Anyone who wants to enter New Zealand is well advised to be able to show an onward flight ticket (valid within 90 days). That avoids a lot of trouble, because without this onward ticket the airline will refuse a passenger "boarding". Not knowing this, half an hour before departure in Buenos Aires, our ticket was cancelled. So the cargo door was opened again, the bike boxes and luggage quickly unloaded, and the Air New Zealand plane was already pulling away from the gate. We stand dismayed at the information desk and wonder how we are going to get from Buenos Aires to Auckland.
It's already 01:00, and they are checking whether the airline in Ushuaia that sold us the ticket and handled the check-in made a mistake after all. By now it's already 02:00; Alexandre has pulled out all the stops, and the airline concerned came to see that we are entitled to compensation. Exit, entry and transit papers and stamps are issued at immigration, and we are handed 3 vouchers. 03:00, at a hotel in Buenos Aires: first we sleep it off, to organise our onward flight tomorrow. After this odyssey, we finally landed in Auckland 2 days later and, a first for us, at 06:00 in the morning we put our bikes together at the airport, in a spot provided specially for the purpose, so we could cycle straight to the hotel.
Auckland
Of New Zealand's 4.5 million people, a third live in Auckland. The city is built on a volcanic field of 48 extinct volcanoes. However, many of the former volcanoes have been quarried away to make more room for flat building land. Auckland is often called the "City of Sails". We too strolled along the waterfront by the harbour and "fell in love" with one sailing boat or another. The 328-metre Sky Tower attracts lots of adrenaline junkies with its unique "SkyJump". This special form of base jumping slows the jumper down with a computer-controlled wire. So the jump can be done without risk. Good to know: in New Zealand they drive on the left. This change takes some getting used to for Europeans, both when riding and when crossing the road. We keep catching ourselves checking to the left first to see if the road is clear, or wanting to turn into the wrong lane.
Coromandel
The time of the gold rush on the Coromandel Peninsula, from 1867 - 1872, fascinates us, and in Thames we add an extra day to visit an old mine with a stamper battery (a gold processing plant). Our tour around the Coromandel Peninsula is all about beautiful, sometimes very lonely sandy beaches, winding roads with lots of ups and downs and some hefty climbs, and the gold fever that raged here in the last century.
The tourist highlights are Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove near Hahei. After a walk from Hahei you can admire Cathedral Cove, a special rock formation. Two hours before and after low tide, at Hot Water Beach you can dig a hole in the sand and suddenly hot water pushes through. You can then sit in your own hot spring, but only until the next tide comes in. As it was high tide at the time and we didn't want to wait, we didn't get to enjoy this pleasure.
Waihi
In the middle of the town of Waihi there's a gigantic hole measuring 860 x 400 metres and 250 metres deep. In this mine you can now see the lift shafts and tunnels built between 1882 and 1952, which already reached depths of up to 600 metres around 1900. Every 40 metres (15 levels) there was a lift stop, from which a maze of tunnels, 175 kilometres in total, spread out. On the lowest level, at a temperature of over 50 degrees Celsius, the quartz rock was mined by hand with hammer and chisel by candlelight and carted up to daylight. These working conditions are unimaginable. Life expectancy was correspondingly short, 35 to 40 years. Many workers died of silicosis (black lung) or from the effects of the cyanide process (mercury poisoning). The money was tempting; the miners earned well: a whole dollar for 8 hours of hard work "underground".
The promise of great fortune drew people in, and in no time whole towns sprang up in the mining area. The "old Martha Mine" produced 174 tonnes of gold and 1,193 tonnes of silver from 12,000 tonnes of ore in 70 years of open-cast mining. 15 years ago a house collapsed, because the underground tunnels had come too close to built-up land.
Gold extraction by the cyanide process
Millions of years ago, volcanoes left their lava flows as the ground where Waihi now stands. Thousands of years later, earthquakes tore vertical cracks in the lava veins, and groundwater was able to get in. Under great pressure and high geothermal heat, the water became enriched with dissolved minerals. Important to know: minerals contain gold and silver! As it cooled and the pressure dropped, the sought-after quartz reefs were formed. Erosion brought these gold veins to the surface, and in 1878 two young prospectors, walking over Martha Hill near Waihi, spotted this sparkling rock, and....... gold fever broke out.
