You keep what you kill

November was full of live music. After the big disappointment with the Arctic Horst Monkeys we went to see the beautiful "The Naked and Famous" the week after and they rocked. But the highlight was still to come. I had to make a short trip to Boston, came back Friday afternoon and went more or less to the "Innen Drinnen Festival" at Astra. Pure Punkrock: Alligatoah, Mach One, and Trailerpark. A very gelungener Abend. Rock'n'Roll, auch wenn die Drecksnazis von der BPJM meinen, sie müssten uns den Spaß verderben. Schaffen sie aber nicht, wenn wir euch treffen auf der Straße, schlagen wir euch tot. Oder so ähnlich. Auf jeden Fall großer Spaß und dann auch noch um kurz nach zehn zu Ende, Balsam für den Jetlag geplagten alten Mann. Die Woche drauf dann zum Abschluss Thees Uhlmann und Band, leider leider im Huxleys. Ich war da nun schon öfters und der Sound ist einfach immer scheiße. Dazu kam, dass Thees wohl auch ziemlich durch war, so richtig ist der Fu...

Um mal einen Songtitel von Peter & the Test Tube Babies leicht abzuwandeln. Irgendwie ist es ja inzwischen ein no-brainer, dass die sogenannte Airport Security nicht dazu dient, böse Menschen am ihrem Tun zu hindern, sondern vielmehr a) Politiker/Behörden Aktionismus verbreiten lässt, indem sie ein "Gefühl der Sicherheit" verbreiten und b) die Hersteller von Geräten und Personaldienstleister reich macht. Obwohl viele darüber fluchen, glauben doch erstaunlich viele Reisende, dass es notwendig ist, diese Kontrollen zu haben, weil sonst Horden von Terroristen die Flughäfen überfallen werden. Besonders Oma Müller mit ihrer Feuchtigkeitscreme, Opa Heinz mit seinem Schuh und Tante Gerda mit ihrer Wasserflasche. Und wenn man froindlich darauf hinweist, dass die ganze Geschichte reine Schikane und Augenwischerei ist, wird man meist doch nicht ernst genommen. Insofern lassen wir jetzt einfach mal Taten sprechen. Hier ein Video, wie man in wenigen Minuten eine Splitterhandgranate...

Na, wer hätte das gedacht. Die Bayern-Menschen sind schon komisch. Einerseits wählen sie seit tausend Jahren ihren Reichskanzler immer von der obersten Amigopartei überhaupt mit SED-Mehrheiten, andererseits zeigen sie dem widerlichen IOC den dicken Finger. Danke, das tat mal Not. Olympia, Fußball-WM usw usw braucht kein Mensch. Korrupte Verbände und Verbandsmenschen, Knebelverträge, die Bürgerfreiheiten einschränken, nutzlose Sportarenen, verwässerte Sportarten mit "TV gerechten" Regeln, ach, ich könnte endlos weitermachen. Oder einfach nur sagen: Fuck the Olympics! Fuck the IOC! Und hoffentlich gelingt es, die Bewerbung für die Sommerspiele in Berlin ebenso schnell totzumachen, bevor dafür Millionen verblasen werden. Obwohl, Mehdorn und Wowereit als Manager-Duo für die 2024er Spiele, das hätte schon was. :evilgrin:

Oder doch? Auf jeden Fall ein lesenswerter Artikel in der Technology Review über die Amazon Geschäftsstrategie (die ich gut finde). Und der Terminus "profitloses Hyperwachstum" klingt auch schick. Amazon hatte seit seiner Gründung genau ein "schwarzes" Geschäftsjahr, das war 1995. Der Konzern investiert in brutalem Umfang so ziemlich alles, was im Jahr verdient wird, sofort wieder in Neuentwicklungen & Optimierungen. Nun wissen wir aus den Hauptsätzen der Thermodynamik, dass es kein perpetuum mobile geben kann und ich glaube, das ist eine der Stellen, wo man Physik auch auf BWL/VWL übertragen darf. Irgendwann crasht das ganze. Die Frage ist nur: wann? Und wer hat bis dahin genug Geld verdient? Angeblich zahlt sich Jeff Bezos ja auch ein eher mickriges Gehalt. Oder ist dann Amazon am Ende auch systemrelevant und muss von mir gerettet werden? Diesen Fragen geht der Artikel leider nicht nach. Mein Fazit: Solange es noch Raum für Wachstum gibt, funktioniert das...

