As I'm sitting on the Airport in Auckland waiting for my flight to Denpasar to strart I decided to write a last resume about my trip. I finished my travels on the North Island and the first bilance is pretty awesome, 3.5 months of travelling made a resultat like this:
Mermaid Pools check
Northland check
Coromandel check
Cape Reinga check
Auckland check
Raglan check
New Plymouth check
Festival of Lights check
Mt. Taranaki check
Mt. Manganoui check
Rotorua check
Taupo check
Bay of Plenty check
Bay of Islands check
Napier check
Hastings check
Longest Place Name check
Palmerston N check
Wellington check ...
Piha Beach missing
Waiheke Isl. missing
Tongariro Crossing missing
East Cape missing
90 miles beach missing
Of course I left some places open to come back another time. Whenever that is.. Fact is: my time here was fucking awesome and I learned so much about how life can be . I had to decide all things myself. There were no mum and dad telling me what to do and there's nobody who can gurantee for anything. That's quite hard in the beginning but working after a while. Furthermore I didn't really work against money so I've spend it all. I checked my finances and somehow it's scary. But I stayed in Couchsurfing places and about 4weeks on farms to work for accommodation and food so I saved a bit. Farming...Experience. Well I think it's nice to do try and we had great fun in Raglan but all in one...it's enough. I'd rather get a paid job!
New Zealand has some great Beaches and impressing National Parks. I never saw myself on a hiking trip - it seemed always too boring even though it's definitely not! Well I tried hitchhiking, bought and sold a car, made many friends and got to know so many people from all over the world (yes even I have to admit that prejudices are bullshit!). I went couchsurfing, smoked, drank, ate good food or the usual backpacker dish: Pasta, enjoyed some cool music with my ladies on one of our road trips and a lot more.
Even though having uncomfortable experiences makes you worried whether that what you do is good or not, I don't regret travelling. It is necessary for myself to learn how to deal with it and to keep on going. "It is a learning process" would my mom say. :) Luckily I made a lot more good experiences that bad ones - it were only 2. But that keeps it real and exciting because it's definitely different to my old life what is actually really good.
Of course I miss friends, family and my boyfriend. Sometimes I plan to fly home earlier. Homesickness - yep, sometimes it overcomes me and ruines the beautiful day. BUT as I learned: don't make plans! It could change quickly and makes you trouble but that's good, it keeps you busy and openminded for new things.
Well, now I'm heading off to Bali. I'll enjoy seeing Kevin and my Family. SWEET ASS :) This will be the first time to stay at one place longer than two weeks since I left home. Creepy! Only a few hours until I'm there but don't even try to ask me about the place I'm gonna be after. That's too far in the future and I decided to go with the flow.
Okay, so let's get this started! Very Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year!
Tuesday morning checkout time: ready to leave Tauranga..! But where? Fabi and I decided to hitchhike around and see something on the North Island. Having a great adventure without any plan. Awesome! While eating breakfast we discussed whether fixing a destination or putting our thumb ot and go with the flow. We opened the map, checked the Highway connections and all the places. We found the west-/ east side should be good, or Coromandel or, Taupo or, or, or. As I've travelled almost all of the North Island apart from the west (Taranaki) and the east (Gisborne) we finally fixed New Plymouth as our destination.
'Good, therefore we need to pass.....Taupo or Rotorua or that or no oh, hmm... Well, let's start.... into direction Taupo. We took a piece of cardboard, wrote Taupo on it and left the hostel! BUT...Where to start? We asked the receptionist for the best place to hitchhike out of Tauranga but without any useful advice we just walked to the next highway and held out the shield. Waiting.. Waiting.. 15minutes.. Ok, bad place, let's keep on walking.. Two cars stopped on their way to Betlehem which was definitely not or direction, too bad. One of them told us we are a bit wrong, should go on and take the left highway towards Hamilton. That place was not good either so we gave it up and tried to walk on. HONK! Our first ride, Rotorua! Yep, perfect :)
We had a nice conversation with this cool business man heading to Rotorua and dropping us off on the Thermal Explorer Highway to Taupo. I heard it's so easy to hitchhike from Rotorua to Taupo because of these tourists wo start their trip down south in Rotorua and explore Lake Taupo after. Well I got frustrated 'cause we were waiting for about 45mins to get a lift. It was a friendly old kiwi who made an extra way for us to see the landscape and a free mudpool (which I have already seen before ;D) He dropped us in central Taupo and the only thing we could think about was food. FOOD FOOD FOOD. We ate in the world's most spectacular (yes, it's said in lonely planet) Mc Donald's and booked a hostel for a night. Too tired to move on :D
The next morning was a bit confusing...we woke up at 9:30 and had to check out at 10:00 but we were so exausted and just booked another night to sleep a bit longer...Hostel was nice, Taupo as well. We enjoyed a Sailing trip on the lake and saw these awesome Maori Carvings.
