Last month, NZ!
Door: Jeroen Visser
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Jeroen
31 Maart 2018 | Nieuw Zeeland, Auckland
Hello my readers,
It has been a long time since my last post, but I promised to write just one more time. I dont think this will be a long post since I actually did not do a lot in NZ compared to Asia, but nonetheless I want to have my experiences somewhere online before I forget them. I got back on January the 15th
First of all, it was really good to see my sister again! I exclaimed that the air was so fresh at the airport, but what would you expect after spending 2 weeks in HCMC. NZ's summer felt like room temperature, quite nice after the pressing heat of HCMC. Although for the evenings it was cold.
I spend my first couple of days adjusting and hanging out with my sister. After a while I decided to do a small trip by myself before travelling with my sister. She still had some work to do and I couldn't just sit there doing nothing. I got a tip from a friend of mine to visit the bay of islands. And thus I went searching how I could get there. Transportation in Asia was dirtcheap compared to NZ. Eventually I got a ride with some Germans through couchsurfing.
I did some hiking on the first day there, everything was so lush and green compared to Asia. It was quite amazing, but NZ did have more urbanization so everywhere you looked there was some sight of humanity. Next day I went on an boat cruise, which had some amazing views on the surrounding islands. We saw dolphins and a single penguin swimming around. At the end of the cruise we relaxed at an island before going back. That was the first time I tried paddleboarding, which was actually harder than I expected (still not too hard though). The rest of the time at the bay of islands was spent at the beach or walking through the area. Sidenote - water was freaking cold compared to Asia, I missed that at that moment.
My sister was supposed to pick me up and then we'd spent the day going to cape Reinga (upper north spot where 2 oceans meet) but she called me and said she was unexpectedly hungover (yeah right). We ended up going south to Whangarei (Wh is pronounced as a V in Maori) and then spend the night at a hostel. Next day we did 3 hikes, 2 in the city and 1 on the hills at the ocean. The views were beautiful! We also went to a kiwi bird preservation center, where we saw a kiwi! Funny birds, and weird. You cant actually see those birds in the wild for a few reasons, so if you do want to see one you need to go to a preservation center.
We got back in Auckland for Christmas, but silly us, we didn't know that everything would be closed on Christmas. We ended up ordering Indian food instead of cooking a fancy dinner.
Next up we went to Rotorua where we enjoyed a pub crawl and some white water rafting. The rafting included the highest waterfall used in commercial rafting which was a drop of 7m. It was freaking awesome!
We also went to see the thermal wonderland in the area, since the whole area was thermally active, which you could actually see in the city itself. We saw some awesome bubbly lakes of different colors and smells. Almost forgot, the day before we went to somewhere called Kerosene creek. It was a free hot spring. It was 40 degrees but it smelled pretty bad of sulfur and whatnot. It was still nice to be in since it was a cold day (14 degrees).
We went back to Auckland for new years, but ended up going out on the 30th of december and then doing nothing on the 31st. All for the better, all the parties were at least a 90 dollar entry and it would be really busy everywhere that was free entry. Add the crazy all or nothing binge drinking culture to that and it is no fun anymore.
After new years my sister and I went to Raglan to have some surfing lessons. We got there in a nice little house with 8-10 people and went surfing when we got there. We had 2 hours of surfing each day and both managed to stand up on our boards the first lesson. It is not as hard on a 9 foot floaty as you'd think. But, down scaling is where it becomes tough. It takes months of practice on a board before you downscale, and oh I found that out pretty quickly.
The town itself was nice and chill, there was good coffee and we had an amazing house cook. She was a volunteer but chef by profession who wanted to travel the world. Had some amazing meals at the house!
We went back to Auckland and my sister needed to start working again. I was back to searching for things to do. I had already discovered the city with my sister, so I booked myself a trip to the volcano island Rangitoto for a day. The tour was quite nice, day well spend. In the next few days I went to go indoor rock climbing and to another island with a Canadian friend of my sister whom Ive met before whilst going out and a museum. We had an amazing time! Our exploration of the island was nice and chill and ended up doing a beer testing and going clay bird shooting afterwards. It was with laser, but still really awesome to do. I even managed to hit like 50% of the discs =)
I think these were all my adventures of where I went. NZ was beautiful and the people were nice. The binge drinking culture and the prices were a downside, but I'd love to visit it again (then going to the southern island) and drive through it on a motorcycle. I've heard that the southern island is also way more beautiful than the northern island, but I couldnt be bothered to go there anymore. I just wanted to take it easy and spend some time with my sister. 6 months of traveling was also enough for me, in the end I longed for regular social contacts. I did not feel homesick but I wanted to be home and see my friends and enjoy doing something different than being constantly on the move and seeing things. I ended up not appreciating the beauty of which was around me, the whole novelty was gone of it and it feels like more of the same.
It is good to be back home and I had a wonderful time during my travels, it will be an experience I will never forget. Will I ever go back to the countries I have visited? I think only NZ and Thailand, since there is more to see than what I have done there. But first, I need to save up money.
