Hey everybody!

You may have missed me in the last few days - this is because I bought a SIM-Card from Sparks, a network that seems to be working only in Auckland and Wellington. I had no reception since Monday night (where I had WIFI at the campground in Whangarei) - only when I came back to Auckland this afternoon. Well, I will buy another SIM-card (Vodafon) as soon as possible.

All right, as you haven't heard much about my roadtrip yet, I will give you a summary of everything I have done since Sunday.

Sunday afternoon I picked up my car, got used to it and made it back from Auckland City to the place in Forrest Hill, where I stay. It was quite exiting and I had to eat a lot of Cookies icecream when I had made it.

I spend the next two hours preparing as good as possible for the upcoming trip - throwing my things into the car, charging my laptop and phono, looking up campground and routes and jumping around feeling really small and nervous and unable to do anything.

At about 5:30 pm I said Goodbye to my hosts and felt rather silly, walking to the car and driving away with no idea about cars and driving and New Zealand and the world at all. Fortunatly I had my navigation system and Google Maps to tell me where to pick up the dutch girl I wanted to travel with. Unfortunatly there was street work going on and my navigation failed, so it took some stupid routes and needed a bit longer than expected. Of course it didn't matter at all and I even managed to refuel my car ("Hey, I need petrol 95 and only bought this car today, so I have no idea what to do - can you help me?") before.

Before really starting our trip, we went to a warehouse and a supermarket to buy desperatly needed things like a chilly bin, a charger for the car, red onions and chocolate. And then we were on the road!

Driving the car became very easy after a short time. After all, it's an automatic one ;-) Driving on the left side is normal for me anyway, as I have probably been driving more km left than right - definitly after this week. I started to feel quite confident with it after half an hour or so and by now no narrow windy gravel road can scare me anymore ;-)

Our first destination for Sunday night was the Tawharanui Peninsula only a bit north of Auckland. We stopped at a nice Doc-Campground close to the beach, cooked pasta with pesto for dinner and experienced the first night in the car. Which was definitly an experience, but unfortunatly one of mosquitos, waking up all the time and feeling to hot. I hoped that not every night would be like that. But smart as we are, we had some ideas what to improve.

I already told some things about the next day. We saw some beautiful beaches, went swimming, had icecream (I discoved one that has dark chocolate - caramell - milk chocolate and vanilla icecream - hmh...) and went shopping at a warehouse to buy storage items for a car (so my things don't fly around any longer), a cassette adapter (to listen to music althought it's a rather old car), a camping table and other useful things. Then we spend the night at a luxury campground in Whangarei (luxury means hot showers, a kitchen, WIFI and the possibility to charge your things - unnecessary, but sometimes nice).

Tuesday morning after breakfast we had a look at the Whangarei falls, where I had actually been before. They still looked the same - pretty cool :) Then we started our way to the Bay of Islands. By chance we found a paradise beach somewhere in the middle of nowhere (we were told to go there by a very nice Kiwi who thought we looked lost - and it was a great advice), where we went swimming and had lunch. Later we came to Russell and took a car ferry to Pahia, where we had icecream and continued to our Doc-campground in the Puketi forest. After a nice bush walk and a cold shower we went to bed early. A really good night, just like the last one.

On Wednesday morning we finally travelled far North - where I hadn't been before. We stopped for coffee at a place with a Kauri tree staircase and saw the Ninety Mile Beach. There are so many beaches around here, but still they are all quite different! Niney Mile Beach is amazing - everything is so far and so big and I felt so small. The weather was rainy, but maybe this made it even more impressive. And it always stopped raining when we left the car - perfect timing.

Later we stopped at the great sand dunes - at least as impressive as Ninety mile beach! There was so much sand - as if you were in the desert - and the dunes are so big! You can climb on them easily and have a view over the ocean, the misty mountains and all the dunes around.

Only a short time later we finally arrived at Cape Reinga - the most northern point of New Zealand. We had only a short look this evening and quickly continued to our campground at the beach. We shared a bottle of wine after dinner.

This night was not as quiet as the ones before. We woke up at 1:30 and the first problem were the mosquitos. We hunted them down. Then it was too warm, so I opened the windows (more complicated in a car, as you have to start it to do this). Then it began to storm, so I had to save all the things outside and close the windows again. It stormed and rained all night and I had some problems falling asleep again (in a shaking car). Finally it must have worked and we awoke with the sun shining again.

After a cold shower (yes, I do take cold showers in the morning AND enjoy them) and a breakfast of cold pasta with cheese (also quite good) we drove up to Cape Reinga again. There we visited the lighthouse, took a walk to the beach and many, many photos. It is an amazing place and some people who missed it out last time definitly have to come back to see it!

The rest of the day was mostly driving (with stops for icecream, supermarket and viewpoints of course). In the evening we drove through the Waipoua forest, visited the most ancient Kauri tree and stayed at a campground just behind the forest (with HOT showers and a kitchen).

This morning the weather was rainy, so we just went back to Auckland. I took a nice little bush walk on my own before breakfast. Now I am back at Northern Shore and spend the last hours relaxing and updating this blog ;-) Tomorrow we will go to a bridge tournament in Rotorua. Maybe I'll look for some nightlife around here - if I'm not too tired, which is more likely... (camping means getting up when the sun rises and preparing for bed when it becomes dark - I am used to this now).

So what have I learned in the last days? Or WEEKS, because I've been here for more than two weeks now, more than half of the time we spend in NZ two years ago - hardly surprising that the time flew bye back then!

- I like to drive a car. Especially when listening to good music. That's probably rather normal, but I used to think that I don't like driving. I was wrong.

- It is a lot of fun to go camping even if you don't have a caravan to cook in and a freezer with ice cream and three people to play Laus with. Even though having this is still the coolest thing in the world. I always thought coming back to NZ on my own would make me miss some things way too much. I wasn't wrong.

- Sometimes you have to be alone to really feel how amazing something is and how lucky you are to be there.

- Sometimes I am afraid. But as I am alone and I have to do something, I just keep going. And normally it works better than expected. That's amazing ;-)

- I have no idea where and with whom I will sleep in two weeks time (well - I didn't mean it THAT way :D ). But it's very likely that it will be cool.

- Although I like to drive a car, I like more to walk around in the nature. I will definitly do lots of walks.

t.b.c.