Because the gold and silver are bound up in very hard quartz rock, the rock broken out of the tunnels first has to be pulverised. It isn't clear how much gold and silver it contains. What is certain, though, is that nowadays processing a tonne of broken rock pays off if it contains at least one gram of gold. Around 1900, stamper batteries were built that crushed the rock into sand using water power (a water wheel, later a Pelton turbine). Big stamps weighing 600 kilograms each, 1,000 of them in total, made the earth shake non-stop 6 days a week. You could hear the rumbling noise as far away as Auckland (about 70 kilometres). Sunday was a day of rest, but the people couldn't sleep because of the missing noise and longed for Monday to come again!
Next in the gold extraction process, the pulverised material is mixed with flowing water and passed over a Wilfley table, a kind of corrugated shaking table. This separates the light quartz sand from the heavy mineral, gold and silver particles. The quartz sand is dumped on a spoil heap as waste, and the small remainder (gold and silver) goes into a slightly tilted rotating bowl.
By chance an inventor discovered that gold and silver dissolved in water bind to mercury. A brilliant discovery, as it turned out! That's why highly toxic mercury (imported from Italy) is mixed into the brown sauce in the rotating pan. The gold/silver/mercury compound forms a black lump of amalgam on the bottom of the pan. As if from a cheese vat, this amalgam is pulled out of the brew with a piece of leather and wrung out, with bare hands of course! The piece of leather lets liquid, that is, the mercury, seep through and holds back the gold and silver. The contents of the leather are then sealed tight in a crucible and heated; the remaining mercury evaporates and is condensed and collected. What's left in the cooled crucible is a mixture of precious metals, about 30% gold and 70% silver. Melted again, it's cast into bullion bars of 28 kilograms each and sold to the bank for further processing. Around 1988 such a bar was worth a proud 300,000 New Zealand dollars. In 2003 the Martha Mine produced over a million dollars a week and employed 235 workers equipped with the most modern tools. Today, however, the mine has been shut down, because the price of gold has fallen.
Rotorua
Rotorua is the centre of Maori culture and is marketed accordingly. You can admire reconstructed Maori villages, watch warlike dances and melodious singing performances, or take part in a hangi. The traditional Maori meal is cooked underground in a big steam oven. Sweet potatoes, fish and poultry are wrapped in damp cloths and then cooked on hot stones. The Maori were the first inhabitants of New Zealand. Alongside English, Maori is New Zealand's second official language and is taught in schools as an option alongside French, German and Japanese. We visit Te Puia with its geyser, which shoots a fountain of water up to 30 m high 1-2 times an hour. After waiting in vain for 30 minutes for this natural wonder, we go to the Maori show.
In Waiotapu there is an area of 19 km² dotted with hot, bubbling mud pools, steaming coloured lakes and lots of smoking, stinking craters. Wai-O-Tapu ("sacred waters" in the Maori language), the largest thermal area in the volcanic surroundings, is a protected landscape.
About 150,000 years ago the first volcano erupted here; the hydrothermal activity began about 15,000 years ago. The Waiotapu Stream, which flows through the area, picks up the naturally occurring chemicals. Fish can't live in these waters, and depending on the concentration of these chemicals, it isn't advisable for people to bathe here either.
You mustn't leave the made-up path around the park, because outside the marked route the ground can be only a few centimetres thick. The path takes us past smoking craters up to 20 m across and up to 12 m deep. Some of these craters contain boiling springs or show intense green sulphur deposits. Most of them were formed when the pumice deposits underground were dissolved by sulphates and then collapsed. The path leads us to lakes in shades of green, orange or turquoise. The highlight is the Champagne Pool. This lake shows colours from deep blue in the middle to orange at the edges, and yellow on the other side, turning into a milky white. As if from another planet, unreal and beautiful! The colours are caused by various elements and chemical compounds coming up to the surface. Apart from the smell, the colours of the ground are impressive: they come from metals and minerals rising to the surface from deep inside the earth: sulphur (yellow), stibnite and realgar (orange), orpiment (green), iron oxide (red), sulphur and carbon (black), silicon dioxide (white), permanganate (purple).
Great Lake Trail
Lake Taupo, a caldera of 660 square kilometres, was formed by the massive Oruanui eruption 27,000 years ago. In 2014 the breathtaking Great Lake Trail was opened along the shore of Lake Taupo, New Zealand's largest lake. This 71 km mountain bike track through bush and wetlands can be ridden as a standalone route. If you like, a water taxi takes riders and bikes back to one of the four access points. Across the water there's a unique view all the way to the majestic volcanoes of Tongariro National Park.