Es war einmal, vor langer, langer Zeit, eine ganz gute Band namens Arctic Monkeys, die vor allem live zu überzeugen wussten. Dann begab es sich, dass ein dunkler Schatten über ihre Insel fiel. Sie wurden von dem Glauben besessen, "anspruchsvollere" Musik mit namhaftem Produzenten machen zu müssen. Seitdem ging es stets bergab mit den Äffchen. Der traurige Tiefpunkt gestern Abend in der Columbiahalle zu bestaunen: Routiniert runtergespielter Gig ohne echte Begeisterung, ein paar ältere Songs, die natürlich weiterhin rocken und viel furchtbares Geschwurbel. Wenn der Affensänger seine Affengitarre weglegt, wird es richtig gefährlich, dann macht er nämlich Bewegung, die aussehen wie eine Tanzperformance spastischer Oiryhthmie Schüler, die gleichzeitig Valium und Koks genommen haben und einen vibrierenden Analplug in sich spüren. Überhaupt Analplug: Finger im Po, Mexiko. Wenn man sich während eines Konzerts wünscht, dass gleich Micky Krause oder Scooter die Bühne stürmen, um einen...

For a couple of years I have been thinking about getting myself one of those tablet devices. For various reasons I never did, and I'm glad. The thing is, the two only advantages I see in a tablet are quick boot/wake-up time and size/weight. The major disadvantage is that I can't really work efficiently without a keyboard. So, I got myself an ultrabook instead. SSD makes wake-up nearly as fast as a tablet (to me the difference is insignificant), the device itself is not much bigger or heavier than a tablet with keyboard (again, to me the difference is insignificant), and it runs a full operating system, has a real keyboard and USB ports. So ultrabook for me it is. If you compare the prices, a tablet with a decent storage, screen, and keyboard is also nearly as expensive as an ultrabook. After all these years, I still haven't seen any real use case except "couch surfing" for most tablets. And I refuse to spend 300+ euros on couch surfing. Wen das außer mir interessi...

I'm really proud and very happy! Received my purple belt from Heiko Schönborn and Christian Kühn two weeks ago at BJJ Akademie Berlin . Thank you to my coaches and training partners and especially to Robert Graalfs for giving me the chance to train more often and in such a nice environment. :-) Peace out.

Am letzten Samstag war ich ziemlich matt und auf Grund der Tatsache, dass Werder ausnahmsweise mal gewonnen hatte, das ausgerechnet noch im "Topspiel", Werder diese Saison sonst auch nichts mehr gewinnen wird usw usw schaute ich mir das Aktuelle Sportstudio im ZDF an. Wie immer grausam, dieses Mal aber besonders schlimm, weil es eine Jubiläumssendung war, man musste nicht nur einen schlimmen Moderator ertragen, sondern gleich mehrere. Die müssen alle sterben. Aber egal. Es begab sich also, dass auch der Kaiser eingeladen war und der Herr Steinbrecher stellte seine Alibifrage zum Thema Doping. Und konfrontierte den feinen Herrn Beckenbauer dann mit Aussagen aus dem Jahre 1977. Und hier muss ich Steinbrecher dann mal loben, bis hierher war das echt gut eingefädelt, Beckenbauer war sichtlich überrascht und verwirrt. Es war schon ein leichter Fremdschämmoment dabei. Dann gab der Kaiser auch noch ausgesucht dumme Antworten und lieferte gleich mehrere Steilvorlagen. (Näheres daz...

Last stop: Kauai. Took me a while to wrap this up since, funny enough, I can no longer use blogger in chrome. Embarassing that google is unable to make their own browser run their own blogging platform. Time to move to a different service I guess. Google has started to suck anyway, after enduring a captcha request everytime I was using the browser search bar I have switched all searches away from Google to Bing. At least they don't bother me with supid captchas. Fuck you google. But I'm digressing. Big time. I actually wanted to write about the part of Hawai'i I liked best: Kauai. Big time. First of all, the Reisebegleitung got to drive a big-ass car which made her very happy. :-) Although we were travelling in the low season, it was impossible to find any accommodation outside of hotels, which I found really strange, but what can you do? On the other hand, the Sheraton hotel in Poipu was giving rooms away on hotwire and so we ended up there. Money well spent, it's ...