Until my next travels!
It has been a long time since my last post, but I promised to write just one more time. I dont think this will be a long post since I actually did not do a lot in NZ compared to Asia, but nonetheless I want to have my experiences somewhere online before I forget them. I got back on January the 15th
First of all, it was really good to see my sister again! I exclaimed that the air was so fresh at the airport, but what would you expect after spending 2 weeks in HCMC. NZ's summer felt like room temperature, quite nice after the pressing heat of HCMC. Although for the evenings it was cold.
I spend my first couple of days adjusting and hanging out with my sister. After a while I decided to do a small trip by myself before travelling with my sister. She still had some work to do and I couldn't just sit there doing nothing. I got a tip from a friend of mine to visit the bay of islands. And thus I went searching how I could get there. Transportation in Asia was dirtcheap compared to NZ. Eventually I got a ride with some Germans through couchsurfing.
I did some hiking on the first day there, everything was so lush and green compared to Asia. It was quite amazing, but NZ did have more urbanization so everywhere you looked there was some sight of humanity. Next day I went on an boat cruise, which had some amazing views on the surrounding islands. We saw dolphins and a single penguin swimming around. At the end of the cruise we relaxed at an island before going back. That was the first time I tried paddleboarding, which was actually harder than I expected (still not too hard though). The rest of the time at the bay of islands was spent at the beach or walking through the area. Sidenote - water was freaking cold compared to Asia, I missed that at that moment.
My sister was supposed to pick me up and then we'd spent the day going to cape Reinga (upper north spot where 2 oceans meet) but she called me and said she was unexpectedly hungover (yeah right). We ended up going south to Whangarei (Wh is pronounced as a V in Maori) and then spend the night at a hostel. Next day we did 3 hikes, 2 in the city and 1 on the hills at the ocean. The views were beautiful! We also went to a kiwi bird preservation center, where we saw a kiwi! Funny birds, and weird. You cant actually see those birds in the wild for a few reasons, so if you do want to see one you need to go to a preservation center.
We got back in Auckland for Christmas, but silly us, we didn't know that everything would be closed on Christmas. We ended up ordering Indian food instead of cooking a fancy dinner.
Next up we went to Rotorua where we enjoyed a pub crawl and some white water rafting. The rafting included the highest waterfall used in commercial rafting which was a drop of 7m. It was freaking awesome!
We also went to see the thermal wonderland in the area, since the whole area was thermally active, which you could actually see in the city itself. We saw some awesome bubbly lakes of different colors and smells. Almost forgot, the day before we went to somewhere called Kerosene creek. It was a free hot spring. It was 40 degrees but it smelled pretty bad of sulfur and whatnot. It was still nice to be in since it was a cold day (14 degrees).
We went back to Auckland for new years, but ended up going out on the 30th of december and then doing nothing on the 31st. All for the better, all the parties were at least a 90 dollar entry and it would be really busy everywhere that was free entry. Add the crazy all or nothing binge drinking culture to that and it is no fun anymore.
After new years my sister and I went to Raglan to have some surfing lessons. We got there in a nice little house with 8-10 people and went surfing when we got there. We had 2 hours of surfing each day and both managed to stand up on our boards the first lesson. It is not as hard on a 9 foot floaty as you'd think. But, down scaling is where it becomes tough. It takes months of practice on a board before you downscale, and oh I found that out pretty quickly.
The town itself was nice and chill, there was good coffee and we had an amazing house cook. She was a volunteer but chef by profession who wanted to travel the world. Had some amazing meals at the house!
We went back to Auckland and my sister needed to start working again. I was back to searching for things to do. I had already discovered the city with my sister, so I booked myself a trip to the volcano island Rangitoto for a day. The tour was quite nice, day well spend. In the next few days I went to go indoor rock climbing and to another island with a Canadian friend of my sister whom Ive met before whilst going out and a museum. We had an amazing time! Our exploration of the island was nice and chill and ended up doing a beer testing and going clay bird shooting afterwards. It was with laser, but still really awesome to do. I even managed to hit like 50% of the discs =)
I think these were all my adventures of where I went. NZ was beautiful and the people were nice. The binge drinking culture and the prices were a downside, but I'd love to visit it again (then going to the southern island) and drive through it on a motorcycle. I've heard that the southern island is also way more beautiful than the northern island, but I couldnt be bothered to go there anymore. I just wanted to take it easy and spend some time with my sister. 6 months of traveling was also enough for me, in the end I longed for regular social contacts. I did not feel homesick but I wanted to be home and see my friends and enjoy doing something different than being constantly on the move and seeing things. I ended up not appreciating the beauty of which was around me, the whole novelty was gone of it and it feels like more of the same.
It is good to be back home and I had a wonderful time during my travels, it will be an experience I will never forget. Will I ever go back to the countries I have visited? I think only NZ and Thailand, since there is more to see than what I have done there. But first, I need to save up money.
Until my next travels!
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
