Kirstin and I arrived safely in Auckland and first thing I did was heading to the haircutter. I looked like a native bush person after 4 months of not getting a haircut. Esther waited for us afterwards in the hostel and gave us a quick update on how things are back in Germany! So guys, we know everything now, no need to try to keep secrets from us! Esther went straight to bed after her two day flight down here and Kirstin and me had a fun night out in Auckland to dance out the energy we safed on Tahiti.

Next morning we went marathon shopping in Auckland, rented a car and started cruising through the Linksverkehr. We headed to Coromandel peninsula, our first stop. The only hostel that had space was an old farm in Ouputere, right by the coast. They had kayaks we could use and a trampoline and a lot of other stuff to keep children and also three backpacker girls in a good mood. We went north to the hot water beach after that. It's a beautiful beach where you can dig a hole in the sand and hot water from a hot spring comes up, so you have a nice bathing tub right at the beach. Sometimes the water got so hot, you couldn't even step into it. Nearly boiling! Crazy stuff! We slept in Tauranga and headed to a Maori village near Rotorura next day with lots of hot pools and geysirs. Incredible how volcanic activity under the earth can heat up a whole lake. The only bad thing was, that it smelled really bad, like rotten eggs or even worse. We asked ourselves how people can still live there. We also got to see traditional dances, which was quite interesting.

Next stop was lake Taupo, a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. We drove around it and stopped every now and then to take photos from the incredible landscape. Renting a car is really the best way to get around in New Zealand, there is few traffic and you can't get lost, because there are very few streets, even we could figure out how to get everywhere without a navigation system.

After lake Taupo we crossed the island to the west coast to Whanganui. Nice little town with a beautiful river. We headed to Wellington after that where we took the ferry next day to Picton on the South Island the next day.

People keep telling us how lucky we are with the weather and that the summer just started a few days ago. Feels good after the bad luck we had on Tahiti.

We went straight to Christchurch where our tour around the south island starts. The night in Christchurch was really weird. It felt like nobody was in the streets after 7 pm and you could see a lot of destroyed houses from the earthquakes in the past. They tried to reform a city centre with colourful container shops and restaurants which looked nice but still felt really weird and deserted. You cannot go to the most parts in the city center because the houses are a potential hazard and could crash at all times. Everywhere you have signs ‚enter at your own risk' or ‚be aware that you could get injured or die, if you enter'.

So now the tour around the south island starts and we are excited about how the group is going to be. And I am happy that we do not have to organise anything the next 10 days. Just get on the bus and do whatever they tell you to do. We don't need to find us a place to sleep or anything else. Should be pretty relaxing!