We chose the W2K track from Whakaipo to Kinloch (13 km) and the K2K from Kinloch via Kawakawa Bay to the Whangamata car park (9.2 km), and back on the asphalt to Kinloch (9.8 km). The whole route, through tight, winding bends with only a few climbs, took 3 hours. It was real fun, and on our touring bikes we felt as much at home as on mountain bikes.
Tongariro Alpine Crossing
New Zealand's most popular one-day hike covers 19.4 kilometres of footpath. The start at Mangatepopo Hut (1,150 metres) and the finish at Ketetahi Hut (750 metres) are in the 80,000-hectare Tongariro National Park. According to the brochure, this is probably the most beautiful and attractive hike; it leads through the Mangatepopo Valley to the saddle between Mount Tongariro and the Ngauruhoe crater. Another climb up to the Red Crater, past the Emerald Lakes, and zigzagging down more than 1,000 steps to the Ketetahi car park.
But this 6-8 hour hike is tough! Sudden changes in the weather with brutal drops in temperature are not unusual. If you set off in 35-degree sunshine, you can very soon find yourself in only 3-5 degrees, in thick banks of cloud with visibility under 30 metres, looking for the trail markers! Our starting point for this crossing was a campsite that was also the base camp. After the heavy rain of the last few days, the weather, and whether the crossing would go ahead at all, seemed uncertain. The forecast showed an improvement, so at 06:45 in the morning we were picked up by the transfer bus and dropped off at 08:30 at the Mangatepopo car park drop-off.
The Kiwis are celebrating Easter, and most shops are closed on Good Friday too. The long weekend and the better weather lured the outdoor enthusiasts out of their houses. We thought that, on the first bus, we would be the first at the starting point. Vehicles were already jammed in the car park, and there was a big crush at the start. Several hundred people equipped with poles and backpacks were standing around or queuing for the toilet huts. According to one source, well over 1,000 hikers covered the 19.4-kilometre route or turned up at the start. To escape the crowds as fast as possible, we set off with long strides in light drizzle. Already after the first small climb, sausage sandwiches and noodles were unpacked and people refuelled by the side of the path. Good for us: the crowd thinned out and the path ahead of us became clearer.
At the foot of Ngauruhoe you could choose to climb the summit as well, at 2,291 metres, or carry on along the crossing to the finish. It stayed overcast and rainy. Sadly, the chance of a look into the Ngauruhoe crater was extremely small. The well-made path led past the Red Crater to the emerald-blue Emerald Lakes and the Central Crater. Lava rocks weighing up to three tonnes, scattered over several kilometres, gave us an idea of the gigantic force of a past volcanic eruption. The smell of sulphur in the air from steaming cracks and vents, and a black gravel surface, were signs of a nearby volcano.
With quick steps we bound down the countless steps into the valley. After 4½ hours we reach the Ketetahi car park, overflowing with vehicles. We had reached the finish much too early, and there was no way back yet. The first shuttle bus to the base camp won't arrive for another 2 hours. The weather forecast proved right: it starts to rain. Other "fast walkers" have turned up and are looking for a lift. Without any fuss, people share out the private cars, so we too reach the campsite shortly after midday. Our leg muscles relax under the hot shower, but we won't escape the aching muscles of the next few days.
Cape Kidnappers
Cape Kidnappers is home to the largest and most spectacular gannet nesting site in the world. More than 10,000 birds raise their young here. With a wingspan of 2 metres and a weight of up to 2 kg, they live here close together in four colonies. Two of these colonies are accessible, and you can get up close. One is at Black Reef at sea level, the second on the plateau above the cape itself. Young birds ready to fly are as big as their parents, but their plumage is grey with white speckles, while the adults have white plumage, black wingtips and a beige head. Gannets dive into the sea from heights of up to 30 m, with their bodies stretched out like arrows. Hitting the water at almost 150 km/h, even fish more than 10 m deep aren't safe from them. The 8-kilometre beach walk to the gannet colonies takes stamina and good fitness. Some sections can't be passed at high tide. You can set off in one direction 3 hours before low tide, and should be back 2 hours before the next high tide. Without stopping or taking photos, you have to reckon with 5 hours for the walk there and back. The time is tight. Again and again tourists are caught by the tide and have to wait on the cape for the next low tide.
