My Journey Round The World

In Coromandel, after a short walk around the city where we met Yvon on the road, we finally enjoyed those giant mussels and one of the best carrots cake we had at the UMU café, before heading to Auckland…

Colville… Interesting lost little city on the Coromandel peninsula… In the middle of the mountains we discovered the buddhist Mahamudra centre with a Stupa and a meditation hall! And be aware, in the municipal room you were not allowed to walk with gumboots or stilettos…

Once again I don’t have any words for these breathtaking views… We had great time walking to Cathedral Grove – where Ariane discovered a mussels heart – even under a small rain…

Whangamata… Unusual crowded city as we arrived in the middle of the 10th birthday Beach Hop event!  http://www.thehop.co.nz/ We still don’t really know what is it exactly but it was fun… Our van was perfectly fitting – yes people did look at it and even took pictures even with so many funny cars around!

What to say here… Another nice walk on the beach where we discovered giant as well as mini-mussles before heading to Tairua for an amazing  360° view of the coast. On our way we came accross many old or funny cars before arriving in a really crowded city – unusual for New Zealand! - Whangamata…

Lazy day at the beach… We slept again on a forbidden place, on purpose - this time – as we were too tired to find another space at 2am. It was so nice to have a short walk on the beach under the moon… And what an amasing morning when seeing the sun rising over the ocean… We woke up really early despite our late evening, with no alarm clock needs! Following a nice breakfast facing the beach, we went for a long walk watching the sun going up.

As weather was really nice, we spent nearly the all day on the beach… Like kids: jumping into the waves, playing castanets with shells, writting funny stuff on the sand, trying on Hobbits ears that  Ariane found… and after boiling ourselves in the hot water, we burned ourselves under the sun… Aïe, aïe, aïe… As we say in French, Ariane was “red like a crayfish”!

In the afternoon we found a really nice place to write all our stories in front of Lake Okareka. There were no cats but Ariane was pleased to find plenty of ducks – a new language for her! – and some black swans… No worries, we didn’t eat them even if there were a free bbq provided by the community, we just cooked our corn.

After a good breakfast – luckily we managed to get dressed before a stange group of gardener arrived in the area… we went for a loop walk around the Blue lake where we encounter the National Secondary School Waka Ama Regatta!

In the afternoon weather changed again and as my friend David advice us we went to boil ourself in the hot water surrounding the Thermal Explorer Highway. I mean… Ariane succeeded in burning herself with hot mud, despite the DANGER sign – when I heard her screaming I was a bit scared but too far away to give her a hand… She lost one of her shoes
in the battle and nearly one foot…  After putting some cream on her damage foot, we drove to the absolutely beautiful Waimangu Volcanic Valley – where I would have loved to enter for free when finding out that we could open the closed door, but we didn’t know if we were filmed and when Ariane heard some voices – no cats this time – we decided to carry on on the road, which was already a good reward for Ariane as it looks like her favorite countries: a mix between Ireland, Switzerland and Austria… We even found an amazing place to stay overnight but unfortunatly it was forbidden to camp
So we moved next to Tarawera lake and slept on the lookout between the Blue and Green Lakes to discover in the morning that it was also forbidden to camp… Oups…

Just to show you some nice pictures… Huka Falls where we’ve seen some nice mushrooms – as the one you see in Disney moovies – and the Craters of the moon where we could have stay for ages as it was so warm… I have to say there were more security rules than the geysers I’ve seen in Bolivia!