Entries about bay

When heading from the coast in Half-Moon-Bay towards Los Altos, we passed a nice forest and a very scenic lake. We only realized a bit later that the scenic lake was in fact the San Andreas fault – another reminder that we’re on dangerous grounds – specifically as scientists are warning that the next big earthquake is long overdue for the bay area.
Our first impression of the bay area was extremely positive. We had expected 5pm traffic towards the southern suburbs to be more than just bad, but realized that traffic was flowing nicely for most parts. So we ended up being too early at Hamish and Elis’ place in Los Altos. While we had pre-warned Hamish a couple of months ago that we’d be coming to the bay area, due to lack of reception around Big Sur, we were only able to firm up our plans that morning. So we were lucky that Hamish and Elis were spontaneous enough to receive us on such short notice.
While we enjoyed a nice BBQ and catching up, Max and Venicious enjoyed playing with each other and specifically riding Venicious’ bikes.

They continued playing the full morning and Max did not want to leave his new friend at all. Still, we had plans, as we wanted to see San Francisco. We soon realized that we should rather give up on our original plan to park somewhere downtown and headed towards the waterfront at Fisherman’s Wharf.

After some unexpected excellent food at a street booth, we went for the classic cable car ride We were lucky to be offered half-price day passes from other tourists (which eventually we sold for the same money at the end of our second cable car ride). Max and I sat, while Sam took the classical transportation method standing outside. We all enjoyed the cable car rides and it is simply amazing to see how steep the hills in San Francisco really are.

After getting off at the final station at Powell / Market, we explored Union Square and Chinatown before taking another cable car back to our car. It was fun!

Then it was time to approach the next San Francisco classic: The Golden Gate Bridge. Edging our way along the waterfront towards the bridge, already gave some nice opportunities not only of the bridge, but also of famous Alcatraz.

But we had taken the conscious decision that did not just want to see the bridge, but we also wanted to drive over it. And we’re so happy that we took that decision: to see the bridge up close has just a different feel to it vs. just looking at it.
And best of all: on the north side of the bridge we had the evening light being just perfect and we really enjoyed taking in various viewpoints. To complete the vista, we got to see a couple of container ships and even some whales on both sides of the bridge.

Considering evening traffic, we rather opted for going north and heading out towards Oakland via the Richmond bridge – which also had the nice side benefit that we did not have to pay any bridge tolls – to reach our next campground in Pleasanton.

We spent the next morning in the attempt of getting Sam’s glasses fixed. He had realized that his frame had a crack on one of the two sides – the one that had not been changed a couple of months back in Germany. So we tried to locate a Silhouette retailer and at the second attempt even found one. We soon realized that they were only selling frames, but not able to fix the glasses on site. At least they were able to refer us to another store where we were promised that the new frame could be mounted within a couple of minutes.
Perfect! We went there and the guy was in fact very quick in getting Sam’s old glasses taken apart and the new fame mounted. Except that when mounting the first lens, the lens cracked… He had not realized that Sam’s lenses were high index material, which is significantly more brittle than poly-carbonate. Not good…
At least he had lenses on stock for Sam’s prescription and was able to basically make new lenses and fix them into the new frame – and all of that for 15$. Sam is happy with the result and even though this kept us busy until the early afternoon, we are glad to having done the replacement. After all, a journey like that without the proper kind of glasses would be a big miss. And after all: Yosemite was waiting for us!

After a couple of days in and around Exmouth, it was time to explore the southern part of the world heritage region of Ningaloo Reef. We drove to Coral Bay, a tiny town nestled next to a fabulous beach with a coral reef that is very close to the shore.

At the caravan park, we set up camp and were a bit reluctant to go down to the beach due to the wind. In retrospect, that was a very smart move as we got to meet our camp neighbors Anthony, Max, Cassius (6) and Orson (3). They are on their way from Darwin to circle Australia anti-clockwise for the next year. Eventually, we ended up going to the beach together with them. Before too long, the kids headed off to play with other kids a bit further down the beach, such that their parents were able to sit together and have nice chats. All of us really enjoyed that moment (which was actually more than an hour) of quiet solitude without having to worry and actively entertain the kids.