The weather was kind to us, and the tide times were right too. We set off at 12:00 midday and reached the first gannets at Black Reef at 15:00. We were thrilled by the larger colony higher up on the cape. An incredible chattering, courtship displays, and take-offs and landings like at an airfield fascinated us. Young birds were doing dry runs at the edge of the cliffs to prepare for their first flight to the coast of Australia, 3,000 kilometres away (film). But you mustn't lose track of time, because the tide is coming in; it's already 17:00! Just before dark, at 19:00, we reached our starting point with dry feet.
Castle Point
Another highlight lies 60 kilometres from Masterton. A few hundred metres off the coast there's a long cliff, crowned by a slender lighthouse. A sandbank links the mainland and the cliff and separates the open bay from a sheltered lagoon. When the Pacific shows its full power, the waves leap unrestrained over the cliffs. The whole spectacle is best watched from the 162-metre Castle Rock at the southern end of the lagoon. The last 200 metres of the path are narrow and steep. On the washed-out clay surface there's a risk of slipping when it rains. Anyone with a head for heights who reaches the highest point is rewarded with a unique view of the sea, the surf, the beach and the lagoon. Chance, or the right moment? We were also able to watch dolphins, circling here in big schools of at least 100 animals. As unexpectedly as this spectacle began, just a few minutes later it was over again.
As at Cape Kidnappers, you should first find out whether the risky areas are accessible. The next high or low tide can be calculated depending on the moon, wind, currents and the shape of the coast. Every rule has its exception! It takes the tide times, which change every day, a trained eye and local knowledge. Misjudging the situation can have life-threatening consequences.
Seals, Kaikoura
Along the coast road before Kaikoura, several hundred fur seals have settled. Females suckling their pups, older ones fighting over the best spot on the rocks, or playing with the waves in the Pacific surf (film). After being hunted almost to extinction for their skins in the last century, they are now a protected species. You could watch the goings-on for hours; but our next highlight is only a few kilometres away.
Whales, Kaikoura
Whale watching, a long-held wish of Claudia's. Kaikoura is known for having sperm whales and other species in South Bay all year round. So it's clear where the "whale watching" has to happen. At 07:15, with the sun already reflecting in the calm sea, we go aboard a motor catamaran. They listen for the whales with a "microphone amplifier". Engines stop! A huge whale shows its back. So as not to disturb the animal, the boat follows it at a distance of 20 metres, close enough to see the size of this mammal (film). After 4 minutes it "arches" its back; these are the last seconds you see of it before it dives. The boat changes course immediately. The skipper has tracked down another animal. Visibly thrilled, everyone on board is beaming from ear to ear. On the way back to the harbour we come across a huge pod of dusky dolphins. They playfully circle the boat. Several hundred! You can hardly decide which fin to follow (film). In their hunting and mating rituals you can watch them making all kinds of leaps out of the water. Dusky dolphins are usually found in pods of 100 - 1,000 animals.
Sperm whale
The sperm whale has the largest brain of any living animal, about 7 times larger than the human brain. The sperm whale is the fourth-largest of its kind. Male sperm whales grow to a length of 15 to 20 metres and dive to depths of 3,000 metres. Their heart, comparable in size to a fully grown elephant, pumps 20,000 tonnes of blood. The brain is the size of a basketball, and at 230 decibels, their "sonar clicks" are louder than the engines of a Boeing 737 at 210 decibels.
Male sperm whales spend the first 8 to 12 years of their lives in tropical waters. The females, sexually mature at 9 years, look after the young for about 2 years, until they can swim safely. When the male becomes sexually mature at 25, it forms its own group and moves to places rich in food, such as off the coast of Kaikoura. Sperm whales are found in all the world's oceans, usually in underwater canyons in waters over 400 metres deep. The Kaikoura Canyon is a source of food for male sperm whales, where a whale eats a total of 1.5 tonnes (3% of its body weight) of food. Its favourite food is squid. Its diet also includes wrasse, ling, tuna, black shark and kingfish.
Akaroa
80 kilometres from Christchurch lies the Akaroa Peninsula. On a 47-foot sailing yacht we take part in a "Wildlife Sailing Cruise". We cast off under engine power and soon after hoisted the sails. In perfect conditions we sail at more than 6 knots through the little fjord, and soon we hear the clicking of Hector's dolphins. This mammal is threatened with extinction. Of the once 225,000 animals, only 2,000 still swim in the waters around New Zealand. We weren't promised too much. The curiosity and fun these dolphins have in what's going on shows in the way they romp in front of the bow and make little leaps alongside the hull. At the helm of the 70-year-old yacht, a wooden boat built to win the Sydney-Hobart race, Alexandre, a former skipper, immediately felt at home. The almost 3 hours on the sailing boat were a varied excursion!
