HiHo! :)

Still in the Beach Hostel...
I will move on tomorrow or the day after.

I had such a good time here with Nicole, Sabrina, Katie and Gerry (and all the others ;)), so it will be kind of hard to leave and head on, but I still look forward to do the Copland Track (I hope thats works out!), see the glaciers and go over Haast Pass towards Wanaka.
I really hope to meet you down in the south (or whereever) for another time (perhaps some weeks in Dunedin?! ;) )
Another proof of special places - special people!

Thanks for that week, have a lovely trip and cu :)

Here are some impressions of the last days here:

the hostel seen from the beach









Phillip, Matt and Hilke on the beach in front of the hostel




the first stunning sunset @ Punakaiki





















this photo is not faked at all! It really was like that :)








on the left side is the hostel... Is there a better location for a hostel??? ;)
































the famous blowholes of the Pancake Rocks really rock when it's high tide...



















... and look soooooo pretty when the sun is setting ;)







l to r: Nicole, Sabrina, Naomi
thanks for that lovely evening, making the pics possible and the dinner when I came back to hostel at 10 to 10 :)











































I still don't think it's THAT evil... ;)








































chilling on pancakes








































waited several mins till that bird finally made a move... :)

















while waiting for the sun to set finally, the first coffee after 1 week gave me really a hard time... Must have been funny to watch that nervously moving guy standing on top of that rock for no apparent reason ;)











absolutely stunning...



























on the left is the platform you can stand on to look into the blowhole







that was then on the way back to the hostel









it's only a 10min walk back to the hostel from the pancakes
Was in the end bit more than 300 pics up there withing just some hours...




next days we went up the Porarai river (or however it's spelled ;) ) to chill a bit on this rock lying in the river...









...of course not everybody just chilling all the time ;)

btw the water was very chilly aswell :)







some mins along the beach there were those things standing around...






















another stunning sunset
I don't know why everybody tells about the rainy and rough westcoast... We hab 2 rainy days within 1 1/2 weeks and one sunset was more beautiful then the one before :)



your shadow on a pancake (instead of your name on a rice corn) :)






thanks for (almost) not moving for 60secs! :)




















the entrance (or exit whatever you prefer) of the Punakaiki cavern seen from inside...
The glowworms inside were sooo cool :)





... and from outside

Hello out of my tent at the Beach Hostel in Punakaiki, only some mins away from the Pancake Rocks :)

Just added a few pictures of the rounding of Lake Rotoiti and will add more pics I made in the last weeks during the next days.

To have at least some form of cronology in all the pics I put them not on top of the blog, but sorted them in on the 25.11.09 (isn't it easter soon? so it's bit of a pratice for the search for all the eggs and stuff;) )...
Will do the same with the next pics (Nelson, Abel Tas, Golden Bay) and then hopefully it's again up to date here :)

Now both the batteries of my netbook and of myself have come to an end, so I will switch the pc for my pillow (the inflatable one I bought ;) ).

good night and more pics in the next days :)

Hi!

It's so crazy how quick the time is moving on here...

Been quite a while since I updated this page here. Sorry for that. I will put on new stuff as soon as possible :)

As it's just a dial-up modem here in The Innlet Hostel @ Farewell Spit I can't upload any pix, so I try to at least give a rough idea what happend the last weeks ;)

From Motueka (where I could stay some night with a nice Kiwi family) I moved on for the Abel Tas Walk.

Was a bit pity that the first day walking (from Marahau to Bark Bay for those who know the area) was under gray sky with some rain every now and then, but then the 2nd part (up to Totaranui) was absolutely fabulous with sun, blue sky and even more blue ocean in the numourous bays along the way :)
I had planned to go back over the Inland Track, but spontanously decided to stay at the campsite in Totaranui and take the watertaxi back to Marahau on the next day.
Came out that it was a good idea, as the weather was again bad the next day and to have a look at the AbelTas from the waterside is definitely worth the money for the watertaxi.
After all it was a really nice trip (especially the great evening at the fire on the campsite in bark Bay :), but if I had another opportunity to do do it I would take more time for sure...