It was fabulous. Except that Max (Cassius’ and Orson’s mom) told us of her close encounter with a King Brown Snake at Ospey Bay, just a couple of days earlier than when we had been there. Lucky us that we only heard about that now, otherwise I would have probably had second thoughts about the otherwise just perfect camp spot right along the beach.
Given that the kids were so happy playing together and the adults were really enjoying being able to have a proper uninterrupted conversation, we headed down to the local pub ‘Fin’s’ after dinner. The kids had an ice cream, the adults some drinks – life is beautiful!

So just in case you ever wonder why our blog constantly lags about three weeks behind where we are – this is it: we’re simply meeting way too many nice and friendly people along the way. In comparison with the ‘duty’ of keeping a blog up to date, we simply prefer enjoying life. And if that means that a blog entry gets published a day or two or three later than what we targeted, that’s just what it is… I’m not sure if I could do professional blogging when the blogging takes over the actual experiencing of a place, situation and fun evening.
The next morning, our new friends unfortunately had to leave already. As a good-bye breakfast, Sam treated them to his Kaiserschmarrn / ‘scrambled pancakes’, which was well appreciated, not only by them, but also by Max and me.
Once we had said our good-byes, we packed our stuff and headed off to the shark nursery. After a pleasant walk along the beach we arrived at a sand spit creating a sheltered shallow lagoon. And there they were, probably about 30 to 40 small reef sharks. Contrary to some other tourists, we chose not to get into the water and rather observed from the dunes next to the lagoon.

Once we had observed for quite a while, we hiked back and even stumbled upon an enormous dead turtle.

Unfortunately, the walk back seemed much longer and definitively much more unpleasant, as this time we had the wind in our face. And it was not just a light breeze, but really strong wind. According to the weather forecast, it must have been about 40 km/h. It was definitively strong enough to be just a bit unpleasant, which resulted just in the perfect excuse for the boys to head up to the roof top tent to play Lego.
The approaching sunset was eventually convincing Sam that it was time to leave the tent and to head off to take some pictures. Originally, Max and I were supposed to go as well, but as the wind continued to blow as hard as in the afternoon, Max simply refused to go. Which was fine for me.

At least the good news is that all Australian caravan parks have camp kitchens that are not only well equipped for cooking, but usually also have a nice seating arrangement. This was also true for our camp ground. So, Max and I headed to the camp kitchen to have our dinner and to enjoy being sheltered from the wind.
The camp kitchen turned out to be also an excellent meeting place with other campers. There we met Jörn and Ines with their kids Fiona (5) and Fabio (2). They are from Munich using a couple of months of ‘Elternzeit’ / parenting time to travel through Australia.
And we also met Lucia and Guido with their daughter Emia (7) from Switzerland. They were the first family we met, doing a round the world trip like us. Actually, they are traveling the other way around and have been already to Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Mongolia, Borneo, Thailand and Nepal before getting to Australia. They will continue onwards to New Zealand, stay once more in Australia and are still a bit undecided if they should continue via Fiji, Hawaii or somewhere else. Letting the plan develop reminded us of our own style of traveling. With so many commonalities, we found lots of things to talk about. It was simply great.
The next morning, it was an easy decision to prolong our stay for one more night. We headed to the beach and were lucky that in the morning the wind was not as strong yet as in the days before. We went snorkeling and were amazed by the beautiful corals in the bay – nicer than most other places we had seen so far.
In the afternoon, we joined the fish feeding session which is organized three times a week. Even though it was mainly trevallys coming to the feeding, there were some nicely colored parrot fish as well.

That afternoon, I also learned that the strong winds around this time of the year resulted in the nickname ‘Blowember’. And yes, this name fits perfectly. But even though the wind might be unpleasant, in the end it helps to keep the temperatures at bay. Otherwise we might have potentially complained about the heat.
After another nice evening with the other travelers in the camp kitchen and a final get together over breakfast the next morning, it was unfortunately time to say good bye. After more than a week at the Ningaloo Reef, it was time for us to head south.