Ok after that day we had to choose to leave either to the east - Gisborne or to the west - New Plymouth... In the end it didn't matter for me, the place I don't see within that week is the place I'm gonna reach by bus, just to finish my North Island trip. The joice fell to New Plymouth because of a light festival on the 15th of december.
Checkout and then a 2-minute walk on 'the Terrace' in Taupo till we got our first lift. A real cool kiwi guy called Will. He dropped us off in Bulls - don't ask about the name...So Bulls, yeah we found a construction worker and asked for a cardboard but even before we wrote our next destination on it Jeremy stopped to take us to Wanganoui. That was fast! :) He left us opposite of a gas station and we actually had to wait for 15minutes, pretty bad^^ There was a boysgroup coming back from a class trip in Wellington and picked us up. GENIUS, all worked out perfectly. In top of the day was to get a free place to stay at his mates place :) Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!
We checked out New Plymouth's coastal walkway which is awesome and took a bath in the ocean. Great! Got a fish 'n chips and relaxed in the city center, booked a bus to Egmont National Park and hiked up the Mount Taranaki for a while. 6hrs walk, so exhausting! Hanging out on the terrace having a beer made a perfect evening. What's better? Yeah, the final with a picnic at the light festival in the park :)
The hitchhiking trip was absolutely awesome :)
Wellington and girls adieu, Tauranga hello! Hard step but necessary. I've spend my last day with my awesome ladies in a national park end enjoyed a real good dinner. It was perfect. Käsespätzle and a Chocolate Tart :) Somebody should say we wouldn't cook...
After my arrival in Tauranga I was waiting for the boys to pick me up - as to expect, they weren't there. I definitely have too much luggage and can't carry all by myself but in this case I had to. And I had to find the way to the backpackers which I didn't look up before. Marina-Style^^
While entering the Backpackers Dario and Fabi hugged me to say hello they wanted to come and pick me up... wow excellent timing^^ :D This backpackers is the dirtiest I've ever seen, that is really disgusting. I thought about taking the vacuum to clean the room myself. Bah! People are great there and so I stayed a week hoping for work. It was raining almost every day so there was no work to do and after the raining days only work for boys. Damn it. I just want to work, no matter what!! Then I decided to leave after the week and suddenly got a job offer.. Pff, nah!
Partying the night and chillaxing the days - that was my weekly programe. Oh I even made a bit of Sport :o went out for a run... I've met some really nice people there, survived the indian invasion in our hostel (well, shouldn't complain because we germans are taking over NZ) and had some fun parties. I saw Mount Maunganui and waited for Tuesday to arrive. Leaving for new adventure :)
Mount Maunganui was supposed to look like this
but I saw it looking like that: not that beautiful but still fine! :)
A flat, a place for christmas, a job, a good car, friends around you...that is our dream!
Staying at Jasons fancy house (Couchsurfing) with other Couchsurfers - amazing cooks! - we got a perfect welcome in the capital. The next morning Mira received a text from Jason that we can stay as long as we want and could also keep his house for the five weeks he's off for work (offshore park). That means we have a place until the end of January! Wuhuu what a good day! It means: no accommodation to pay, no annoying snorers in your room, free internet, saving all the money we earn and this amazing view! I have a certain place to stay until leaving to Bali! Our dream came true! :)
Things were good again and I enjoyed beeing with the Girls. Didn't regret to stay with them - yeah, they're my lovely ladies! :)
Highly motivated I handed out 25 CV's in the city and applied for hospitality-jobs. After two days I already got an interview and two trials. Good occation to go and check out Wellington's Nightlife. Should be the best in the whole Country.