Maui. Yeah. After the big disappointment of Big Island, I didn't really have high hopes for Maui. But it actually turned out to be a little bit better than the Big Island. A lot of the same problems apply though: Most of the nice beaches are ruined, the US has raped the land and built their resorts and gold courses. Shocking. Did I say that I despise golf? It's for boring farts only. Lowest level of humanity. I mean, was I was in the Navy, I never met anybody who played golf. That's just not what men do. I'm proud to serve my country whenever and wherever needed, all I ask in return is for the president to issue a law that requires golf players to wear pink skirts, sport bras, and clown masks at all time when on the lawn. Anyway. We spend one night in Lahaina, just for full immersion and to be able to fully appreciate all the great aspects of US culture. Piece of advice: Ignore the western part altogether. Nothing to see, nothing to do. We stayed at the Best Western P...

Endlich ist es vollbracht. Die Saison ist vorbei und die Ära Schaaf ist vorbei. Wer hätte gedacht, dass ich letzteres mal begrüßen würde? Nun, ich hatte es schon ein paar Mal gefordert. Es ist eigentlich ganz einfach. Thomas Schaaf ist ein großer Trainer. Er ist ein Stück Werder. Und wird das auch immer bleiben. Seit 1972 im Verein, als Spieler immer solide, große Erfolge unter Rehagel. Dann Jugendtrainer, Amateurtrainer, Not-Chefcoach, vor dem Abstieg gerettet, die Drecksbayern im Pokalfinale geschlagen, zusammen mit Allofs neue Mannschaft gebaut, geile Spieler geholt und integriert, Meister und Pokal und sechs Mal Champions League in Folge, nochmal Pokal, UEFA-Cup Finale. Geile Zeit. Aber schon zu noch Erfolgszeiten gab es Kritikpunkte - bestimmte Verhaltensmuster konnten nie abgestellt werden und als dann das beinahe schon unglaubliche Glück bei Transfers ausblieb, über Jahre hinweg die Verletzungsseuche Werder begleitete (wohl nicht ganz unverschuldet, seit Schnittker da...

Ach ja - Hr. Kohl ist wieder so generös mit den 4-Buchstaben-Wörtern. So richtig furchtbar war es meistens nicht - irgendein Schätzchen hat sich meist gefunden. Treefrogs sind klitzeklein und übel laut - aber eigentlich angenehmes Hintergrundgeräusch. Berlin kann das schlimmer! Vom 4WD hängt nicht der Erfolg des Urlaubs ab, aber es ist einfach geil, einen zu haben. Neben der Strasse fahren, nur weil man es kann! Manchmal sind es halt die einfachen Dinge im Leben, die den Tag schön machen. Alternative ist der Mustang Convertible - passt der Koffer schlecht rein und für Automessis wie mich ist zu wenig Kramplatz! Bananabread, Papaya, Mango, Bananen, Ananas und ab und an ein dicker Burger; dabei die ganze Zeit schön warm - da kann man schon ganz gut klarkommen... Superschöne Sachen zum anziehen - abseits von Hawaiihemd und Hibiskusbikini - gibt es in Hilo bei Hilo-Surf und AlohaGrown. In diesem Sinne Aloha

Well, well, well. Looking back with a couple of days distance I must say that Hawai'i was underwhelming. It was nice, no doubt about that, bur I certainly won't be going there again and I think there are better places with less hassle and rules and regulations in the world. But anyway, let's try to wrap it up in a post. Flying into Hilo is niiiiice. On a clear day. You get beautiful views of valleys, forests, waterfalls, kinda like a very short scenic flight (provided you have a window seat on the right side of the plane). Domestic flights in HI are relatively easy going: our baggage arrived always very quickly and the car rental companies are just across the exit door from baggage claim. I had pre-booked our cars through NKT Travel and everything worked perfect - we got a good price, good, reliable car, no worries at all, so I can definitely recommend them. You don't really need a 4WD (unless you have a very specific use case planned). We rented a "mid-size...

kauaipoipupoHinterher ist man immer schlauer. If I had known what I know now I would have limited our stay on Big Island to four days and spent more time on Kauai. This is much more "hawaiish", much more to my liking. Gazillions of hiking trails and they are not closed because of "American Angst" or privatization. Nice! I just coined a new term here, "American Angst" and I'm gonna define that in a couple of days when I have  a decent keyboard again. So far, Kauai is the highlight of the trip. Koke'e State Park is great, as is the Waimea Canyon. And if you get up really early you can catch even a few minutes without clouds and rain. :-) Last day is coming up, more canyon hikes tomorrow morning, then a quick drive to the North shore, and then off back home in the evening. Can't wait to get back to work. Now wait a minute, that's entirely untrue. The good thing is, I'll be back Tuesday night, work on Wednesday, and then Thursday and ...

