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Report No 11

After a few days in and around bubbling Rotorua we decided to head down south again to Lake Taupo to fulfil Alex' dream of being able to go sailing at least once during our whole trip! The wind was going nicely and the weather was okay. 

Luca just woke up and so Alex decided to first go alone on a smallish catamaran. Maybe 150 meters after leaving the wind developed the full energy and the choppy lake showed waves of approx. 1 meters height. It wasn't a problem for him to 'keep cool'. But mostly because the water splashed all over him and the wind chilled everything down. (The Faserpelz and the rain jacket definitely helped not to freeze completely.) In addition, it wasn't easy to make turns with this boat! (Only the back rudder prevented the catamaran from drifting sideways.)

Alex survived already half an hour when, while doing a manoeuvre, the wind just blew the whole catamaran over and Alex and the mast and the sails landed softly in the water. 

There is a special feeling when the cold water runs slowly underneath the raincoat and through the Faserpelz and the boat you were sitting on lies next to you in an ungraceful way. But, as the mast was not yet too deep down in the water, he managed to turn the catamaran up again and 'jump' on it before it went off without him;-)

It's good to know that it's possible to get out of such a situation without help. This experience definitely helped Alex to find the limits of this boat and so he felt more comfortable than before. He soon decided to have a break from the fight against the wind (slow speed direction) and speeded through the water on a high speed direction. Wow, what a feeling!! And as the waves went just about in the same direction, it felt like surfing on the waves! Up the wave it went a bit slower, but once it went down … wow! That was really high speed. He went faster than the waves! 

If one goes faster than the waves, one once reaches the bottom of the wave and the wave goes up again and the boat should go up as well. The problem was, that the thin body of the catamaran (left side) did not go up when the wave went up. Instead it went deep into the water and caused a full STOP! Well, it's called 'nose dive' and Alex did not end softly in the water this time. He flew through the wires and everything and landed abruptly in the water. The catamaran was immediately completely upside down. It was impossible to turn it around. 

It wasn't long before the guy from the rental place came around with a big smile on his face. He saw everything! After a while they turned the catamaran over again and Alex decided not to carry on with such low power resources as he had at that stage. The rental guy pulled the catamaran and (wet) Alex back into the harbour.

Happy to be back and happy with the great experience Alex got rid of the wet clothes and lay in the back of our van for a couple of hours. He was definitely chilled and he only recovered after having lunch.

The original aim was to go sailing with the whole family. That a catamaran is not the right boat was clear. So in the afternoon we decided to rent a proper normal boat and give it a try. After the boat was eventually ready, it had nice big sails and Alex was glad about the fact that the boat does not tipple over! 

The wind was still strong and powerful. This meant that it took two hands or more to handle the boat. Natasha tried to calm Luca down when the boat was skew and gave Alex some rather worried looks when the water came over the skirting-board (Scheuerleiste)! In addition the boat was set up idiotically! On the one hand it was not possible to lift up the rudder (Pinne) while doing an manoeuvre. So Alex constantly went into Natasha's knee or he was in the way of the rudder himself! (--> limited steering possibilities) On the other hand it was necessary to use two hands to fixate the string for the front sail. This means that he had to let the rudder go and let the boat do what ever it wanted to do for fixating that string! – No one was really relaxed and we all were looking forward to go sailing peacefully on the Lake of Zurich with NO wind!

After that adventure we drove north again, stopping at an impressive thermal area; Craters of the Moon. On 14 April we were near Auckland again. As we had to pass through Auckland to visit the northern part of the North Island in any case, we decided to try and sell our blue van and to end our year's trip in a bit more luxury- in a rented camper. We went to the backpacker's car market in Auckland (where we also bought our van) and it didn't look very promising when we arrived. There were many other vans who had been there for 3 days and no one interested. We found a spot there and before we could write a price sign, an English couple came to have a look. We were extremely lucky that our van was what they were looking for. After 2 hrs the van was sold! On the same day we moved into our last "home", a big, comfortable camper with small shower, toilet, kitchen, … We really enjoyed that little bit of luxury for the last 10 days.

We didn't spend more time than necessary in Auckland but headed towards the west coast to the Waitakere Range NP. In this area they filmed "The Piano". We visited some beautiful beaches in Karekare and Piha. Going further up north we cut over to the east coast again staying at some lovely remote camping areas. The weather was also really good to us in this time.

We did notice that people north of Auckland were definitely less friendly, sometimes even arrogant, aggressive and rude. We had 2 bad experiences on our way up north. One in Woolleys Bay north of Whangerei. We were looking for a good spot to spend the night. It was already slowly getting late. Often there were "no camping" signs at public parking places or other nice spots. Eventually we saw a beautiful parking possibility right on the beach with no signs. So we decided to stay there. We were all in bed after 8 and fast asleep when after 10 pm we were abruptly woken up by people banging on our windows, nearly breaking them. We then heard shouts and a car driving off! It was a horrible feeling, and it took a long time for all of us to fall asleep again. 

Our second bad experience was while driving towards the Bay of Islands. As the roads are usually very narrow and windy we often drove aside to let the other cars pass. We did that again and instead of saying thank you (as they always did on the southern island) they showed us their middle finger very clearly! It definitely spoilt our day.

We often took the coastal route along the east coast up north, which meant less traffic and less tourists, but also less possibilities to camp wild.

Around Luca's birthday, 21st April we were in the Bay of Islands. A beautiful area, still quite unspoilt and quiet. We spent Luca's 2nd birthday in Kerikeri. First at a playground, then to Mac Donalds for lunch and then we drove on up north to a great spot on Piapia bay. We decided to speak to the "neighbours" to avoid another nightly surprise and to check if we were allowed to stay there. We met some very friendly people, a Maori and an Australian woman. They said we could stay in that bay and gave us some fresh fish that he had fished earlier. It was delicious! We could often go for quick swims in the sea. Luca enjoyed the beaches (all that sand J ) but was quite scared of the waves. 

On our way towards the northern tip of the northern island, Cape Reinga, we stopped at Matai Bay at a DOC campground. They are usually very basic but nicely situated. In Cape Reinga we enjoyed the stunning views, the good weather and playing around in the dunes at Te Paki. Having reached the top we headed back south to Auckland this time on the eastern side, driving through some impressive kauri forests and camping at the Kai-Iwi lakes north of Dragaville. There we also left Luca's beloved bike. Back in Auckland we got rid of any food we still had, went to fetch our bags at friends and packed everything. 

We left New Zealand, Auckland on Tuesday 26 April at 18:55 feeling both happy and sad. The long flight back home went without complications. Luca was very impressed by the little TVs (completely new for him) on the seats and that kept him happy. We didn't get too much sleep but the time did pass and we eventually arrived in Zürich on 27th April at 16:45 where many friends and family welcomed us back home.

Back in Switzerland

We were very happy to see so many friends and family at the airport welcoming us back home. It took us some days until we were back into our rhythm again, but it didn't hit us hard. We enjoyed some very beautiful hot spring days and spent a lot of time outside. 

Looking back to the beginning of our trip it seems like a very very long time. We experienced and gained a lot! There are not many days we would have liked to miss out on. 

After a year abroad we were all ready and happy to return home to Switzerland. Fully motivated and with 'new batteries' we are ready to enter the last part of our project: starting up again in Switzerland.

5th of June 2005, Chur (Switzerland)