You keep what you kill

Paradise exists. We've found it. Great Barrier Island, in the Hauraki gulf at Auckland's doorstep. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. Fantasmogoric. We're staying at the lovely Medland's Beach Lodge, which is right on Medland's Beach. Ocean views from the bed, beautiful sunrises. And perfect wave after perfect wave on a flat, sandy, lonely, safe beach. Doesn't get much better than that. Well, add the super relaxed and friendly locals and at least two very nice cafés, one of which does great pizza in the evenings, too. Lots of forest, lots of (young) Kauris, lots of birds. I wanna stay here.

I just saw that the Komoot embeds are not working, so here's another try. Paparoa NO Croesus Track (partly): Paparoa NP/Punakaiki Loop: Nelson Lakes hikes:

St. Arnaud was really good to us, I must say. Wonderful region, and the town itself is undeveloped in a nice way. Just one word of warning: Stay away, stay the fuck away, from "Dine Hard". The worst food I've ever seen. Disgusting. The Alpine Lodge, on the other hand, much better food. Or take the 20k drive East on the road to Blenheim and stop by the two food"trucks" in the middle of nowhere in the Wairua Valley - good stuff, good ice cream, too. After four days, we were off to Greymouth via Reefton. The real-fruit ice cream in Murchison is nothing to write home about, so skip that one. In Reefton, we stopped briefly to visit my bros at the " Bearded Miners ", then headed further West. First stop: Southern breakwater in Greymouth, were there's very nice stroopwaffles and rich hot chocolate (made from real chocolate, not powder) to be had at the "Lifeboat". Then we backtracked to Cobden, to find our accommodation for the n...

After a nice lunch in Nelson a short drive up into the mountains to St. Arnaud. Finally. We'd had this on our list for years now and something always came up. Well, not something, but the weather, to be precise. There was always weeks of rain and storms up in Nelson Lakes NP when we were around. But not this time. Picture perfect weather. Just a little bit of wind, enough to keep the bloody sandflies away most of the time. Couldn't be better! We did two nice tracks, the third one fell victim to une petite maladie of the Reisebegleitung. First from our accommodation, Nelson Lakes Motel, to Whisky Falls. Not too strenunous, a good leg stretcher along the lakeshore. With fantastic lakeviews, the fog rising up in the early morning sunshine.       Then up the St. Arnaud Range via Parachute Rocks, wonderful hike through the forest with lots of birds, bellbird, tui, fantails all around. And beautiful views from the top and the very top. Parachute Rocks is a ...

Boring. Went to New Zealand again. Had fun. Nuff said. You've read it all before, haven't you? BUT, and yes, it's a capital letter but, some things are slightly different this time. First, we booked the same international flight, SIA C from ARN via DME/SIN to AKL, but we did not fly SAS from TXL to ARN. No, we learn from our mistakes and booked us a nice easyJet flight instead, thank you very much. And as usual with easyJet, they get the job done, on time, friendly, comfortable, and most important, with all our luggage delivered. Second, we stayed at the Clarion Airport hotel, which was more expensive than the joint we stayed at last time, but it's in the terminal, no bus transfer, it include a very nice breakfast and have very comfortable rooms. And nice design. Very pleased with our choice. Third, we have two Harald's with us this time. Can you believe it? One of them if my body board and has to travel in the hold, the other our good friend the Grindr God. :...