From Marahau I just moved on to Kaiteriteri for one night and from there went over Takaka Hill to the Rameka Track :)
That was absolutly worth the effort to get on top of the hill and over another baaaad gravel road in mid day heat to Canaan Downs where this lovely single track to Takak starts.
As it was raining the days before, it was in places quite hard to ride over the slippery roots and rocks through the forest with all my luggage on my back.
Nevertheless I loved (almost) every meter... Especially the flowy trail on the Project Rameka part (perhaps 50cms wide all of the time) was just perfect riding :)))))

Stayed in Takaka at the end of the day to have a good start for the last kms out to The Innlet hostel some kms down from the Farewell Spit.

And here I'm still stuck ;)
It's just an amazing place with a postive energy all around that is impossible to describe properly...
Aswell the people here are sooooo lovely. Seems to be that there are always special people at special places...
I came here and wanted to stay for some 3-4 night or so and I kept on prolonging my stay from day to day (in the end it will be a bit more then 4 weeks I stayed here ;).

Perhaps some of you "Innletians" find this here...
All the best wishes to all of you whereever you are!!!
Was (and still is) a fabulous time I was able to spend with you...
Thanks sooooo much for all the chats, the music evenings, the time chilling in the web or on the veranda or the beach or inside or...... and the positive energy!!!!!!! :)

cheers
Gerald

Just a short day today...
Only 30kms to cover between Takaka and the Innlet... I already found the adress of it in my GPS (I'm sooo glad I have that!!! Don't want to miss it here anymore) so it should be quite easy going...
So I started around 12 highnoon directly into the heat. ...and into the wind *damnit!!*
The road was not very interesting and the wind almost blew me off my bike coming from the front once again.
Had a 2nd breakfast after the first kms and decided to use the oppurtunity of travelling not far today and at slow speeds to basically listen to music and just cycle kind of by the way.
And that worked really fine, gladly :)

The only problem was, that the nice GPS I liked so much, didn't really get it that I just wanted to end up in the hostel called the Innlet and not at that waterfilled innlet that is several kms further out in direction of the Farewell Spit *grrrmpf*
So it wasin the end not only 30kms but another 50...

Anyways... I'm glad I made that way! :)


on the way between the booming megacities of Takaka and Collingwood ;)

On the 8th I made the move to Golden Bay over Takaka Hill and a sweet singletrail all the way down to Takaka I heard a lot about already.
Almost everybody did tell me that Takaka Hill would be "a reallt bad one" meaning it would seriously steep and long and and and and just mean.
So I was kind of interested in how it would turn out to be actually ;)
I wanted therefor start in the early morning to avoid the midday heat, but packing the tent and everything together took a bit longer then expected and so I decided not to hurry and had a nice breakfast on the beach before I went off (was round 10 by then) :)
The hill itself was indeed not too bad but by far not that hard as everybody told me, so I got up quite well with a few pauses to put the backpack down...
The view from the top then made the effort worth it :) *good bye Abel Tas - hello Golden Bay*
What I didn't know was that there is some "tiny" bit of gravel road between the top of the hill and Canaan Downs, where the Rameka Track should have his beginning...
Those 2hs on a windy, hilly, gravel road really costed me several litres of sweat as it was by then just 1 nidday and hot as hell.
Was glad to reach the little doc campsite over there and having - after a little snack - this nice singletrail leading through the forest.
It was not completly ridable with my pack, but still great! :)
Especially the Project Rameka part at the end was just a dream being ust as wide as a towel and suuuuper flowy :D
The thought was to go on a bit farther the Takaka, but after I arrived in Takaka I didn't really want to move on much more so I just stayed there for a night in the Barefoot Backpacker.


view over Kaiteriteri










top of Takaka Hill
































working my up that baaaaad gravel road, might look kind of exhausted cause of that...













however it's really beautifull up there (at least when you don't have to be focused on riding up there and start looking around you ;) )


was looking forward to that all day :)









on the upper part of the Rameka (on the lower part it was just too much fun to ride, so I didn't stop for pics ;) )