Flying to Auckland.
They are VERY strict with bio security at the border. Even if you have 'dead' natural materials like wood or bamboo, it could still host timy eggs or insects that could DESTROY their ecosystem. I found the picture at this sign pretty funny, dispose your bongo drums and raw chickens here please.
My first Kiwi encounter was Conan on the plane. He just came back from 2 months Japan as well.
Auckland as seen from the road.
Dave, my awesome couchsurfing host.
He has 3 flatmates, 2 cats and enough space to host 99 surfers, he says.
The computer is inside the radio, very cool!
He took us to the northern part of town where he was helping organising a big skate event.
Big strong skater/construction dudes just having a lunchbreak.
Lunch from the back of a car.
The tricky thing about NZ is that it all seems so familiar and similar to Europe, and then suddenly you get fruit offered you have never even heard of before, let alone tasted. This is Feijoa, a mix beteen a citrus and a melon fruit. You could tell me it comes from Mars and I would believe you. It is delicious and really strange.
Another example: you have these lovely english style parks, and then around the corner you bump into a gigantic tropical tree like this.
The Auckland museum on top of a perfect golf-grass hill.
Very big collection of Maori art, and 'cultural performances'.
Of course it is pretty touristic, but still very enjoyable and educational, and you can have a chat with them afterwards.
I learned from this lady that the Maori dances, sports and ceremonies are in fact so popular and alive that they have competitions between different schools, and even non-Maori new zealanders are interested in learning these things.
The tong thing is to scare the enemy, and girls are not allowed to do it. Instead they just widen their eyes which is even scarier.
Going to Davonport with Natalie, just 12 min from Auckland. (because we had only half a day left and didnt know what to do. With just 2,5 day I cant say I've seen New Zealand, but at least I've seen Davonport!)
Our mission was to climb the dramatic Mount Victoria, which towers over the Auckland bay with no less than 81 meters.
Hell yeah. Took us about 10 minutes.
Many things in and around Auckland resemble Lego. The little cute houses are in perfect shape, and the grass and trees all have a sharp and clean appearance. Look at the round bushes and that one weird tree that looks like a christmas tree growing in the wrong direction.
In the background a real vulcano!
Giant frozen coffees.
This is Dave's street, and these are Daves couchsurfers: Stefanie, Natalie and Susi.
And this is a truck delivering real snow to a skatefestival in the middle of Auckland.
This is going to be a snowboard ramp.
These are kiwis in their natural evironment.
Was a lot of fun to see all the little boys trying to imitate the big boys.
There was also a stage where bands with 14year old lead singers tried to impress the audience. (Only one succeeded, all others failed but very amusing to watch nonetheless.)
Again: a completely comforting familiar sight with some bizar, extraterrestial flora in the background.
Couchsurfing gang has BACKSTAGE PASSES yeaah!
After 3 hours patting, shoving, constructing and smoothing things out, the snowboard ramp was almost finished.
It was a great succes in the end. For next year, the organizers are brainstorming on adding an artificial wave machine for surfers!
One my last night in Auckland, Dave's cat decided to use me for a pillow.
12 hours later: CAIRNS! Where 'the rainforest and great barrier reef meet' and people still find it necessary to build a free (!) swimmingpool and imitation beach right next to the ocean.
Awesome.
I'm very happy I caught the elderly and the backpackers in this one picture, sums up the two most important demographic groups of the city.
Of course, the food isnt even getting close to Japan, but still I was pertty impressed with these sandwiches.
The awesome, relaxing, beautiful, cheap, friendly, homely, comfortable hostel called Tropic Days. (I just kept adding more nights because I didn't want to leave)
The rooms were HUGE, there were hammocks and 3 living rooms, and just every inch of the place invited you to take a nap.
Daintree rainforest tour.
Our tourguide Sabine telling fascinating facts about the Strangler Fig, a tree that squeezes other trees to death, and grows from the sky to the ground instead of the other way around.
Included in the tour was a short river cruise on the Daintree river.
Cool to see the mangrove forests so close by.