When I fought in Vietnam in the seventies, I really believed in freedom, democracy, and most importantly, our Nation. These days, looking at what our Great Nation has become makes me sad and angry. Lawyers, lawyers, lawyers everywhere, rules and regulations, taking away my freedom. Makes me really angry. Hulk angry. Hulk Smash! Harhar. Well. We finally managed to find a piece of the big island where you were actually allowed to leave your car and hike. Unbelievable, let's hope the lawyers don't find out. Waipi'o Valley, very, very beautiful! Hiking on Maui is a little bit better, Haleakela kicks ass. Looking forward to Kauai tomorrow. Still nearly no beaches though, best beach so far is Baldwin State Park in Paia. No resorts here. :-)

Can you believe it? After one week on Hawaii I have to say: it sucks. The weather is great, the landscape is beautiful in most parts, the fruits taste great, so why am I so pissed off? Well, it's even worse than Germany, everything is totally overregulated, everything is verboten, verboten, verboten because these sick and timid bastards are either worried about the LIABILITIES or are making sure that nobody crosses THEIR LAND. THEIR PROPERTY. No fucking trespassing. That's most important. So you can't hike anywhere. Fucking idiots. Fucking idiots. Fucking idiots. And the nice beaches? Forget it. We have not been able to get to any beach yet. It's all blocked by the ugly mega resorts. Fucking idiots. So we do what all Americans do: drive. Holiday in a fucking car. Get fat and die.

Well, what can  I say. This certainly is as much a sociological study as a vacation. We flew into Hilo on Saturday. Beautiful approach by plane. Baggage was there immediately and we went straight to the rental car counter across the street. If only all airports were so fast and relaxed. :-) I had booked a car through NKT, they got me a very good deal with Alamo, so definitely recommendable. We took off for Volcano Village straight away, a relatively short drive up the mountain. The vegetation is beautiful, as is the landscape most of the time - except for the patches where US civilization got involved. But more of that later. Volcano is tiny and we found very nice accommodation at the volcano Inn. Cheap, clean, in the rainforest. Spot on. Alas, the rainforest is not called rainforest for nothing, the clouds were so low we couldn't see much further than our own hand. So we had an excellent dinner instead at a place called Thai Thai. Really good, really spicy, authentic Thai, hard to...

Had a good night's rest in L.A., a very nice breakfast at the Daily Grill, very good service. :-) Now off to the airport again, two more flights and then we're in Hilo. Can't wait.

Wie ich aus den Nachrichten erfahren habe, nutzen Sie den Terroranschlag in Boston um Werbung in eigener Sache zu machen. Indem Sie mal wieder die Vorratsdatenspeicherung ins Spiel bringen. ich bitte Sie mir zu erläutern, inwiefern die Vorratsdatenspeicherung Sie beim Verhindern oder Aufklären der Terroranschlags auf den Boston Marathon unterstützen kann. Können  Sie nicht? Wundert mich nicht. Nachts ist es nämlich kälter als draußen. Und Sie sind einfach nur ein kleiner mieser deutscher Hinterbänkler. Ich kenne Leute, die würden Sie sogar einen kleinen Drecksfaschisten nennen, aber das würde ich natürlich nie tun. Bitte sterben Sie einfach und verschonen Sie uns mit ihrer "Sicherheitspolitik".  Vielen Dank.

I'm about to check out of my hotel and leave one of the strangest (and sickest) places I've ever been to. Crazy. Can't say I'm sad to leave. Just the opposite. Vegas kinda confirms all the negative stereotypes a European has with regards to the US. And yes, I'm certainly the wrong person for this town. Nevermind, rest in piece, I'm outta here!