After learning from Simone about the heavy rain down south, we were easily convinced to rather spend a couple of days on the Banks peninsula before heading south ourselves. When picking the route to our planned campground for the night, I chose a scenic route along the northern coast of the peninsula. When picking the route, I had not realized how mountainous the area would be and how steep the roads were. On the last climb up towards Pidgeon Bay, the road eventually turned to gravel and got even steeper than what we had driven on so far.
When deciding upon the route, I was not quite aware of how hilly Ends in gravel road – too steep vs. what our campervan can manage. And most likely I was still spoiled from the luxury we had in Australia with a 4WD that would take us almost anywhere. Contrary to that our cripple campervan was definitively not laid out for that and before too long started smelling funny. Given the age of the motor and knowing that on a gravel road we’re actually not insured, we turned around. Before heading down though we took some time to enjoy the scenery and the countless sheep in the hills surrounding us. The rain was falling quite heavily by then and even though we could still see down into the bay below us, we could only guess how nice the view might have been on a bright day.
Turning around meant going all the way back along the twists and turns we had come on and sixty kilometers later we found ourselves at the campground in Little River. As it started raining soon after we arrived, we were thankful that we have a camper and not just a tent. And one more thanks was uttered the next morning when the next episode of rain showered us.
At least the rain did not stay for the remainder of the day. Later that morning we were able to explore the nature reserve surrounding the campground. We explored the big swing, the giant mudslide (which is only in operation after heavy rains) and the boardwalks including the movie set for ‘The Stolen’, a 2016 film.

From there we headed to Akaroa. By the time, we got to see the Akaroa harbor below us, the sun was shining brightly and we were treated to a breathtaking scenery. We probably had seen similarly nice views the day before, but the cloudy and dark day did its best to hide the wow effects. We soon spotted a cruise ship in the bay. Since the damages to the Lyttleton harbor in the most recent earthquake, Akaroa is new port of call for cruise ships. And there are lots of good reasons for people to visit Akaroa. For one it’s beautifully located in a bay surrounded by mountains and its French heritage makes for great what if scenarios. What if the French had arrived just a bit earlier before the treaty of Waitangi was signed on February 6th, 1840. Even though the French settlers arrived just a couple of months too late to buy the peninsula or even all of the South Island, they stayed and that’s how Akaroa got the charming French influence from.

As pre-warned by our guidebook, the small town was simply overrun by the cruise passengers. As we neared the jetty, we realized that the ship lying out there was the Celebrity Solstice, which we had seen a couple of days earlier in Sydney Harbor – what a small world!
As the center of town was so crowded, we headed to the outskirts of town to the local skatepark. Located right next to the bay, it was quiet, nice and pretty there. While Max got his exercise needs fixed for the day, we prepared lunch and lazed in the sun.

From Akaroa, we took the scenic drive along Summit Road winding its way along the top of the former volcano that created the peninsula. We had alternating views into the Bay of Akaroa and the Eastern bays along the outside coast of the peninsula. After our failed attempt of yesterday, today we managed to reach the campground at Pidgeon Bay. We got a spot right next to the water, enjoyed the nice weather and the fact that our great spot cost only 10 NZD.

The next day we had to get our old camper all the way back up the hill again. We noted that with two cruiseships lying in the harbour, probably Akaroa was even more crowded today than yesterday. Then we headed down towards Little River. Already two days earlier we had noticed signs advertising the ‘A&P show’ to take place that Saturday. While we had no clue what that meant, we were sure intrigued to find out.

It turned out that ‘A&P’ stands for ‘agriculture and pasture’ – a classical local show for anything related to farming. At first a display of old steam engines caught our eye along with some big construction equipment that fascinated Max. But much more importantly, there were all kind of local competitions taking place: there was horseback riding, dog agility, sheep dogs rounding up sheep, timber sports, and even sheep shearing. In addition the fire brigade offered a demonstration on how to extinguish burning oil including how not to do it, there was a free food tasting and lots of street vendors.

