Hi everybody!
Just a short message and some pix of the last days :)

Moved by Overlander train from Akl to Wellington.
Was a beautiful journey of 12h through Tongariro national park with great surroundings.
Tomorrow I'm "already" leaving for Picton and the Queen Charlotte - finally!
Wellington really was a nice place and I'm looking forward to stay here for a while on the way upwards again!!

Now I will just upload some photos I took during the last days in Akl, on the way down here and on the 1st "real" MTB daytrip...

Will try to comment a bit on them the next days.

So far everything is quite good :)

greets

Good evening world!

Try nr. xxxx to pay the woodhills bikepark a visit...
Weather was perfect, no labour days, went to bed (quite) early the night before, got up (quite) early...
But no trains out there on weekends :(
As it's around 40km on way, there's no way to just go there by bike when a full day of bike park is planned.
So I bought a ticket for the ferry over to Devonport and biked all the way to North Head.
Visited Petra during her work on the way and some nice Weisswuerscht mit Brezel :)
Should have been like 50km to go with a lot of little hills to be climbed every where and a lot of wind from the wrong side on my way back to Akl...
So in the end I'm now pretty done ;)

After my first Rugby game on big screen with some explanations about the rules I at least understand the basics of the biggest sport here :)
Every single football/soccer player would be crying with the 1st 2mins....

Tomorrow perhaps a 2nd visit to a cool climbing hall I found with Martin.
http://www.extremeedge.co.nz/
It's really big one with loads of different routes to do.
Was pretty cool last time (although we both didn't do too good)!

MTB trip to Rotorua and napier will have to wait till the 2nd part of my journey here, as it's just not possible to get there without a car. No train at all and buses just incl several tours and for that not very cheap.
So I might just hop on the Overlander train to Wellington on Fr or Sat.
Then some of Wellington trails and by ferry over to Picton.

Looking so forward to get over to the south island, doing Queen Charlotte etc!!!!! :)
Weather is now stable enough that it doesn't rain every single day, so nothing can go wrong :)

so much for the moment...

cheers

Martin and me had to wait quite a while till a car came by in the right direction, to be photographed with the right camera settings

there always a new perspective every now and then... :)

Train station of Akl at night


"let's do some pics by night..."
left the house at 10 pm, returned after "some pics" on 2am ;)

some nice sound...

Hi!

Some 2 days ago I managed it to get the concert of Edward Gains up on Youtube.
It's in 2 parts and almost the whole thing...
Video Quality is really bad I realized, but the sound is quite good indeed. Special thanks to my moble and the chiney I could put it on ;)

Numero 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD_7aYxiqEY
Numero 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2CAegr5GpU

I want to upload the following concert of Nick Oliveri as well, but first have to split the whole thing in nice little parts, which not done yet...

Will announce it here when I finally made it :)

greets

good bye Piha ;)

A local walked up to me and said: "you gotta make some pictures through your sunglasses... some pros told me to do so!" "Ok! I'll check it out..."


Now I gotta get myself some nice polarized glasses that are bigger than the one I have with me!
That saves me the 200$ for the polarize filter I was already thinking about... :)

nothing to say about...
just really like it in b/w

Martin taking photos

Martin & Petra walking along the beach

... and to the right...

view from Lion Rock to the left...

"the back of the lion"

Lion Rock (from the other side its a bit more visible where the name comes from)

Petra is always happy to be in the photo somewhere... ;)

beautiful scenery down there and great weather...
That's how it should be! :)

first view down to Piha...
seems to be quite a nice place to visit for a daytrip ;)

Just as a example...
Could have taken photos of nearly any house there ;)

Way back from Ponsonby to K'road
Such beautiful little houses there...

next to il buco

conch (?) - vinyl <> coffee

such a great concept to mix those 2 things!

il buco Ponsonby


will come back next days for sure! :)

best pizza so far!!!!! gotta go there again... :)

Coffee & Pizza @ il buco in Ponsonby was sooooo great :)

Plan was to get up early, organize some stuff and.......
Of course reality and plan were not really matching with each other that well ;)
But after coffee and free muffing at 1pm ;-) Petra and me decided to check out the zoo.
With the actual weather here that seemed to be the perfect thing to do...

Don't know if there is a word like "October weather" here - corresponding to Aprilwetter :-) - but that would match perfectly!!
You look out of the window, see it's pouring with rain and just miserable, get dressed for rain and cold, get outside 5 mins later and realize that it's changed into a perfect sunny, warm early summer day. Or other way round of course... ;-)

As the zoo - like almost everything else - closes at 5.30pm, we decided to get out @ K' Road and search for a nice cafe (weather turned into nice warm.... see above ;-) )
Turned out to be a perfect idea, as we found a great music/coffee store aside a great pizza/coffee store :-)
I hope the pics get you at least some impression how nice it was ;)
The walk back through nice looking streets and houses was nice as well, so summed up for another typical Akl day :)
Nothing special planned, but at the end another perfect day :)

There's quite a lot to do in and around Auckland.

Been to the Death Acoustic Tour of Nick Oliveri on the 13th with Petra which was absolutely great.
Edward Gains played first and that guy,too was just fantastic!
Haven't seen anybody rocking a "normal" acoustic guitar like those two...
Location in a pub a bit outside of the city center was perfect as well, especially the chimney inside it, where I could easily place my mobile for capturing the whole (!) concert :)
I will try to upload it to youtube or so but have to work if it's possible, as it is like 200mbs...

On the 17th Terror were playing a gig at a cool little club located only a 5min walk from the flat.
Seen them already 3 times, but the 4th was the best so far. Just soooo much energy during the concert...

Next days I'd like to have a look at Piha (another beautiful spot in short distance to Akl central).
Or perhaps do a skydive?!? ;)

It has to be all spontaneous activities as the weather is changing far more often then in april... So I decide when I get up what there is to do.


Will get some some sleep now...
Who knows what there is to do tomorrow ;)

so long