Woke up too early but am going to be rewarded with a spectacular sunrise view from my hotel bed. Thank you Westin for the 14th floor east-facing room! Too bad I didn't bring my camera.  Well, I'm only going to be here for a few hours anyway, off to Vegas later today for the MarkLogic Conference, where I will be presenting tomorrow. So finger crossed that my cold is really on the way out. Would you please die, stupid cold? Thank you very much. Have to wait another hour before Flour opens, so time for some blogging. Google really sucks at this, sometimes you can't log in because of "cookie" although they are turned on and I can't post any pictures lately into posts. So I'm probably going to take this elsewhere when I find the time. Hah, that was a good one. Hawaii is coming up fast - 11 days to go until I can finally do some decent helicopter surfing. ;-) Cheers from the East Coast!

In der FAZ war ein Artikel über, Überraschung, Arbeitsbedingungen bei Amazon Deutschland. Ich bin ja grundsätzlich dafür, dass Arbeitnehmerrechte geschützt werden müssen und deshalb eine kritische Berichterstattung auch sinnvoll ist, aber der Artikel war echt zu hart. Da geht eine Studentenmaus drei Wochen (3! Wochen!) arbeiten, wahrscheinlich zum ersten Mal in ihrem Leben was handfestes getan (außer Nägel lackieren) und darf dann die FAZ vollheulen? Natürlich ist im Weihnachtsgeschäft Stress! Und natürlich wird kontrolliert und überwacht. Wo ist das Problem. Und das Essen hat nicht geschmeckt, ja dann kauf dir halt selbst was im Supermarkt was dir besser schmeckt. Ich rege mich nicht weiter auf und beschließe mit zwei Zitaten: Cry baby cry Make your mother sigh She's old enough to know better So cry baby cry Oder auch: "If you can't stand the big chill get out of the freezer."  Schönes Wochenende, wenn Davala noch bei uns spielen würde, könnte Robben schon m...

We spent the last two nights in NZ at Hippo Lodge again, mainly eating and eating and eating. I wholeheartedly recommend Cafe Vudu , especially the baked goods. Yummy. For icecream, Patagonia Chocolates , and for pizza, Hell , as usual. Actually, they do a lot better pizza than most of the fancy and expensive restaurants in town. They also get, in conjunction with Air New Zealand, the award for best marketing campaigns ever. Nuff said. We flew to Melbourne in the morning, I had scored a really really good hotel deal on hotwire, we had a huge top floor apartment with balcony and everything at the Seasons Botanic Gardens , which is located right next to these extremely beautiful Gardens. Couldn't have been better - top hotel for the price of a hostel. Thank you, Internet. Again, I would love to post some pics, but it's still broken. FUCK YOU GOOGLE, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? I do love the Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. I think I fell in love when I first visited in December...

(Note: I would have loved to add some pictures to this post, but Google Blogger seems to be broken.) Yeah. So ZQN then. It's easy to hate this place. It's very much like a mixture of Switzerland and Estes Park, CO. But on the other hand, there's so much great scenery and nature on its doorstep which costs nothing. So I think I found the right approach: Enjoy the views and hikes and beat up a couple of backpackers in town in the evening for fun and exercise. Bloody hippies, they wouldn't even fight back at first, where's the sport in that? Anyway, ZQN brought the first real peak, my good old friend Ben Lomond. I had been up there in late March 2004 - back then ZQN was completely different from today. But the mountain hasn't changed much. Back then, I was with a friend and we basically ran up and down in ca. 3,5 hours altogether. Crazy. Our knees hurt for months afterwards. This time I was smarter (and the Reisebegleitung is very much against running anyway) and...

We enjoyed the sun in chc for three days and had a very nice new year's eve dinner with another German couple staying in the same cottage. Next was Dunedin, as requested by the reisebegleitung. We detoured through Geraldine to have lunch at Cafe Verde again, managed to catch a sunny patch while visiting Moeraki and its beautiful beach with the strange boulders, and arrived at Billy Brown's hostel early afternoon. Couldn't get up the driveway though because the combination of steepness plus bend plus mud was beyond the capabilities of our 2WD rental car. Nevermind, I always enjoy a bit of exercise. :-) What a nice hostel! Definitely a 10 on the hitler scale, towels, views, birds, clean, cosy. Beautiful spot! We wanted to have dinner at the Lebanese cafe we'd enjoyed so much on our last visit to Dunedin, but alas there's now a Thai restaurant in its place and it's crap. Repeat: crap. Don't eat at the Thai place called sth with "chilli" as part of the...

