Russell

We're back:)
After ten days without any electronic communication we have our computers back and are happy to show you all the great impressions we collected on our way around the north island.
After thinking it over quite a few times we finally decided to rent a camper van and try the left-hand-driving, which turned out to be not as crazy and difficult as we always thought it would be.
So we left Auckland early morning on the 24. of July and headed to our first destination 200 km north of Auckland, the "Bay of Islands".
We had a first breathtaking view, when we just pulled of the main road and arrived shortly afterwards at a beautiful beach to have our lunch break.
One hour later we arrived at Pahia, where spent our first night in our van. During winter time it unfortunately gets dark very early (almost around five o'clock). Not used to camping-live at all, we realised once we were comfortably wrapped in our sleepingbags, that it was only 8 pm... But what would you do in a small village, where it was dark and cold outside, and everything closed down except a chinese takeaway place (who kindly filled up our hotwater bottles).

The next day we got up very early and had breakfeast at the beach with a stunning view onto the bay of Pahia. We took a ferry to Russell, a small town opposite of Pahia, and had a nice long walk through the hills up to a viewing point, where we could see almost the whole "Bay of Islands".

After returning to Pahia we carried on to Kerikeri, where we tried to find a camping place outside of the town. Obviously we must have appeared a little bit lost, because on our way a car stopped us, asking us if we would need any help and what we were looking for. They told us, that there was not such camping place around the area and very openly offered us, to stay at their parking lot during the night. Anthony and Richard had been really kind to us and in the evening we sat together and had a nice little chat, receiving more recommendations for our trip and some stories about New Zealand. Thank you so much for your help!