Paihia Travel Blogs | Travelogues | Travel Journals

Just Me Sitting on the coach heading from Auckland to Parahan in the bay of Islands. It strikes me that for the first time on my entire trip (since October 2) I am finally travelling alone. And it feels good. In Rajasthan I was with the Idex project; in Goa I was with Debbie; at home in the UK I was, well at home so it doesn’t count; in LA I was with Rebecca & Milo; In The Cooks I was with Andrew; In New Zealand (1st leg) I was with Anna’s crew; & in Great Barrier I was with Firema…

The highlight of the Bay Of Islands is the fact that there are so many excursions available. You can fly in a helicopter, go for a cruise on a boat, go sailing, kayak or do what we did, swim with dolphins. Well, I say that's what we did - I flapped about in the water, looking for them, but they obviously didn't like me much. There are so many different dolphin watching tour operators to choose from, each with a slightly different product. We wanted one that allowed you to swim with the …

New Zealand... the adrenaline capital of the world as it sometimes is called. Spent this 3 week trip with one of my best college buddies. Zipped around both islands as quickly as we could to see as much as we could. Started in the Bay of Islands of the North Island and finished in the Milford Sound in the South Island after the Milford Track. Everyday a new adventure :)

This year I found a trip to the other side of the world. I choose to travel with Sawadee-reizen. With sawadee you have a lot of time for walking and your not always in a bus. We start with a stop-over in Kuala Lumpur before we are going to the Kiwi's.

So, I've been spending my time .. well, recent time anyway, exploring the great north (the northern spike of new zealand) and hanging out with a few swiss ms'es.. enjoying a spot of good weather and other such things.  Something that definitely strikes odd is the fact that there is a swiss grill and cafe, a couple of swiss themed hotels, one flying a giant swiss flag from their flag pole.  So, I've designated that part of new zealand "little switzerland" with paihia as geneva south.…

Paihia today. Just spent an afternoon walking around and napping. The hostel is average, there are no sheets or doonas, so out comes my sleeping bag. The long walks (5hrs return) sounded good, but I have booked horse riding so I didn’t want to be too exhausted. Tomorrow is the day trip up to Cape Reinga.

It was another early morning today as we made our way all the way to the northern most tip of NZ - Cape Reinga.  It's pretty cool that I've been able to make it pretty much as far north, east and south as you can get in this country.  It was quite a long day on the bus and the guide/driver had a very strange was of speaking.  He was extremely hard to understand as he put his emphasis and intonation in weird places in mid sentence - strange.  He liked telling ve…

travelling pace is speeding up; new continent & plenty of travelling and admin stuff to do :) so im lagging a bit behind with blog entries... i hate when blog and pics are out of sync anyways... met some amazing people over the last few days and it's pretty tough leaving them all behind.. ah well, it has it positive sides as well ;) im currently in paihia, bay of islands up in the north of new zealand... weather fantastic & hot, my face sunburnt and im missing several days of slee…

Finding Victoria. Many countries across the globe have honoured Her Majesty Queen Victoria and the Commonwealth. On my travels I will keep my eye out for various namesakes.

After breakfast Al and I headed out of town to pick up our wheels for the next four weeks and rolled back into town with a dubiously-named 7-seat Toyota Enima. It took some Tetris-style moves to pack in all our crap but we were soon on our way north toward the Bay of Islands.   First major stop on Mam's agenda was a trip to the setting of one of her favourite TV shows, The Lion Man. A short distance from Whangerei we came upon the Zion Wildlife Park, where we were shown around the encl…

An amazing 2 months spent visiting one of the Worlds most scenic, adventurous countries

We left early for the drive to Paihia via Whangarei.  First stop was Kawakawa, an old coal town which is now famous for the "Hundertwasser Toilets"!  The Austrian architect Friedrich Hundertwasser spent his last few years living in Kawakawa and designed these toilets, which are very Gaudi-like in appearance - strange shapes, beautiful colours, tiles, glass bottles in the walls, etc..  We then stopped briefly in Paihia to organise a couple of tours before driving around to the W…

Best trip ever: Worldtrip. With two couples we travelled around the world. Our first stop was Hong Kong: very impressive: East meets West with a lot of English influences. Second stop: New Zealand: most relaxed and natural country in the world: best TIP ever! Go down under! Thirth stop: Pacific dream: Rarotonga. Not that touristic as Fiji or French Polynesia. Made a daytrip to Aitutaki. Forth stop: L.A., USA. Big city. Visited Universal Studios, drove thourgh Beverly Hills. Home

My trip with Adi and Uols around the world. We booked our flights and left without a plan what to do and where to go. See also: http://www.ballofdirt.com/journeys/11721.html

One of my best trips ever, where I met a lot of fun people and made lots of good friends!! And no, not all Germans are anxious to put their towels on the sunbeds first thing in the morning! More Text will follow.... I am not a big writer.....