So far so good

Finally I have some time to write about my first experiences on this beautiful island.

First of all the jet lag was worse than expected. This combined with the fact that I didn't get much sleep in the plane made my first day in Auckland very strange. I was extremely sleepy and extremely awake at the same time. Fortunately after a few days my body adjusted to the time change. I just hope it won't be that bad when I go back to Europe.

Because of bad weather reports I abandoned my original plan to go to Coromandel and instead headed south. For a few days I was traveling with a nice Polish girl I met on my flight to Auckland who had rented a car. After leaving Auckland we went to the famous glow-worm caves. The light emitted by the worms is as strong as the brightest stars on a clear dark night. The light show is very impressive because at some places there are several hundred worm per square meter. It not really possible to take photos because it's a) forbidden and b) too dim even for my camera :-(

After the caves we went south along the west coast. We stopped at a beach with volcanic black sand. It feels like "normal" sand except it's black. The water was (as expected) very cold so we didn't go swimming. In the evening we arrived at our hostel in New Plymouth where we met an interesting 81 year old Maori woman who used to teach martial arts and is now backpacking across the country.

On Tuesday we drove along the Surfer highway and stopped at the beach in Opunake. The waves were really impressive but we haven't seen a single surfer there because the season hasn't really started yet. In the afternoon we drove to Mount Taranaki which is a huge volcano (not active) in the middle of flat land. Unfortunately the top of the mountain was covered in clouds so we never really saw it whole. At the mountain we did a short hike to the Dawson waterfalls. After that we went to Wellington which we reached in the evening.