Short excursion: While we've been in Rotorua I was scared that things do not work out in Wellington and that I don't get a job. So I alredy applied online for something, received a text with an invitation for an interview and told my ladies. They stared at me as if I'm an alien and asked: 'Did you apply for the airport job? It is for 6 months.' I said 'No, there were two offers, one for 6 months and anotherone. I applied at the other one. It's called Mermaid Bar. Why are you looking so weird at me?' 'MARINA! No! You applied at a Strip Club! Didn't you read the text?' 'Yes I did, it was something with >you wanna make extra tip<'. So I applied in a strip club! :/ that is so embarrassing! They started laughing so bad and as you know, if something like this happens to your friend you tell the story to others and so my lovely friends did. I got teased every day :(
Back to the nightlife story: Jason led us through the street with all the clubs and said he want's to show me something...guess what: He showed me the Mermaid Bar and told me he can introduce me to it's manager (seriously Jason, are you a customer there?!? ;D), I took a very nice picture at the entrance but refused to enter.
After my two trials which went pretty well I had to wait: Melissa got the job in the Café and the others didn't reply. So we passed our days hanging 'round in sweat pants, drinking coffee or tea, baking christmas coockies, eating, watching movies and waiting for a call. Basically that was it. Sounds extremely boring but honestly, we enjoyed it so bad!
Unfortunately it is already 3 weeks before I leave to Bali (20.12.) and I still didn't get any reply. I would have lied to my bosses telling them after 2 weeks that I got my chrismas present from my mom and it is a flight to Bali over chrismas so I'm leaving in a week. I thought it isn't worth it to wait for another trial and have to wait for the final decision again, then there's the contract I had to sign and the cancellation period...
Additionally Jason sent Mira a text that things have changed and we have to move out, next tuesday - his family comes over for christmas and keeps the house.
Oh kay...that sucks! So only three more nights. Means: hardcore searching for couchsurfing places, sending CV's, etc. we just didn't want to pay for hostels.
In the end i decided to leave Wellington completely. I found a place in Waverley - a really really remote place in nowhere! I would have to help this guy cleaning up his old villa so that he can sell it. 4hrs work a day, no salary but accommodation and food for free. Actually I don't want that and prefer a paid job but not paying anything is still better than spending all for hostels. I took it and told my ladies about my plan: Ey, I leave you next monday. Mira is also thinking 'bout leaving Wellington and go for her own travels, Catherine wants to go to the South Island as soon as she got something there. But nothing of that was sure. Melissa felt so bad beeing the last one of our independent woman group who is left....
It seems that our plan and christmas toghether have failed -.-
While texting to our two friends Dario and Fabi who arrived at the bay of plenty and already got a job I decided to come up to Tauranga and forget about Wellington's jobs. Just go and adventure.
Plans don't work out here, I got it!
We are not mad about Jason kicking us out, the point is that we have to find something else in closer time. The girls cancelled all their house sitting offers because we already had Jasons house for sure. They also told our friends to come and celebrate chrismas with them. Cancelled...
For me the time travelling with the ladies is coming to an end. It's been 3 months and somehow is so sad. This time will be captured in my memories...experiences and all the amazing good stuff we've made! Thank you Girls I'm sure I will cry some tears when I get into the bus saying goodbye.
I have and want to do my own thing even if it's not easy leaving my 'home' (the girls) which has meant security for me. I'm gonna miss baking bread, Parsley, you laughing, the Independant Women Trip CD's with our songs...Little Numbers, Thriftshop, Dingue Dingue Dingue ,and a lot more. To summarize the time I can only say "and this was fucking awesome" ;)
<3
The Hunger Games - Catching Fire with Catherine, Mira, Sabrina and Melissa on November 26th :)
Travelling in our new car with our new member Mira is gonna be an adventure :)
We are ready to go down to Wellington, find a flat and a Job. But first of all we stopped in Rotorua - the stinky town. There are mud pools and geysirs that make Rotorua smelling like a mixture of rotton eggs, smelly feet and poo. Yummey...enjoy your meal^^ But well, to be honest it was not that bad. Rotorua's abundant geothermal activity (hot springs, mud pools...) results in large amounts of sulphur compounds and hydrogen sulphide released in the atmosphere which is responsible for the acrimonious smell.
Melissa, Mira and I found a cheap offer for rafting and one morning...we did it! :) It is so amazing and paddling down the waterfalls was great fun, we went down the largest oneyou can get for rafting: 7meters high (at least, that is what they told us).
