You keep what you kill

We arrived at the right time, on (Chinese) New Year's Eve. That meant some of the eatery choices were a bit limited, but even on a day like this Singapore has to offer so much ... . So, we had a supernice breakfast at "Plentyfull" (Millenia Walk) and then another great lunch at "Sufood" (Raffles Mall Foodcourt, Level 2). I'd never even heard of Lion's Mane Mushrooms before, but it was quite exquisite together with the black pepper sauce. Second dessert downstairs at "The Coffee Academics", really nice decaf coffee and poppy seed cake. Yummy. Apart from that, the whole town just went crazy, we headed to Chinatown in the late afternoon/evening. It's the year of the dog and there was lampions and dog thingies everywhere, night markets, party, parade. Nice. Outside of Chinatown it was comparatively quiet, so nice, unobstructed view of the (relatively) old Fire Brigade building for example. We stayed at the Fairmont hotel, which was a wise dec...

I've already fallen behind again, but rest assured, you haven't missed too much. After four very nice days in Ohope, we drove across the Island to spend our last night in Piha. I still remember very fondly the beach and the waves I was enjoying a few years ago together with my faithful Harald, his sleek and slender body carrying me across the surf at high speed. 😁 Well, anyway. Unfortunately, the night was short for me, not a single minute of sleep, since the room was infested by super aggressive mozzies. Bathroom as well. I killed many, but couldn't stem the tide. Felt a bit like 'Nam back in the days, Hamburger Hill. Didn't matter too much though, only had 40km to drive to the airport, and afterwards, nothing. I really enjoy Singapore Airlines C product, this time on the A380, the widest seats I've ever seen and managed to get a few hours of sleep before reaching Singapore on Wednesday evening. Also managed to watch Geostorm, what a shitty movie ...

Nuff said. 😁 🍦 😍 💕 💞

Fourth time we come to this wonderful, fantastic, beautiful, quiet, relaxed, marvelous, paradisical spot. Probably fair to say that this is our favorite place in NZ. I've written about Ohope so many times, so I won't repeat myself. 11km of wonderful, almost empty, sandy beach. Nice surf. Great food. Lovely ice cream. Berry orchards. Macadamia orchards. Running along the beach. Surfing. Body Boarding. Chilling out. Ice cream. Ice cream. Ice cream. And some nice walking tracks. And very friendly people. And no bus crowds. That is probably the thing that still surprises me, in a positive way. Apparently, Whakatane/Ohope is just far enough off the beaten track so that the big tour buses don't come here. Bliss! Of course, we paid many, many visits to our favorite berry and ice cream dealer, The Blueberry Corner. :-) And we stayed at Surfs Reach Motel again, which was every bit as nice and welcoming and perfectly situated right on the beach as two years ago. The ice cream at The ...

We left beautiful Cape Palliser with a heavy heart early Wednesday morning for the long drive to Whakapapa Village, which is the starting point for the Tongariro Northern Circuit multi-day hike. We took it slow, meandering through the Hutt Valley and the took the Manawatu scenic route, very beautiful and definitely a spot we need to explore more in future visits. Lunch stop was at an old familiar place in Woodville, the good old Aryan Cafe 88. I've made enough jokes about them in previous years, so nuff said. But it's a nice cafe, very friendly service. On we drove and got to Whakapapa Village shortly after 1pm, checked into the DOC office, and were on our way at 2pm. The first leg was a short one only, ca 9km to Mangatepopo Hut. They call it the "ditch track" and the name is well deserved, a bit muddy in parts, but nice, coming ever closer to Mt Ngauruhoe. The hut was ok, too. Not the biggest cooking/dining area, but it worked, since it wasn't cold. But if it get...

Remote, rugged, beautiful. Cape Palliser. That's were we headed to Monday morning, taking it slow through the Hutt Valley and then a superbly scenic drive down to and along the coast. Wow. It's really hard to stay focussed on the road here with fantastic ocean views on the one side and sheer cliffs or bluffs on the other. But I managed. ;-) This was actually the second part of the Reisebegleitung's birthday present, for she is in love with lighthouses and that's of course what's to be found at the very end of the road at the Cape ... a super remote and super nice lighthouse. And only ca 250 steps to go up to it. :-) I'd booked us into the Cape Palliser Beach Break House, a truly wonderful accommodation, like a luxury bach, right in Ngawei. Ngawei is a tiny settlement a few klicks from the lighthouse, and their trademark is the huge number of old rusty bulldozers sitting on the beach. They need them to pull their boats onto the shore, it's very funny to see a...