All hail the great Alliance!Subway makes good cookies!!!An addition to the What we have leant about ourselves on this trip:3. We have the shortest attentions-spans Ever, EVER! Again this was not something we were unaware of, but the fact that we are traveling on our own really brings this into focus, hence the reason we only stay for a couple of nights at the most in each place.As mentioned in the last blog, we were traveling toward Coromandel, and we even made it through Auckland, and the much feared 8 lane motorway, with only a modicum of screaming on our part. Although we had to stop at a MacDonalds in order to feed Tuz a much needed de-stress Sunday.Once on the other side of said horrible city, we made excellent time and arrived in Coromandel City the same night. We putted about in the city for a little while before we went to our campsite. Apparently they have banned freedom camping in the North Island sometime during the last 8 years, which is a pain, but the very nice fellow at the office at our current campsite in an undisclosed location (just because the author of this blog likes the ring of "an undisclosed location", very Bond/CIA) seems to think it would be to dangerous for a couple of nice girls like us to do freedom camping. Cant see why, but we told him we wouldn't do it, just to spare his poor old heart! Oh well I guess we got a bit sidetracked there for a moment, that's the 3 second attention span in full operational mode for you, now back to the story…So the next day we discovered that there really isn´t all that much to do in Coromandel City, so we decided to drive from Coromandel City to Hot Water Beach on an old gravel road, that was supposed to be very pretty. And it was. On the way there was this lookout point on top of an old volcano, it was a couple of km out of our way, but we decided to go there anyway. However we did not notice when we came to the parking lot, which really wasn't all that much of a parking lot, but more a large flat dirt patch filled with timber. Problem was the road we were on suddenly turned into a dangerous, private road, so there was nothing for us to do, but reverse all the way back down to the "parking lot". Reversing is fairly easy, just not when it is downhill on a small gravel road with nothing on either side but steep drops. So we more or less skidded our way down the hill, almost going over the side of the road a couple of times, it was freaking scary, and we nearly died, died I tell you… But in the end we did not fall over the edge, a testament to Tuzes amazing piloting skills. And as an added bonus Nettie stopped making a really annoying squealing sound. Wuhuu! But we still think they should have put up a sign saying something like "hey stupid this is the parking lot". Anyway after we had climbed Castle Rock, it was more of a climb than a walk. When Kiwis say something is a bit steep, you better bring some rock climbing gear!! We turned back onto the gravel road and continued our trip.Around noon we arrived in the small town of Hahei, more of a vacationing hell than an actual town, and stopped for a "little, easy trek" to Cathedral Cove, one of the most beautiful beaches on the Coromandel peninsular…. It was neither a little nor an easy trek, it took forever and we almost got burned to cinders while we walked, and when we finally made it, the entire beach was filled with people bathing. Nightmare!! So we just quickly stuffed our feet into the frigid water (oh to be back in Cambodia and their lovely boiling beaches!!) and then we made our way back to Hahei. Once we arrived we decided to treat ourselves to an icecream because we really, really deserved one, before we went to a campground near Hot Water Beach. For those of you not familiar with said beach, let me inligten you. There is a lot of volcanic activity in NZ, especially in the north island, and Hot Water Beach is a result of said volcanic activity. Right underneath the sand and ocean there are several thermal, underground springs, and whenever there is low tide, people grab a showel and dig themselves their own little thermal spa. Which was exactly what we did. However the kiwis were still at liberty to run around and do what they pleased, because of an annoying thing known as the summer holidays. So the beach was swarming with people, and before we could dig, we had to fight several large mothers, trample a few kids and break a few elderly peoples hip bones . However we managed to find a spot and after the shortest amount of time, we had a huge pool. It was enormous! Gigantic. But really one should not visit this place without their own personal, fully automatic digging implement, also known as a boyfriend… It will save you a ton of manual labor. But alas we had to do it all by our little selves! Sigh!!After having enjoyed the fruits of OUR labor, we decided it was time to