Moeraki Boulders
Between Oamaru and Dunedin are the Moeraki Boulders. These oversized stone balls formed more than 4 million years ago. Like pearls forming in shells, they formed around organic matter. Washed out of the bank onto the beach by the waves of the sea, they are now exposed to decay. The variety of these boulders is especially easy to see in the surf zone at low tide. Although they are "only" stones, the striking patterns of the calcite and the stages of decay of the burst balls fascinated us.
Yellow-eyed penguins
At Katiki Point, near the Moeraki Lighthouse, we visit a yellow-eyed penguin colony. Freely accessible, protected from visitors only by a fence, we can get close to these animals. The "yellow-eyed penguins" return to their sleeping places at dusk and leave them again for the open sea in the morning. At 16:00 we meet the first penguins already crossing the beach on their way home. The sandy ground obviously makes it hard for them to get to their nesting sites higher up in the dense tussock grass (film). Because of the call it makes to greet its partner, it's called "hoiho" (noise shouter) in the Maori language (film). Their upright, human-like walk and their tender greeting ritual make these penguins a popular thing to watch. After an hour, when the last penguin has disappeared behind the bushes, we too return to our lodgings.
Royal albatross
On the Otago Peninsula, reached from Dunedin via "Highcliff Road", we visit the "Royal Albatross Centre". The albatross colony can only be visited on a guided tour. Through the blue-tinted windows we can make out three albatross chicks (white fluffy balls) sitting in their nests. But our high hopes of photographing the fully grown parents, with their 3.5-metre wingspan, coming in to land are not fulfilled. They only show up every 2-4 days to feed their young. The magnificent photos like in the brochure remain wishful thinking.
Below the observation building there is also a coastal defence battery, built in 1885 but never used. The gun emplacement "Fort Taiaroa", with its old cannon and officers' quarters, didn't live up to Alexandre's expectations though.
Blue penguins
As a treat in the evening, you can watch the blue penguins waddling across the sandy beach to their nests. From the lit platform you can take photos without flash. This smallest species of penguin (the little penguin, weighing only 1 kg) only returns to its nest at nightfall and doesn't leave again until the early morning. Because of the special diffuse lighting, it's difficult to photograph these shy little penguins. In one hour we count 4 groups of these cute animals, which suddenly and unexpectedly appear on the beach, huddled together. They hastily scan their surroundings for enemies before running across the sand together. The cry of a goose makes the first group rush back to safety in the sea several times. Once the danger has passed, the penguins trip hurriedly past the platform and disappear into the bank (film).
Annoying: all the photos of the albatross colony and of the few larger birds taken from the observation hide are unusable. The cause is the blue-tinted windows and the reflection of a brightly lit information board. The next day we drive back to the "Albatross Centre" and ask for a second chance to take photos. Generously, Alexandre is given a free private tour and more details about the rearing and behaviour of the protected albatrosses. Sadly, again no sign of the great fliers. The guide's comment: "There are days when you don't see a single animal, or it rains!" A little disappointed, we thank him and leave the building. As if out of nowhere, they were now circling in the sky. Perfect weather and an ideal wind direction now let us "snap" excellent pictures of fully grown birds. Elegant and at high speed, the magnificent fliers glide over our heads. Delighted with this success, we return to Dunedin, where the next highlight is already waiting for us.
Taieri Gorge Railway and Otago Central Rail Trail
A "must see" is surely the station building in Dunedin. Not without reason is it called the most photographed railway station in the world. But it's only really used by the Taieri Gorge Railway. As a feeder to the cycle route from Middlemarch to Clyde, the train can be booked from Dunedin. We decide to ride as far as Pukerangi. The 58 kilometres, at a top speed of 40 km/h, take 2 hours. During the journey you're allowed to go out onto the platforms between the carriages to take photos or just enjoy the landscape. The 2 hours pass quickly, especially as Claudia gets to ride in the locomotive with the driver for the last half-hour. From Pukerangi to Clyde, our bikes are our wheels. After 70 years, the railway was closed in 1990 and turned into a 152-kilometre bike trail for cyclists. The rails, sleepers and ballast were removed and replaced by a rideable dirt path. The route, with gentle climbs and descents, winds through gorges and meadows, mostly far from the highway. The 152 km route from Middlemarch to Clyde can be ridden in 2-5 days. Along the way you come across places to stay and restaurants at regular intervals.