We did not get bored a single minute, as there was continually something going on. And best of all: the locals were simply having fun, betting against each other and showing off what they love doing. Sam even got asked if he was willing to participate in the sheep shearing, as a group of guys needed one more person on their team in order not to lose a bet. Sam kindly declined and watched with the same amusement as us.
Luckily the sun did not burn down as brightly as the day before and even better: it only started raining in the evening once we had arrived at our campsite at the Motukarara racetrack.
Also the next morning was simply wet and consequently we skipped going into Christchurch for the World Buskers Festival as originally planned. We rather rang up Simone and pre-warned her that we’d be heading down to meet them this afternoon.
Driving through the Canterbury Plains to Timaru was a rather boring experience. The heavy rain blocked out the view to the mountains completely and the endless fields lined by tree-high hedges were not able to compensate.

In the afternoon, we arrived in Timaru and we were greeted already outside by Leo and his sister Lilou. Max and Leo disappeared upstairs as soon as we arrived and were not seen for the next two hours. In the meantime, the rest of us enjoyed afternoon tea, had pleasant conversations, played dice and enjoyed the view of the sea. Simone and I even took a walk outside despite the drizzling rain. We were sad to leave that evening, but who knows: maybe we’ll manage to meet in Germany when they’ll visit in 2018.

It was only a short drive to Pleasant Point where we stayed for the night. Despite the rain, Max headed off with some boys to go biking. Sam and I agreed once more that we were happy to have our campervan and being able to sit inside, well protected and comfortable.

Leaving Nelson after five days with Sam’s dad Otmar and his partner Gerti, we were a bit sad. We had enjoyed living in a house and having family around. Now we’d be again on our own living in our campervan.
Driving towards Picton, we knew already that the road was very windy. And indeed, coming from the other direction it was not any better than a week earlier. We stopped for a quick hike to a viewpoint shortly after Havelock. Just to jump your memory: Havelock is the the well-known world capital of green shell mussels, as it boasts at the entrance into town. The view down into the sounds with their crystal clear water was fabulous.

A bit further on we stopped at Aussie Bay for the night. The DoC campground there is beautifully located directly next to the waters of the sound. We were there early enough to pick the prime spot at the very end of the campground. As it got dark, the campground did get extremely full. It seems like the rather cheap places like this one (8$ ppn) seem to be flooded by work and travel people who don’t want to afford the more expensive serviced campgrounds. Most of them travel just in a car in which they sleep – some are just converted vans (mostly the Toyota Previa), some are just station-wagons.

We enjoyed our location next to the water. It was great to relax, read, play in the water and along the beach. As it got night, we were not only treated to a perfect starry night with the milky way shining at us, but also to a glowworm spectacle in the small creek just a couple of meters behind our camper. Nice!
The next morning, we headed out early. For one, we knew already that on the windy road into Picton we’d not be able to average more than 30km/h. In addition, we still wanted to do some shopping in Picton such that we’d have a picnic for the 3.5h ferry ride.

Soon we were waiting in our line to be allowed to enter the ferry. Next to us we realized that there were many more Corvettes for it just to be a coincidence. After enquiring, we found out that there had been over a hundred of them meeting in Nelson for the last weekend.

Once on the ferry, we had a look around. One of us stayed with Max in the kid’s area, the other one of us explored the ferry and enjoyed the views. The sounds themselves were already very beautiful and we considered ourselves very lucky to be doing the ferry crossing on such a nice day. But there was even more to be seen: we got to see dolphins and could watch a lady swimming in the attempt of crossing the 26 km Cook Straight. It seems like a very difficult task taking between 8h and 24h depending on level of fitness and conditions of the sea. And it seems a bit scare: after all one of 6 swimmers gets to see sharks and even though none has been attacked so far.