We didn't see any geysirs and didn't take a bath in the hot springs/ mud pools what Rotorua is famous for, was just not affordable in the moment. We've all spent our money for travelling since we arrived. So it was time to earn some money.
After Rotorua was Taupo, the great lake of Taupo in the middle of the North Island. It's a great place and I would definitely come back. There's so much to do, especially a Tongariro Alpine Crossing and all kind of action sports. We saw the volcanic valley with the steaming rocks, a bad smelling mud pool and the largest hot spring with 80°C. So no swimming :(
The Huka Falls are super amazing! I love waterfalls and I'm pretty sure, these are my favourite:
Taupo - yeah pretty embarassing but this was where we sat at Mc Donald's for hours to get free Wifi with a real bad connection.
We just wished we get free Wifi at the Couchsurfing place in Napier, our next destination. That was actually quite funny: while walking in at the lake Rotorua we stopped to enjoy the few and two People started talking to us. After we explained them what Couchsurfing is about, the guy invited us to come and stay at his place :) Perfect!
So Napier and Hastings - the Artdeco Cities. Well we were all a bit dissappointed of the Artdeco City 'cause there was not a lot of impressive art to see. So we enjoyed sitting at the Hawkes Bay, eating ice cream on a strawberry field and driving up the Te Mata Peak in Hastings for a 360° view.
Somehow I didn't feel that good travelling with the ladies anymore and was a bit annoyed of them. They are always there for me when I don't feel good and I appreciate that. I'm never alone but that's it...you're never alone and sitting on each other doesn't improve it. Everyone had her own problem, I was worried of finding a Job and a flat. Furthermore I was thinking of leaving them already before flying to Bali (where I meet Kevin and my Family for a couple of weeks :) ) and so I was scared of being alone, still stuck with the shared car... We didn't find a flat and it seems not to work out so it was bothering me even more :( Catherine and Melissa were sticking together 'cause they were the last two people from our group, who stay the longest in Wellington and had to find a certain home. But anyway I said to myself to give it a try in Wellington, I am free and not forced to stay with them.It could also just be just a feeling because everyone is bothered by their own issues and a little grumpy.
So after almost a week of travelling we said: Wellingtoooooon!
We made a stop at the place with the longest place name in the world that had even not it's name on the signs:
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu
Back to the City! Auckland for a Saturday night! Wuhuu :)
Our to do list for Auckland:
- Go out on a Saturday night
- Sell Marina's Car
- Buy a new car
- Pick Mira up
- LEAVE!
We made it all! So after cleaning my car and setting the add everywhere we stayed at a carmarket for a few hours. That was weird! It was full of car dealers and it were only 30 cars. So in the end it was not really worth it to go there. Except of meeting a german girl searching for a car. She was actually not interested in my car but we told her what to care about when buying one and offered her to try driving on the left side, etc.
So after this senseless car market we prepared ourselfes to go out and sat in Bamber with our friends :)
Going out at 10.30 and starting in a gay karoke bar followed by a really good club in ford street and ending up in Code for a bit. At around 5.00 we said we need to go back and get at least an hour of sleep to be ready for the big carmarket on Sunday.
We started the day with a big breakfast and hurried to show the car to friends of that german Girl from yesterday who texted me she might be interested now. We hoped she's gonna take it but it didn't seem like that so we took her to the carmarket with us.
I bought my car for 1700$ and tried to sell it for 2500$ on Saturday. Some started laughing so I've set it down to 2.200$. I had to change tires and paid for carmarkets and adds in the Internet so in the end, I had to pay 200$ extra. I got a few interested people in my car who were quite fine with the price but needed a few days to think about it. Damn it, that doesn't work for me. We had to leave Auckland on the following Tuesday!! So in the end I sold it for 1900$ to the girl. WOW! SOLD IT!
So....that means finding a new car in an hour. Well 10 minutes before closing we made the deal for our new car - a Subaru Legacy from 1997, big trunk, perfect :)
Fu** that was actually a pretty exhausting day. In the evening Mira arrived - the german friend of Melissa who wants to travel with us - the reason to buy a bigger car! She is lovely and we thought straight from the beginning that she fitts perfectly in the group! (never regret to take her with us!)
