Kia Ora in Aotearoa

On our last day in Melbourne the weather was rather clowdy so we adjusted our program and went to the cinema (the tourist) and did some shopping. Than we had to pack and prepare to leave Australia... We were glad to get to a new place after this long time in this country but of course we had also some little tears in our eyes for leaving it and for saying goodbye to Oli's parents with whom we really had a awesome time in Melbourne.

We left extremely early to take our plane which left at 8:10 am. We therefore arrived a little tired. But we fell immediately in love with this wonderful country. And as we gather more impressions it seems to be getting better and better. People are really friendly and helpful, everything (but the fuel for our camper) seems to be slightly cheaper and the weather is so far definitively better!

We slept one night in the Oaks Apartement Hotel with which we had already made good experiences in Brisbane.

The view from our balcony (the Sky Tower)

When we picked up our Wickedcamper today we were pleasently suprised with a much newer model than we had in Australia. It was fresh painted and really clean inside :-) (Oli even likes the painting).

written on the back: "Back off! I know Kung Fu, Karate and several other Japanese words!"

We drove all the way up to the Bay of Islands and found a nice caravanpark in Paihia just at the beach (with free wifi).

On our way up we stopped at Bream Bay where in 2006 during two days over 100 whales stranded 54 of them died. We walked on the beach to the whale graveyard and visited the small memorial.

A beautiful beach that can easily compete with the Australian ones.

We also saw the Hikurangi Limestones Reseve. There were astonishing rock formations that were created by erosion.

Where is Oli ?

After dinner we went to the Hundertwasser toilets in Kawakawa. This is the only work of Hundertwasser on the southern hemisphere.

Tomorrow we are heading further north to the Ninety Mile Beach.

P.S. we now have 12 hours time difference. Easy to calculate...

P.P.S. If you are still looking for Oli in the picture we can relieve you. He is not on it. (This was just an evil joke by Flo :-D)