I have just discovered time travel! I'm in the embarrassingly mediocre cx lounge at Melbourne airport. The wifi is slower than my modem connection I had in 1997 and the computer are running IE6! Seriously man, no kidding. I don't fucking believe it, how backwards is that? The food is pretty much non-existent, all in all another reason never to travel cx again. I still haven't received any compensation for the food poisoning or the dysfunctional seat btw. So, again, it's time to say a hearty FUCK YOU Cathay Pacific. You're most welcome to it.

That's one of the many unpublished songs by Joy Division. Never made it onto any of their records. Rumours have it that the singer killed himself after an unfortunate love affair with a british bulldog was discovered by the yellow press. Not the British Bulldog, since homosexuality would have been just fine for the goth community. What's the wrestling world come to anyway? Strictly downhill since the times of Horst Brack der Bestrafer. But I'm not here to write about wrestling, I'm here to fight for the right to love animals!  We picked up the car in Queenstown and immediately left town. I think that's still the best thing you can do about Queenstown - get out of there asap. I was there 9 years ago and the change is frightening. This is Switzerland. Period. Well, there are a few things which are good about ZQN, but more of this later. First, more erratic breaks in the narrative. The east coast north of Whangarei is not called the Pohutukawa Coast for nothing. I...

... dann bin ich durch fuer heute. Let's all sing: FUCK CATHAY PACIFIC! A warning to the general public: Cathay Pacific gives out poisonous food on their flights to passengers and does not even compensate them for their losses and injuries. I searched for words but all I can come up with is:   Fuck you, I hope you all die in a horrible and slow and torturous manner.

Did I rave enough about the Waitakere Ranges and the black sand beaches on Auckland's doorstep? Probably not. Man, it's just a 20 minutes drive from the airport. And so beautiful. you can molest that sheep without anyone knowing. I give it a Hitler Rating of 10. And towels, yeah, there were towels. We flew from AKL to ZQN on a Saturday, unfortunately my navigational system had a slight glitch and we missed the flight by 2 minutes. Damn. Luckily, AirNZ has standby fares and we managed to get on the next flight for relatively little money. Would never work in Germany, you are notified 15 minutes before take-off that you've got a seat (or not) ... but the great thing about NZ is that they have not (yet?) given in to the whole "security" bullshit propaganda. Love. Btw, on the way from Whangarei to Waitakere we detoured through Matakana and I can tell you, it's worth it! Food. Food. And great food. Everywhere. Absolutely worth the few extra k. Speaking of food,...

Der groesste und ekelhafteste Haufen sind aber nicht baertige Sozialarbeiter oder Farmer, die Tiere schaenden, sondern die ollen Pornofussballfunktionaere. Das waere mal ein Ziel fuer Alk-Aida, da wuerde ich mir sogar ein Fanshirt kaufen. Am besten zusammen mit der Innenministerkonferenz. Ich habe definitiv keinen Bock mehr auf die Scheisse. Die Vereine merchandisen sich zu Tode, Mindestverzehrkarten in Stadien, getrennte Blocks fuer "Auswaertsfans", Einlass nur noch mit Fingerabdruck und DNA-Probe. Man wuenscht sich die Zeiten zurueck, als es wirklich noch gekracht hat, noch auf die Fresse gab, die sind aber ja schon lange vorbei ... familienfroindliches Stadion mit Langnese-Fanblock und entsprechenden Preisen hat dafuer gesorgt, die harten Hauer treffen sich seit zwanzig Jahren woanders. Ich muss mir einen anderen Sport suchen, soviel steht fest.

Man, I had recurring nightmares of bearded men with pointy hats fucking sheep for a couple of days. That movie should really be x-rated! Luckily, we had a good time to make up for it. Xmas was a bit of rain and a bit of sun, so no really long tracks, which suited the Reisebegleitung very much, but still fantastic views. We had Whangarei Botanic Gardens, which are in an old quarry site for ourselves on the 25th, we went there when the sun came out after a shower and it was stunningly beautiful. And no four legged creatures to sodomize. Ocean Beach was dramatic, nice waves and nice dunes to run up and down. And not a soul around. To me, Whangarei is one of the most underrated parts of NZ, which is kinda nice since you have a lot of unspoilt, uncrowded places, some of the nicest beachest and walks I've seen ... . We stayed at a very nice B&B, Kauri Villas , great location on Whangarei Heads and great breakfast, I'm still dreaming of Drew's homemade marmal...