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Here's our Misty Mistubishi. She's quite an old lady always thirsty for petrol, but still willing to take us to beautiful places. And she's super comfortable and quite well equipped. We have a comfy double mattress and a warm duvet & blanket, so no more being cold at nights!
Leaving Haka and people we met was pretty sad, as we had a really good time there! But a week in Auckland was enough and we were more than ready to explore New Zealand!
To start with, we headed north towards Ninety Mile Beach. Our first stop was close to Auckland and mainly because of the skatepark! (Chris' old love came back - he got himself second hand board and became a skater boy again! Must admit - he's doing pretty good!)
Anyway, we stopped in some unique places and had a few adventures on our way.
After our first night in the camper, Misty didn't want to start! We thought it's typical - running the battery down and having to be jump started on our first day of driving! But apart from a funny start, we didn't have any problems and Misty has been well behaved (touchwood!).
On the breathtaking Ninety Mile Beach, we stopped in a little, family-run campsite "Utea," where we were given a bucket full of tua-tuas (mussell like shells) - and then were able to enjoy the poshest (and free!) bacpackers' meal ever for the following two days! Yum!
We also found the charming Aroha island, on which we tip-toed around the forest at night time, listening for kiwi birds that inhabited the island. It was one of our favourite places so far - main thing you could hear on that little, family owned island were birds singing! Unfortunately, we didn't spot any of the three kiwis living there, but looking for them was a really fun (and scary at times!) experience! - I couldn't see my own hands and the only source of light was an infra red torch!
On our way, we stopped to see great kauri trees - some of them reach up to 50 metres height! They were indeed really impressive and very difficult to capture on photos! Which means that our pics didn't do them justice at all!
Also, we were very lucky to see Jana (who we met in Haka Lodge) again! All three of us had been planning to go to the Piha beach, so we decided to go together! Jana did wofing (work for accommodation) at Piha surf campsite, and Chris and I loved the area (and the company!) so much, we stayed there three days! We had lots of fun and Chris even spent some time surfing (watching him was actually worse than observing a rugby match, as waves at Piha go crazy!) We couldn't believe we found our "clone couple" from Germany. Similar characters, looks and sense of humour - shame we didn't meet Oliver - Jana's boyfriend who's currently in Australia. Jana - we'll miss you soo much and are already looking forward to meeting you guys in Germany or England!
After having a really great time with Jana, we drove up to Coromandel peninsula and marvelled at the stunning views as we were driving. We found a pretty good deal in one of the "top 10" (in reality, there's loads of them!) kiwi campsites and stayed at the lovely secluded bay absolutely covered in shells.
On the 8th November we had one of the nicest days, as we saw... Hobbiton! Despite our worries about the weather, it was beautiful & sunny, which made Alexander Farm look stunning! The hobbit holes were charming, although it was a real shame they are actually empty inside. - And we enjoyed our drinks in atmospheric Green Dragon pub (ginger beer ♡)!
At the moment, we are on our way south towards Lake Taupo. We had some beautiful weather near Mt Maunganui and finally managed to sunbathe and swim! (After most of our days here beingpretty chilly and windy). We loved that area and the campsite, but it was time to move to smelly Rotorua, where we are at the moment. Not smelly, because we don't like it, but because of the geothermal activity! We visited Kauri park with bubbling mud pools and smelly steam coming from the lake. Chris' lack of smell proved to be lucky in that place! Today (11.11) we are driving towards Taupo and seeing the "Red Forest" on the way.
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