughts about the world. I would definitely go there again. :-)

Unfortunately we had to be back by sunday night to give back the car so we drove 6 hours straight back to auckland only with a few cigarette and eating breaks. We arrived at

Noho Marae

2011-08-07T02:48:00.000-07:00

Kia Ora

Past weeknd was one of the funniest weeknd so far. My university especially the international office invited all the study abroad/exchange students to three days of maori culture. I already heard heaps of good things about it so it was no question at all to join it. :-)

It started on friday afternoon at the marae (is a spiritual place for maoris consisting of several buildings). It's place where they gather and invite people.There is a wharenui (meeting place, pronounced farenui) and a whare kai (dining hall). in the wharenui u're not allowed to wear shoes in it and the whole building is very historical and spiritually infected. They have very beautiful, handmade wooden carvings on the side of the room inside representing the ribs of the house. These carvings represent tell you the story of the ancestors of the local people. they call it poupou. In the middle of the room you have another carving called Poutokomanawa. it's the central backbone of the house and very important to maori people because it represents the whanau itself.
There are a lot more of spiritual sculptures in and outside the wharenui. To explain them all would take a lot of times, but i love to explain you guys when I'm back in europe. :-)

The wharenui is the central place and this is were the action happened that weeknd. We were introduced by the noho marae staff. What you need to know, maori people love to sing. They sing to say thank you, they sing when you enter the dining hall, they sing to bless the food, they sing literally all the time. But their song are of great melody and very very beautiful. So we started the weeknd with songs, heaps of songs. To give you guys an idea, check that video: Pokarekare Ana. Altough it's a love song, I still like it quite much. :-)

Besides the singing and dancing, I ate a lot of food. And I mean a loooot of food. On friday evening we had to bring our on food, some traditional food from switzerland. Roman, Loris and I brought Ghackets mit Hörnli und Öpfelmues or Minced Meat with Macaroni and Apple Sauce (English does not the job to descripe a swiss dish the right way, haha). It was the first time since a month I ate real good bread (thanks to these guys who brought it along) as New Zealand bread in general is shit. :-) After that we relaxed at the marae, sang some more songs and moved on to some free-time. Free-Time is considered party-time but as this is not allowed from University, that's why the called it like that. :-)

We enjoyed our free time at vespbar. That bar is located right on the city campus of the university, means you can get drunk at school EVERY day, if you want to. :-) haha. but who wants that anyhow? And yeah, almost forgot: We booked our midterm break holidays on Samoa. Hell yeah, pacifica i'll be there. Most of the people went home early because they were sooo tired (me included) of all the food, singing and drinking.

Next morning we had to be at the marae at around 9.30am. We started again with singing, singing and singing and it doesn't get boring at all. Altough I don't understand a single word of what I'm singing. haha. Next part was more exciting. We've been told to play the stick game. To see what that is, check the following video: Stick Game. It's a kids game and the song they sing is calle E Papa Waiari. It was really funny to play that, altough I really sucked at it. We had to do one, double, quad and inside-out throws to our partner and you loose rythm pretty fast. :-)

After that it was time for some real men action. Doing the most famous and the fiercest dance in your whole live: The Haka. This dance is shown right before the battle starts. Maori people did it when they went to war to psych up, to frighten their opponent but also to show them respect. Nowadays you can see it every time the all blacks (New Zealand National Rugby Team) play. To give you a taste: All Blacks Haka.
First we had to learn the lyrics:

Ka mate, ka mate! ka ora! ka ora!
Ka mate! ka mate! ka ora! ka ora!
Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru
Nāna nei i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā
Ā, upane! ka upane!
Ā, upane, ka upane, whiti te ra!

Then we had to learn the dance and combine them. Ahhh it was sooo much fun altough I shattered my voice. It was sooo intense, everyone was sweating. Awesome.

In the evening we had to present all what we've learnt on a concert. We had to play the stick game and we had to sing. The ladies did the poi (very sweet btw: Poi Dance). Men did the Haka. Altough I still got the feeling we messed it up, the crowd (mostly the ladies) were impressed... And we had heaps of fun. It was really worth everything. After that we had dinner. Again heaps of food. It was soo delicious.

After that: Free-Time at Vespbar. I can't tell you much about it. The Marae staff said, we have to keep that on the downlow. But one thing should be said: Drinking contest and we didn't stand a chance against the Maori people. Good Times roll. After that some partying in Auckland city. Standard stuff but funny as usual. hahaha...

On Sunday was the official goodbye ceremony. It involved a lot of singing again. Every country had to perform his own song as a way to say thank you to the marae staff. We sang Mani Matters "Es Zündhölzli". It was a lot of fun. But most of us were really tired but happy.

The weeknd was great fun. I saw a lot of maori culture, learned songs, dances and games, met a lot of interesting people and enjoyed life a different ways.