Very good weather let us cover the 150 km in 2 days.
At one stop we are invited by a "sheep farmer" to watch the shearing. 10,000 animals have to have the wool taken off their heads and backsides. Unbelievable how fast the 4 piece-rate shearers work (film).
Pancake Rocks
Like stacked cream slices, the rocks stand on the cliffs at Punakaiki. A circular walk leads along these formations of limestone sediments and clay minerals, formed 30 million years ago. Today it's been pouring for hours. Soaked to the skin, we reach the tourist information centre, where hot coffee and cake await us.
Farewell Spit
In the north of the South Island is the long sand dune of Farewell Spit. You can drive to its very tip in an off-road bus. The tour can only be done with a guide and depends on the tide. When we arrive, the tides don't fit the organisers' daily schedule, and there are no tours for the next 7 days. So this excursion literally "falls into the water". As a worthwhile substitute, Claudia decides to join a "horse ride". A good choice: a private trip! Usually 10 people are signed up, but today only Claudia is on the list. A 2½-hour ride over the higher farmland, with magnificent views of the surrounding bays of the Tasman Sea and Cook Strait. This ride exceeded expectations and was a great experience. As the German saying goes: "the happiness of the earth lies on the backs of horses".
Waitomo Caves
Another "must see" is a visit to a glowworm cave. We decide to join a guided tour in Waitomo. The New Zealand glowworm is different from the firefly we know at home. The NZ glowworms hang in their thousands in caves and, with their glow, fake a night sky to lure in food. Sticky threads hang around the glowworms, and their food gets caught in them. The glowworms are only clearly visible in the dark. With no other light, it's an impressive sight. The cave ceiling shines like the Milky Way. Unbelievable, what nature comes up with.
Trounson Park
In "Northland", the giants of the forests rise up. The well-built road takes us through a thicket of ferns, all kinds of trees and evergreen undergrowth. In Trounson Park we meet our first kauri trees, which only grow in New Zealand and are known for their mighty girth. Because of heavy logging until 1970, these giants are now only found in protected national parks. In the Trounson Kauri Park there's a prepared circular walk for admiring the trunks of the kauri giants – the crowns can't be seen; they hide above the canopy of other trees. The unmanaged forest, with its dense undergrowth, gives shelter to the endangered kiwis. With luck, you can go out on the path at night and look for this shy, flightless bird. On our night walk with a red light, we had no luck meeting a nocturnal animal like a possum or a kiwi. Everything stayed quiet in the darkness of the forest. The next morning we ride on to take a look at the mighty giant "Tane Mahuta" in the "Waipoua Forest". At the incredible age of 1,200 years, 51 metres tall and 14 metres around, it reminds us of our own size and transience.
SheepWorld
New Zealand is the second-largest wool producer in the world. 80 kilometres from Whangarei, we visit "SheepWorld". The farmer proudly presents his 2 sheepdogs, which are trained for their future work from the time they are puppies. The so-called "eye dog" uses its speed and agility to drive and control the flock. It works completely silently and without physical contact. The "huntaway dog" rounds up the flock by barking and physical contact. This is demonstrated to us in a show. The farmer commands his dogs with his whistle or his tone of voice (the words themselves don't matter). At the shearing that follows, the farmer explains how sheep are sorted by sex, age or state of health. To finish, a shearing is demonstrated. The shearer is paid by the piece and, on a good day, manages 700 sheep a day, meaning 45 seconds per sheep.
Whangarei
Our time in New Zealand is coming to an end. For Alexandre, as an experienced sailor, the marina at Whangarei is a must. From wooden, aluminium and steel boats to plastic ones, there's everything to admire. His sailor's heart beats a little faster, and he dreams of "blue-water sailing". The idea of being a boat owner hoisting the sails in a fine breeze could be another adventure. In Auckland, where our journey through New Zealand began two months ago, there's now a lot to do! Over the next few days the bikes have to find their place in cardboard boxes, excess weight has to be sent home by post, and the rest has to be packed ready for the flight within the "free baggage limit". From Auckland via Singapore to Zurich, we fly back to Switzerland. After eight months "on the road", our "Oceania" trek calls us home. A family matter now needs our full attention. This exciting journey has come to an unexpected end, for now.
But every end is the beginning of something new.