It turned out that it had been a good decision to install ourselves in the kids' room. Otherwise we might not have met Emere with her kids four-year-old Te Iti Kahurangi and one and a half year old Rongomaiwahine (who fell in love with Max until he started catching her back when she started running away).
From Emere we learned about the Te Matatini Championships, a Maori festival taking place only once every two years. According to our Lonely Planet the Te Matatini is the best place to see ‘kapa haka’ being peformed. Most people just know ‘haka’ as the war dance the NZ All Blacks perform before their rugby games (which they subsequently win most of the time).
In fact kapa haka is encompassing Maori performing arts and includes not only the wardance, but also songs and other dances. Emere did tell us that she was going to the Hastings festival, as it was hosted by her iwi (tribe). She was hoping that she’d see other tribes sing and perform about their relation with her tribe. One of the stories she expected to be picked up by several performers was the story of Rongomaiwahine, an ancestor of Emere’s iwi. Rongomaiwahine was married, but another man named Kahungunu, wanted to have her for himself. Her husband died in strange circumstances and eventually Rongomaiwahine married Kahungunu.
We were intrigued and it was clear that we would definitively want to visit the festival. Emere gave us her phone number and we’d try to meet up once we’d be there.
Eventually our ferry entered the harbor of Wellington. Our ‘Lonely Planet’ was rather sarcastic in regards to the weather in ‘Windy Welly: despite it’s bad reputation Wellington ‘breaks out into blue skies and T-shirt temperatures at least several days a year’. It seems we were more than lucky to be there on exactly one of those days. And indeed: the parliament buildings and the famous 'beehive' looked great.

Despite the beautiful sunshine outside, we could not resist to take a look around the National Museum ‘Te Papa’ with its Maori marae / meeting house. Max enjoyed the interactive kids discovery zone and once we had managed to get him moving again, we all had a look of the harbor from the viewing platform. From up there, we saw people jumping into the water from various springboards.
So we headed outside to have a closer look. The locals were really having fun and it was hard to resist having a dip ourselves. We stuck to watching and soon noticed the many dragon boats with their crews picking up speed while crossing the harbor basin, which looked like fun. While having an icecream we watched how the crews got into their dragon boats and got going – always directed by someone in the stern shouting out the rhythm.

Max soon convinced us that it was time to go to the skate park that he had already noticed just across the road from the Te Papa Museum. He had fun racing against the many other bikers there.

Even though our spot for the night was nothing more than a large parking area, it was great: we were just in the center of town next to the harbor basin.

Also the next morning, Max' first request was to have another go in the skatepark before heading out of Wellington. So that‘s what he did. After Max had biked enough to be tired and taking more breaks than actually riding his bike, we loaded it back into our camper and headed off towards north.
We were amazed how quickly we were able to progress on a real highway. We had not been on a divided highway in ages and were not used to such rapid transport anymore. After a while, the highway transformed into a regular highway, but still featuring passing lanes every couple of kilometers. And best of all: there were hardly any curves. So despite the signs along many roads that ‘NZ roads are different – take more time’, even in NZ there are pockets where you can go fast. We were hardly able to believe it that we had made it all the way to Whanganui for our lunch break – despite the rather late start.
Whanganui was a nice little town next to the river of the same name with lots of historic buildings along its main road. We parked downtown and had lunch. Once again we marveled at the many vintage cars we saw driving around. It seems like that maintaining and driving old cars is a favorite Kiwi pastime.

Eventually, we headed out of town to the Kowhai Park. We have been to many parks and playgrounds so far, but this was one of the most creative and fun playgrounds we’ve seen on our journey so far. It’s hard to tell what Max liked most: the dinosaurs slide, the octopus’ swings, the rocket, the zip line, Humpty Dumpty or the pumpkin house. No wonder, that it took a bit of convincing to continue our journey and not even the promise of seeing some volcanoes this evening did the trick.

