twocollect

17. Mai - 8. November

2007-11-09T11:42:00.001-08:00

08112007
17052007

Twocollect is back in Berlin.. well, it's 6°, it's raining and we miss you all!

Liebsten Dank Agos, Djimi, Indio and Tatji!

2007-11-07T02:46:00.001-08:00

Jabuccicabba

2007-11-04T15:39:00.001-08:00

Silkscreen com Agos y Djimi

2007-11-04T08:45:00.004-08:00

Muchas muchas obrigracias para buenos noche!

Riorobot

2007-11-02T15:37:00.000-07:00

We must admit that it was really heavy raining in Rio for a few days, but at least being trapped inside João's flat we created this little guy...

Instituto Europeo di Design

2007-11-02T07:11:00.001-07:00

Rodrigo, a friend of Indio, invited us to hold a presentation a the »Instituto Europeo de Design«. By coincidence the topic they are dealing with in their class at the moment is about »neo-nomadism« - so we fitted in perfectly with our project.
It was a challange for us to compile all the information, images, impressiones and experiences we collected throughout our journey and it took us more than two entire days to make up the presentation. Even though it was hard from time to time to resume something that is still not finished it was great to extract a »best of twocollect«!
We realized again how lucky we where to meet so many great people and would like to say thank you to everyone who took part in our journey! Without your help it would not have been possible.

digital paintlight

2007-11-02T06:55:00.000-07:00

Since Wednesday we are staying at Dimis and Augus place in São Paulo. Just the night we arrived we where very lucky to try out some of Dimis interactive projects he programmed.
One of his inventions is the digital paintlight, which in contrast to the experiments we did with Indio in the first days, can be controlled by the one who paints and is visible the moment you start drawing. There was a film team who documented the fun we had until 3 o'clock in the morning.

threecollect

2007-11-02T06:54:00.000-07:00

Goodbye Rio

2007-10-29T17:31:00.001-07:00

almost Tim-Festival

2007-10-29T11:12:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately all the tickets to the Björk concert at the Tim-Festival where sold out, but João and Daniel took us to a test screening of the animations they did for the center part of the festival. They had to coordinate 16 different animations that were simultaneously shown on 16 screens surrounding the main area. The scenary was very interesting as the screens were fit into holes of wall of containers, to the open side you could see the sea (when we were there they were still arranging the containers and the festival area)

Christo Redentor

2007-10-27T14:06:00.001-07:00

Another tourist attraction of Rio, but this time we regretted going there. It was overcrowed with tourists, and a very hard proof for our patience.
We've already seen »Christo Redentor« several times, high up on the »Corcovado« on our trips through the city, but stangding right beneath the 30m high statue is even more impressive. Obviously many other people thought so too and the platform around him was packed with tourists keen to bring home the best fotos...

a jungle in the middle of the city

2007-10-27T13:55:00.000-07:00

Once inside of the »Jardim Botanico« you completely forget, that you are in the middle of the city. Compared to the daiyl noise level it was really quiet and realxing and of course the plants are so great! We love the tropics!

collecting...

2007-10-27T13:54:00.001-07:00

Gringo Cardia

2007-10-23T14:34:00.000-07:00

Today we went to see an exhibition by Gringo Cardia, a brazilian multimedia artist. (http://www.gringocardia.com.br/) We both were deeply impressed and very inspired by his powerful work and would like to give you at least a brief glimpse of it:)

twocollect at radar55

2007-10-23T05:22:00.001-07:00

News in Portugese about twocollect :) on www.radar55.com

ri°sa°

2007-10-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

ri°

2007-10-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

Pão de Açúcar

2007-10-22T14:14:00.000-07:00

From time to time you have to do the very touristy attractions, because they are really worth it - and so was the Pão de Açúcar. We spent the whole afternoon up there, excited about the view over the city, watching small monkeys and lizards and of course enjoying the sun.

Rio de Janeiro

2007-10-22T14:13:00.000-07:00

On Saturday in the morning we took the bus from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro. In total it took 6 hours to get there and during the whole trip were just looking out of the window, amazed by the time it took to finally leave São Paulo, the change of landscape, the smaller towns and villages...
When we arrived at the busterminal Daniel and João where already awaiting us and took us on our first ride through the city. It took only a few minutes to catch a first glimpse of one of the beaches and the sea. Rio is very different to São Paulo and the presence of nature within the city gives it a really special image. All the tropical plants growing in the street, orchids hanging from trees, mountains in the middle of the city and of course the beaches!
We are very happy João offered us stay at his place while we are here and we are looking forward to working with him and Daniel in the next couple of days. Both of them decided to stay in Rio and work here, even though most of the graphic design scene is based in São Paulo - we can perfectly understand, why it is worth staying here!
We really recomend to take a look at their webpages:
www.giosimi.com
www.dimaquina.com

2007-10-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

more colors from the streets of São Paulo

2007-10-20T15:50:00.001-07:00

:)

2007-10-20T15:49:00.000-07:00

2007-10-17T04:42:00.001-07:00

Drömma

2007-10-15T08:08:00.001-07:00

For all the dreamers out there - please visit Dimitre's website: http://dromma.org/ and submit your dreams. He developed this page to collect dreams from friends and friends of friends. You can describe the dreams and also draw your visions in a small box. Dimitre's page is creating very interesting statistics through collecting all the words that appear very often in our dreams. So, for example the most used subject is "house"...

o pastoreio

2007-10-14T09:45:00.001-07:00

Everson is working on a very beautiful story he wrote with a friend of him. To illustrate the complex tale, he is building all the characters himself. The mixture of different materials and the relation to old drawings and tribe myths are giving the characters an unique and very impressive look, after all because they are so detailed and well elaborated . Yesterday we helped him to create some of the gods made out of paper.
To see more of the figures Everson already made, please visit his flickr page

Un dia en Sao Paulo

2007-10-13T16:03:00.001-07:00

Everson, Tati, Dimitre and Augustina thank you so much for the great day!

