march 26 - april 11

march 26 sunday+march 27 monday

we both felt slightly ill and very tired. weather was stormy and rainy. so we just stayed inside, reading, writing.

march 28 tuesday

walked a trail called "the snout" probably because it is shaped like the head of a lying dog when you approach in a boat. weather was at least dry but still cold and stormy. went to town afterwards and out for dinner in the local yachting club. nice and quite cheap.


march 29 wednesday

wanted to take the 10h15 ferry to wellington. but due to storm over the sound it was cancelled and we had to wait till 13h15. decided to work on the blog but the local server had broken down... just not our day. arrived at wellington downtown backpackers about 18h and felt tired. stayed in the hostel and spend the evening with a canadian couple who was also cycling.

march 30 thursday

visited the free te papa museum in wellington. sort of everthing about new zealand from science to cultural heritage. very good museum and huge. you could easily spend a week there without being able to see everything. took the comutertrain to parapaumo in the evening and arrived at the beautiful seaside hostel. decided to stay for two nights and tried to figure out what to do with our last ten days in new zealand.

march 31 friday


no more cycling. the prospection of busy highway 1 north not even running along the coast didn't attrackt us too much. booked the bus to hamilton, a hostel there and a bed in raglan for 2 nights (norma, the woman we met at the hang dog camp in tataka recommended raglan and this hostel and she seemed to like the same things i like).

april 1 saturday

our bus driver had worked as a radio speaker before and was very entertaining. told us about a lot of things we passed. arrived in hamilton about 17h and really did nothing more. there was a big rugby game everbody in the hostel went to so we had the whole house to ourselves.

april 2 sunday


woke up to pouring rain. were dropped off at bus terminal and waited for the raglan bus. didn't want to take our bikes cos there was no bike rack on this bus and the driver was afraid to loose his license but he finally did. were welcomed warmly in raglan backpackers hostel by tim and suz. there wasn't much to do cos the pouring rain did not stop. i attended a quite inspiring yoga class in the afternoon and we decided to spend the whole week in raglan.

april 3 monday

weather was beautiful that day. stefan a guy from osnabrueck invited me to kajak. enjoyed gliding through the raglan fjords.

april 4 tuesday - april 9 sunday

it would be quite boring to tell what we did every day in raglan. it is my favorite place in new zealand for many reasons. though a very small village a lot of interesting more alternative people gather there (raglan is said to have the longest left in the world and a lot of surfers stay there, maybe that's the reason).
there's one main street with some cafes, second hand shops, a herbal dispensary and a four square supermarket which has everything in stock from fresh herbs to organic yoghurt... i started yoga seriously. suz is a very good taecher with her own mixture of shihatsu, yoga and other styles (i'll never forget the 'dead possum'!). and i started to feel better and more myself every day.
lots of people stayed in the hostel for more than just one night (hi to the bench boys ;-) and it was just perfect! we were really sad when we left on monday morning and had the feeling that we found a new home there (it is all about people though raglan itself is perfectly located at the coast! i could go for a run every morning barfoot on the beach!!!).

april 10 monday

another travelling day. arrived at the skyway lodge at 11h30. but even though it was pouring rain the friendly owner made us wait outside because check-in was from 13h on and he wasn't ready vacuming yet... well...
packed our stuff, went for a walk in the rain and just waited for the next morning.

april 11 tuesday

which came. arrived at auckland airport, got the tickets re-issued which was another 200€ (f***) and waited there til 16h for our flight to melbourne. had to spent 5 hours there and i wanted to have a cigarette but it was a non-smoking airport. had to go outside but wasn't allowed because i had no visa for australia!! will never travel to this stupid country!
finally flew 9 hours to hongkong, had an interesting hour there and went 12 and a half hours on to london. through cloudless skies we could see mongolia and kasachstan which i found rather interesting and arrived in london around noon. had to wait another two hours there and at last made it to hamburg at 19h. and our luggage was there as well. amazing. felix was already waiting and we hugged for a long time. home again! broke but happy and we are not sure what we will do now but we know that it will definitely be different. travelling changes you a lot and it wasn't the last trip. that's for sure!!!