I have safely escaped the country that tries to kill you at every turn (Australia) and landed in New Zealand a few days ago. I flew to Auckland and to be honest it hasn't impressed me that much yet. It might have to do with the fact that I was dead tired (it's not easy to sleep if you know some one dear to you is in the middle of a cyclone), or that the weather was shitty, or that maybe I wasn't that happy after all to have left Australia, or that I wasn't feeling that well. Take your pick but probably it was a combination of those factors.
After stumbling around for a day in Auckland (it's what I like to do on my first day in an unknown city) I realized that I booked a night to long in the hostel cause I would get picked up on Saturday and not Sunday as I had thought. Picked up by whom? The Stray Bus. Let me explain.
So far (with exception of Tasmania) I have done everything alone on my trip. I planned day by day, booked all the excursions by myself etc etc. For New Zealand I wanted to try something new. There are a few company's here that offer Hop on/Hop off buses. How does it work? Essential you book a tour with them (they have thousands of options) and choose when you want to start it. You will then travel around New Zealand with them. You pay for transport and nothing more. You can stay on the same bus for the whole of your tour or you can hop off where ever you feel like it and stay there for a few days. When you get sick of that place you can hop on again.
The nice thing about this is, that they take you to all the tourist attractions. If I would travel around Australia by a normal intercity bus (like Greyhound for example). I would only get from town to town and then book a tour or find another way to get to the tourist attraction. The other nice thing about this way of traveling is, that you get to meet lots n lots of other people.
I have to admit I haven't really hit it off with the people on this bus. So since I will stay in Raglan (to surf) for a few days and hop on another bus, I have to the chance to meet people I get along with better.
So far it's really good fun. We drove up to Paihia and on the way we looked at a waterfall and famous toilets. No joke. We went to look at toilets! Might have something to do with the fact that they were designed by Hundertwasser! We were supposed to do more but because the weather was bad those parts got canceled. Today we headed up to Cape Reinga. This is the most northerly point of New Zealand. I was surprised to see Tasmania from here. After that we headed to 90 Mile beach to do some dune boarding. Great fun I tell you! Sadly the guy who was supposed to take a picture of me failed. After wards we drove along the beach for a good hour. The perfect end to this nice day was the visit to a famous fish n chips place.
I like the fact that Stray offers you the option to do a lot of different things everyday but you are in no way forced to do anything. I can't wait to see what the next few days bring!
On a side note, my stuff is really starting to show that I have been traveling for 7 months now. My Jeans have holes, My Backpack is slowly falling apart, my headphones stopped working today, my shirts have stains I don't get out. Really feels like I am traveling around the world now haha!
Hope you enjoy the pictures
Haere rā
Found Hemingway's brother. Big brother that is
I had to giggle. Read the small writing on the bottom!
Just to prove they were really designed by Hundertwasser!
Maybe a picture of the inside of the toilet?
We went to see how some stuff was made in the old day.. it involved trees and gum or something, I didn't really pay attention. Loved this old car though!
The far north of New Zealand
This bloody tourist at the far north of New Zealand. See those waves down there? Would have loooooved to surf them!
Dune boarding for dummy's: walk up a steep sanddune for 20min, lie on a boogyboard, slid down the dune. Try not to fall over. Fail and get sand everywhere.
This was our sexy bus for today. Fancy ain't it?
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