We arrived just in time at the Bay of Islands to get a glimpse of its beauty at sunset. We were so keen to finally arrive at our campground that we did not even stop to take a picture. It had been a long day after all.
The campground was really nice, probably one of the best we had been to in New Zealand. Max was happy about the playground, we liked the setting just next to the bay and also appreciated having a reliable wifi connection for a change.
We quickly agreed to stay not just one, but two nights in that nice spot. The next morning, we headed out into the bay in a kayak. Our first destination was just the other side of the bay, where we discovered a small cave and even paddled under a small natural bridge. After that, we headed towards one of the many small islands dotting the bay. That was a perfect place for a break and we enjoyed the quiet place and marveled at the many holiday homes along the hills opposite of our small islands.

The paddling back towards the campground was fun and hot. Even though the waters of the bay looked much more inviting in their turquoise colors, we were glad that the burning sun only came out then and not earlier.
The rest of the day passed very quickly between playing, exploring the bay at low tide, editing and uploading pictures and the blog. And we felt the ‘usual’ effect coming into play: already the last couple of times our activity level decreased significantly in the last couple of days before leaving a country / continent.
There was one more thing we definitively wanted to see before leaving Northland: the big kauri forests. Therefore, we did not take the direct route back south, but headed towards the west coast.
On our way, we stopped at a viewpoint. Not expecting too much, we were very pleasantly surprised about the stunning views of the Tasman Sea, the Hokianga Harbor and the massive sand dunes on the opposite side.

From there it was just a very short (but windy) drive to Waipoua Forest, the home of Tane Mahuta, the largest living kauri tree in the world. It is estimated to be somewhere between 1250 and 2000 years old. Even though kauris don’t get very tall compared to other species of trees (Tane Mahuta is ‘only 51m high’), they grow very big in diameter.

A bit further, we saw some more examples of big kauris, the ‘Four Sisters’ and the ‘Te Matua Ngahere’ which is not as high as Tane Mahuta, but with more than 5 meters diameter even thicker. We love big trees, so the detour to see these massive examples was definitively worth the effort.

We had toyed with the thought to spend our last two nights at a beach on the west coast. In light of the bleak weather forecast which projected two very rainy days, we rather went for a place along the road into Auckland. Even though it was located along our way, that left quite a long drive to get to the northern outskirts of Auckland.
By the time we arrived, it was fairly late and consequently we slept until late the next morning. Luckily, the rain only started in the afternoon, such that Max and Sam were able to enjoy a nice morning at the beach. They were even able to find a buyer for Max’ bike. It’s always great to know there will be a happy next user.
I used the quiet time while they were gone to pack all of our stuff. Considering that we’d now be changing our style of traveling from road tripping in a van to backpacking Asia, there’s a lot of stuff we were able to discard. Given the closeness to Auckland, the campground featured a big ‘for free’ box for people to leave things they don’t need any more and for newcomers to take. And in fact, already by the time we left the next morning, some things like our picnic blanket seemingly had found new owners.
With everything packed up, we were ready to hit the road again. As our plane would be leaving only very late, we had a full day to spend. After running some errands (such as donating some of our not needed stuff at a local hospice shop), we spent some time in downtown Auckland. Given the wet weather, we did not explore too much, but rather spent our time in a nice an cosy café.

While Max got to work off some energy at a playground, we got the van in shape and eventually returned it at the rental agency. We were quite happy that the van had survived the over 6000 km we drove without any incidents, accidents or breakdowns. But still, we could not resist to give the company a full list of defects on the vehicle. Even though the 50 NZD discount we received, seems like a very small token, it shows at least that our complaints were heard.
Their shuttle bus took us swiftly to the airport and before too long we were standing in line at the AirAsia counter to get our boarding passes. With those in our hands, we had a couple of hours to kill before our plane left. As we know Auckland Airport quite well thanks to Jetstar messing up our flights from Rarotonga to Sydney exactly 4 months earlier, we knew our way round very well. We spent our time in the café with the nice view and contemplated on how quickly time is passing.

And then it was time to say good bye to New Zealand and to brace ourselves for the fun awaiting us in South East Asia. As much as we liked our travels so far, we had done enough road tripping. We were very much looking forward to a more adventurous style of traveling and exciting cultures and foods awaiting us.