What's going on in Paihia?

The next day we got to know Denise and Verena, two girls from Germany (yay, other Germans.. well, actually not so exciting). Verena had to go to the supermarket and so we went with her to buy some stuff for dinner. The supermarket was pretty far away so we decided to take the bikes from the backpacker. Wow.. I’ve never been on such a crappy bike before! It seemed like it would fall apart any minute. But we made it all the way to the supermarket and back! In the afternoon Verena, Miri and I decided to go kayaking. Jakob actually wanted to come with us too because the kayaking tour that he had booked got cancelled but then he went on the tour they offered him so he couldn’t come with us.. oh well we had a blast! We were out on the water for 2 hours, cruised around the islands, walked around on them and took a bunch of pictures. Here are 3 of them:

Miri and the kayaks..

we put them on the rocks so they don't get lost in the wather

kayaking on the beach?!?

Miri and Verena in front of a cave

On Thursday Denise and Verena had already booked a “hole in the rock” tour and so Miri and I went to the Whaitangi treaty grounds. It was the place where in 1840 fifty Maori chiefs signed the treaty between them and the British crown. (6^th February: Whaitangi day = national day) It’s a pretty wide area with a lot of woods, old trees and houses and Maori culture.

the Maori war kanu.. for 150 people!

nice Maori carving!

When we came back it was time for us to leave for Kerikeri. We wanted to stay the night there and have a look at the little town. Everybody was talking about it and we thought it would be quite interesting. So we hitch hiked again.. This time we got a lift from two really nice people who lived.. believe it or not.. in Kerikeri!! They drove us right to the backpacker but when Miri and I waited for someone to come we found a note at the door that the owner would be back in about an hour.. well then. We didn’t have anything to do and there was only one old man sitting there so we talked to him.. in the end I really regret it because he was German as well and didn’t speak English very well so he probably took the chance to talk German to someone and.. he didn’t stop! AHHH it was horrible. He talked about stuff that we didn’t even want to know. (well and then I went to new Zealand for the 4^th time and I stayed there and I did that and it is really hard for me to come here because of the money and in Germany I live in a home for homeless people etc etc) there was just no end to it.. we didn’t even answer properly just a aha once in a while and he kept on talking and talking… well at some point the owner came back and we had a reason to leave.. finally!

After we had our room and everything Miri decided to take a tour to Cape Reinga the next day because there was really not a lot to see in Kerikeri. So we figured that out and went into town to look around a little bit. It was NOT interesting. Who even said that? Well really, there is nothing.. well not nothing but you know what I mean. The only nice thing we saw was the oldest stone house in whole New Zealand. It is set on the harbor of Kerikeri, about 20 minutes walk from the town. That was quite nice but it was too late at night so that the pictures didn’t turn out that good. Yeah, it was pretty late, when we walked back into town and it got darker and darker.. I have to say I was pretty glad when we finally got back to the backpacker.. those roads just seem to be so long! Especially when it’s all dark!

Miri and I cooking

Old stone house at night..