To say it in the words of maori language: Ka Kite Ano!!!!

First two weeks

2011-08-03T19:01:00.000-07:00

Altough Auckland is on the other side of the world, it isn't something special. It looks a little bit like every american city (ie. San Francisco) and it feels like hongkong (a lot of asian people living here). :-) Don't get me wrong, it's lovely here: you got the sea right in front of your house, there are sweet places all over the down (but you have to search them).

The first few days I spent exploring the city and looking for an apartment. The city has a lot to offer, for example they have a huge park right next to downtown called Auckland Domain. It's huge. I would say it has the size of the historic center of winterthur (Märtgass and surroundings). I go there for jogging.

But the hustle and bustle is on queen street. it's the main road leading directly trough downtown. This is the place to go for shopping, nightlife and eating. Of course there are other places like K Road (Red Light District), Parnell and Ponsonby. They are very decent as well but they aren't that busy and if you want to meet people then you have to go there.
I did. I met a lot of people in the first days. Some people from my hostel (City Travellers) and some international students from all over the world (mostly Norwegians, Germans & Americans but also French, Japanese and South Americans - just to name a few). And we partyied a lot. Image a bunch of people far away from home not knowing anybody. This is what the good stories are made of. :-) And trust me, there were heaps of good stories.

I'd like to tell a story for every entry, even though it is a small one. Just some bits and pieces from here. Hope u'r gonna enjoy it. :-)

Go for the extra mile! :-)

2011-08-03T00:47:00.000-07:00

I'm here already a while. The start was kinda tricky. It's always hard to arrive in a new city without nowing anybody. But as expected this changed quite fast. But let's start step by step.

With drying my last tears on Zurich Airport and saying goodbye to my beloved family the real anticipation started to spread all over me. I got into the first airplane leaving Zurich at 10.15pm direction Dubai. An overnight flight with an expected flight time of 6 hours. As usual leg space was rare and I really had to struggle to put myself in a comfortable position and the indian woman next to me was not really helpful. Her elbows really messed up my sleeping position. Basically I tried to sleep but after two hours I gave up and enjoyed the entertainement system from Emirates Airlines and hell yeah: I'm sure a lot of other airlines can cut their part of that system: They give you heaps of opportunities. I could choose between dozens of movies, tv shows, documentaries and music channels. At least the flight didn't got too boring. :-) Altough I didn't sleep that much (literally not an hour!!!).

I arrived on time in Dubai (5.30am). The airport was packed with people enjoying duty free shopping. I was simply too tired to get a benefit out of it (me jerk, I should have, but more to this later on. :-)). So I just grabbed something to eat and relaxed on one of the chairs there. I almost felt asleep and missed my flight to Melbourne-Auckland...

I'd like to call that flight "THE BEAST". It was a 12 hour flight from Dubai to Melbourne and with the assistance of Mireilles sleeping pill I could sleep a few hours. Again not in a comfortable position but who cares. :-). I enjoyed a few movies, read a lot about my destination (Kiwi-Kountry!) and eat unidentifiable food (it was not soooo bad! :-)). The 12 hours went by pretty fast and I was fully delighted when I could leave the airplane. My legs were screaming for movement and my body yelled for a shower. Said and Done. It was awesome! :-)

I arrived in Melbourne again early in the morning. The airport was literally empty. Only a few lost passengers walked around but I didn't care. I was almost at my final destination, yet another 4 hours flight to go. That was easy compared to the massive journey I went through to that point.

Again I found myself in a tiny little seat but anticipation was huge. So the time passed by pretty fast and I arrived in Auckland International Airport after 26 hours of travel straight. Oh boy, I was exhausted, tired and ready for sleep on one hand, but on the other hand I was sooo excited. The grass looks green, the sky is freckled with clouds: First impression of New Zealand was awesome. Temperature was around 15 degree and that's what they called winter. I loved it instantly. :-)

I took the airport shuttle downtown and got kicked out on queen street. Right in the middle of auckland. Absolutely overwhelmed by the impressions I was having I tried to find my hostel. Fortunately a friendly kiwi guy directed me to the hotel. I got there, checked in for one week and was just happy I made it.

I didn't do much that afternoon except a short walk around the harbour of auckland and a little bit of research for an appartment. I met a few people from my hostel, had a little bit of chitchat but was so tired at 6pm that I went to bed and slept for 15 hours straight. Next morning: No jetlag, feeling totally recovered and I was a 100% ready for my auckland adventure...

First entry and Welcome everybody

2011-08-03T00:11:00.000-07:00

Hey guys,

First I was really not into writing a blog, but as far as I see it, i will forget most of things I've experienced here. Probably the best idea despite of writing a personal diary is to write a blog. So spread the word to all your friends who are interested in reading stories from me. I won't write down everything I do but at least you should get a decent idea about what's happening here. :-)

So there we go... Enjoy reading my entries. :-)