head to Hobbiton. It will come up as Matamata on your atlases , but that is just plane wrong, it is Hobbiton.On our way there we stopped in the small town of Paeroa, not because it is an important place as such, but because there they have built an enormous bottle to commemorate, that this was the town where they first made L&P, an absolutely wile soda with lemon… Seriously its disgusting, but the huge bottle was the coolest thing EVER it was so funny. After having taken a couple of fotos and laughed our asses of, it was back on board the ship/car and of to Hobbiton.The Hobbiton movie set was soo cool!! They were not allowed to keep the houses like they were in the movie, but you were still able to see them, and we have been inside of Bagend, danced across the party field, and we even made a nice little speech under the party tree. It was so awesome!!! We ran around with huge smiles on our faces the entire day… We probably looked a little insane… But since we are insane, I guess its okay!!Next we were off to the coast, and the small town of Te Puke, it is located in the middle of Kiwi Country, and therefore had a huge kiwi statue, and a kiwi orchard were you were driven around in kiwi shaped carts! We went on the tour, it was fun to be driven around in a giant kiwi, but we don't really remember the tour, kiwis are a little boring, and our guide sounded like she was planning to slice her wrist when she got home… Really suicidal and depressed, kinda like Marvin from Hitchikers guide. It was actually pretty funny!!We left Kiwi Country, not really any wiser, but we left, and made our way to the Bay of Plenty, more specifically Whakatane. The plan was to go on a boat trip to White Island, but upon arriving at the I site, we discovered that it was REALLY expensive, so we decided to shrug our shoulders an go f@ck it. We went shopping instead. Found a nice pair of shorts and some good accessories too…. Ah that was a good day. Hmm that was a bit "Kalebs mom has a cat". Oh well. The road continued, however, and so did we all the way to the city of rotten eggs, Rotorua. We spent two days in the foul stink of Rotorua, visiting the buried village,A village that had been buried in an volcanic eruption in the 1800dreds, and then later excavated, and a thermal park called Hells Gate, filled with boiling water and mud pools (Dickael the mudvolcano has grown, you cant look down into him anymore). On the third day we set out from Rotorua and headed to Taupo the city of thrills, stopping on the way at Wai-O-Taupo, another thermal park that featured in the opening credits of Hercules and is the home of one of NZ most famous geysers. Uppon arriving in Taupo, we booked a boat trip out on the lake, to see the modern Maori carvings. It was a nice little trip, and the captain and his crew seemed to like To Gloøjen (or Gloin) our traveling keychain very much. We spend the Night in Taupo, and started the next day with an adrenalin infusion. We spent a small fortune and threw ourselves of a bridge tied to an elastic band! It was fun, and we were totally cool and simply jumped of said bridge in a graceful arch. Ah there is nothing like a 47 meter bungyjump to wake you up in the morning!!And with our spirits high and thankfull to have survived our suicidal jump, we hit the road again and went toward Napier, almost causing a major road accident on the way… Ups, remember to look the right way before crossing a major road!! We arrived in Napier in the afternoon without anymore scrapes or dents than we originally set our with, so no worries. After being lost for about an hour, we managed to find our campsite. We ended up spending two days in Napier, strolling around town to look at the architecture and going to the O´possum museum, and the freaking greatest Star Wars merchandize collection EVER!!! The guy who owned it was so surprised that two girls wanted to see it, so he gave us a nice little guided tour! It was great to get nerdiefied again.The third day we hit the road again, traveling toward the windy city, better known as Wellington. On the way there we stayed the night in Dannevirke, a town full of "real" Vikings with horns on their helmets, and a Scandinavian Club where they tried to spell out Danish words… Funny, almost as great as Chinese signs in English.After an exiting morning in Dannevirke taking pictures of all the authentic Vikings and the different Viking ships, we continued onwards to Wellington, but that will be a story for another time, because the author of this piece of fine literature has now received several warnings from the Association for Hands Rights, about overworking her poor, little, stubby fingers.Now scenes from next episode:Follow Tuzes attempts at hiding from an annoying guy. Trine and Tuz are turned into both stalkers and Elves as they peruse around Wellywood…. All on channel du Travell!!