So Monday, the day we fixed the deals. We transfered my lovely old Nissan Pulsar to the girl and she brought us to the place for our car. We paid for the car but had to change the cam belt (Zahnriemen). Therefore we had to wait 6hours. While waiting in the mall Catherine told us she's afraid that the car dissapeared because the cardealer and the mechanic were friends and probably they've made a deal to fool us. So we all started to be frightened to lose our money. It were 2200$. :/ 5hours later was the point we couldn't wait anymore...so we went back. Pff it was still there! Luckily :)
Tuesday: Bye Bye Auckland - again!
Spice Girls - Wannabe
Proclaimers - 500 Miles
Aerosmith - I don't wanna miss a thing
Yeah! 2weeks vacation! :) Starting our trip from Raglan to Whangarei with a flat tire that we inflated at all the gasstations, we finally arrived in Bamber House for a stop-over.. On a Sunday afternoon with public holiday following we three clever^^ ladies started searching for a mechanic because Stefan told us we can not drive with that, is too dangerous. Yeees, but what to expect?! Nothing's open :/ Well then....Safety Tire!! While Stefan tried to remove the flat tire we put out the doghnut until he started laughing so bad: "It's a fucking joke! :D Ladies it's even more dangerous to drive with that! No you can't do that. :D Just go and inflate it on every petrolstation. Haha that is so bad"
Being pissed, grumpy and hungry we got ready to go up north, drove to inflate our 'lovely tire' and grabbed a pizza. Surprisingly Andrew - the hostelmanager - found a mechanic! It was an Indian guy sitting in his Garage waiting for something to happen... somehow strange BUT he was our hero! In the end it took us 9hrs to arrive at Kim's Couchsurfing place. A lovely girl with lovely friends! We enjoyed being there chatting with them, sleeping at Whale- and Sandy bay and coming home to EAT! :)
Paihia was our next destination: Bay of Islands. Lee should be our next host but nice was something else. He called us boring, we had to drive and pick him up from his pup at night, he woke us everytime, insulted us -especially me and I was afraid of him touching us. Days were nice 'cause we weren't there and enjoyed Bay of Islands. Well...I had enough after two nights and told my mates to escape earlier. So we did That was the first time I didn't have any place to stay for the night.Happy Halloween! Luckily we got a bed ad Lakshay's house, an Indian dentist from Kerikeri who turned out to be amazing. He was so gentle, sitting 'round with us talking, taking us to Mangouni to eat New Zealand's best Fish and Chips, organising a sailing trip for us and making a Bollywood night :D No open wishes! :)
Two níghts later: bye Lakshay, hello Kaitaia and Cape Reinga, the northerest Part of NZ. Ahh I have to add: We were so dissappointed about these towns up there! All the stores and Cafés shut down at 4:30 pm! WTF!
8:30 pm in the Hostel in Kaitaia, we are hungry; driving to the supermarket. CLOSED! :/ Good so let's drive to the petrolstation and get the most expensive toast ever.. Yeii. The Police followed me suddenly :O AAAAAH "What should I do!? Do they follow ME? What NO, I've never been stopped by a Police! Fuck where's my WOF (=TÜV) Ah, Oh no, they mean me, what is wrong? I am not too fast!?!"... So this young, hot officer knocked on my window telling my that my backlights are not working. (What else can be wrong with this shitty old car?!?) We had luck and didn't get anything apart from the feeling to be sooo dumb!
Next day in Cape Reinga was a huge friends-meeting and we felt so good to see them all again. We had to leave them the same day which made us pretty sad...
Well next: Kohukohu Wwoofing. Alec the owner was a nice old man who showed us how to Smash macadamia, gave us good fruit to try and shared his knowledge about birds and history. Sound's pretty nice, yeah. If there weren't These awful campervans we had to sleep in, the outside toilet, the Spiders we are afraid of and this old dirty house coverd in spiderwebs and fungy which reminded of an old shed. Ssscary! There was nothing in Kohukohu, no signal, to wifi-connection no town no nothing. We left earlier as well but eyy: we stayed at least 3 nights.
Escape to Kim in Whangarei, meet Fabi and Dario and enjoy beeing back to civilisation! After two weeks we said that Northland is awesome and beautiful but one way or another it's just too lonely. Closing all at 4:30 and having no people around you is not our thing... at least we had each other and an experience that showed us what we like and what not.
3 tourists in Kawakawa - the Hundertwasser Village
Mermaid Pools check