A Kingfisher near the water, a bit tiny but this was already maximum zoom... still pretty happy with this picture.
Croc in the wild!
Bigger croc in the wild!
Rainforest meets beach, near Cape Tribulation.
Warning for the deadly jellyfish, and yeah the bottom one really says ' Use Vinegar'. Some beaches even have a bottle near the sign for emergencies, it stops the poison or something.
No... sadly this was not my hotel. Just visitiing as part of the tour for lunch. I thought it was built around the trees in a very beautiful way, the building and the forest seem to merge.
It had huge windows on both sides and you could walk straight through it, right to the beach.
Croc boat decoration.
Last part of the tour was a very spectacular walk through different layers of the forest; bottom, middle and higher canopy.
The little one in the left corner is the male!
These are tropical frogs sleeping near the ceiling in the toilet block. I forgot why they are different colour. The guide told us they climb up there every morning, and at night they come down to go out and hunt.
We saw most of these in the wild! Only impossible to photograph, so here are some dead ones in the museum. They are especially proud of the big blue one, Ulysses.
Australian Barbeque Night at the hostel.
That's fish, kangaroo, emu, crocodile, sausage and 3 types of salade.
Afterwards a digeridoo competition that was won by a German dude. When people try to play after just 10 minutes of practise, and it sounds like a wet fart most of the time, and you can sit safely in the audience, it is a hilarious thing to watch.
At night these HUGE bats would go around town, shrieking louder than any traffic or nightlife combined. There were also these flocks of thousands of little birds, who flew not over town but THROUGH it. They would take corners at extreme high speeds, and traffic would have to wait for 10 minutes because they ignored the red light.
James and Franz, the Backgammon Master.
Going on another tour west.
Cruise on Lake Barrine, a vulcanic crater filled only with rainwater.
Very clear water with giant eels and turtles in it, and...
Lazy Pythons!
Another giant Strangler Fig, this one is called 'Curtain Fig'. It's host tree felt down and crashed into a neighbouring tree, and the fig tree just kept sending roots to the ground.
The higher inland is called 'Tableland' and is a very weird mix of smooth perfect grasslands and wild rainforest. The cultivated patches used to be all forest too, but were cut down for farmingland. It is strange to see cows and farms, right next to very wild forests.
Millaa Millaa falls. (and before you start asking for a picture of me swimming under the waterfall, let me tell you that water was the most freezing I've ever encountered, and these people are just mad.)
Lunch near the Mungalli Falls.
The bottom part of this waterfall was just classic; this is the view from the top...
.. and ends down here.
Another very enjoyable canopy walk.
All rainforest.
Prehistoric plants and other deadly flora seen from the top.
Then something really surprising; a Castle in the middle of the jungle, built by a Spanish adventurer in the early 20th century.
Amazing story; he became a milionair through hard work in Australia, then decided to build his dream here singlehandedly with zero building experience.
It had hydro electic power from the waterfall, and he build a picnic area, ballroom, cafe and tennis courts for his guests.
Real shame he used a very poor type of cement, and these days the thing is slowly falling apart, especially after repeated cyclone storms.
He even made a shortcut to one of the more remote gardens by digging a tunnel by hand! He called it the Tunnel of Love..
.. and is nowadays filled with super cute tiny bats!
Pyramid mountain on the way back.
Reef snorkling trip to an uninhabited island.
Well not inhabited by people. it was a bird sanctuary, with a deafening noise all day long.
This is me trying to look cool on the beach and hide the fact that I got reaaally seasick on the way up. Dont' trust the pictures. (and yes there is a bikini underneath.)
Ever since Japan, the peace sign has become a reflex, even underwater! (btw the suit is to protect against the jellyfish, but I forgot to zip up, so pretty stupid. Luckily nobody saw a jellyfish all day.)
Japanese guy singing on the street, with little aboriginal kids on the side. (I miss Japan!)
Then on my last night in Cairns I beat the hell out of everybody at chess.
Next I will be taking the Greyhound bus south, so keep an eye out for the next update!