2007-10-13T15:51:00.001-07:00

colorful Saõ Paulo

2007-10-13T14:50:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately the battery of our camera was empty so we could not continue to take pictures of all the streetart we saw - we will upload more soon!

twocollect highlights

2007-10-13T14:49:00.000-07:00

20 million people

2007-10-12T19:18:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday evening we arrived at Saõ Paulo. We are very happy that Everson invited us to stay at his place for the first week - otherwise we would have felt completely lost. Especially when we went up to a very high building the next day we realized how big it is - a city wherever you look, until the horizont, 360°.
But as we mentioned, we found a very nice spot in the very center of Saõ Paulo and already met some very good designers. Please take a look at the following websites:

Everson: http://dslab.art.br/
and also his flickr page where you can find pictures of the characters he designed to make a
stop-motion video. They are really beautiful: go to flickr page
We also met some very good friends of him:
Dimitre http://dmtr.org/
and Carlo http://carlogiovani.com/ and his flickr page

2007-10-08T09:53:00.000-07:00

desde arriba

2007-10-08T09:05:00.001-07:00

In the end we found a spot where we overview at least a small part of Buenos Aires. At the Sheraton Hotel in the city center they allowed us to take the elevator to the top floor: the view was breathtaking!

El Tango

2007-10-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

Buenos Aires

2007-10-07T19:05:00.000-07:00

collecting...

2007-10-07T17:10:00.001-07:00

www.subaweb.com.ar

Gocco

2007-10-06T07:22:00.000-07:00

Our design-exchange-experience in Buenos Aires was of a completely different type than the ones we had before: Nati y Pablo proposed to make a »Gocco«-print together. So one afternoon the four of us started drawing, and after testing various techniques how unite the four different illustration-styles (folding paper and passing it on, without letting the next person seeing what you've been drawing, starting in one corner and passing it on...) we ended up starting from the very center of the page and everyone tryed to react to what the person before drew.
At the end we were very pleased, not to say enthusiastic with the results and we were ready for printing.
For those who don't know what a »Gocco« is: it can be compared with screenprinting, you only need one small machine instead of a whole workshop.
Nati and Pablo already bought so many colors, so that it was hard to select only some of them and we ended up making a mulitcolored first run. We did not count how many papers we printed, but at one point we started printing on everything we could find - all our sketchbooks, fabric, receipts... And Loli (our favorite dog) always in the middle, watching carefully what we were doing!
Was great fun - thank you so much Nati and Pablo!

2007-10-01T08:24:00.001-07:00

Typography class

2007-10-01T08:16:00.001-07:00

After visiting »morfologia« on Tuesday Laura invited us to take a look at the typography class on Friday afternoon/night. Even though we were already told that there are round about 5000 students studying design at the UBA we were still surprised when we entered the classroom of typography - it was so huge! That day, the students had to present the final works of the last project. The topic was quite complex as they were send to a certain district of Buenos Aires, which is an important and packed commercial zone with a lot of transit, where first of all they had to collect facts about the area. After analysing the gathered information the task was to bring it back to the district using the instruments of typography and provoke a reaction of the people. This had to be documented and compiled in a book, which was to be handed in as the final work. All of this had to be resolved in teams - but at the same time each team member had to design a poster, showing in a schematic kind of way the process of the project from a personal point of view.
So it was highly interesting, but also a bit difficult for us to understand such a highly complex work in such a short time.
After handing in their work, they were given the new task right away, which consists in the transformation of audio into typography.
For us it was very interesting, to get such a different insight view into teaching typography, and to see the results that are much more daring and playful than the ones we are used to.

2007-09-28T20:03:00.001-07:00

Universos Graficá

2007-09-26T18:32:00.001-07:00

Thank you to designfreak for the feature :)

2007-09-26T14:32:00.001-07:00

www.designfreak.net

Loli

2007-09-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

At Nati's and Pablo's house we met the funniest dog we've ever seen. Her name is Loli and as Nati is always saying Loli is dividing her world into the things that are eatable and the ones that are not. Standing in her favorit place (the kitchen), I was too sleepy this morning to catch a piece of cheese that fell out of the fridge - Loli inhaled it without chewing.
Yesterday night we prepared a delicous dinner: an italian-venezuelan inspired creation. While we were trying to eat our meals, Loli was starring at the food, trying to move it throughout the power of her mind.

visitando la UBA

2007-09-26T07:53:00.001-07:00

Monday morning we joined Pablo on his way to the »Universidad de Buenos Aires«, where he is holding classes in the subject »Morfologia«. This day the students had to present their work so we could take a look at all the different projects. It was really great and you can find even more inspiration at this webpage: www.morfo2.com.ar
Compared to the universtity where we studied the UBA is huge. At the moment it is coverd all over with posters of the elections that are about to come, but nevertheless we discovered some campaign-free walls that still showed some of the artwork.

Sunday afternoon in Buenos Aires

2007-09-26T07:28:00.000-07:00

There is so much going on in Buenos Aires! At the »Konex«, a cultural center, we spent the afternoon watching several local artists painting a car, which was sponsored by a mexican guy, listened to 2 bands, saw a shortfilm selection and took a look a the small shop, while sipping a ginger-mint-lemonade!
Nati introduced us to several friends and designers, so here are some more links you should defintetely take a look at:
www.studiochu.tv
www.doma.tv
www.trimarchidg.net
Buenos Aires Stencil

When it got colder in the evening we swichted the scenes and went to another concert, this time indoor, but not before we had our first argentinan empanadas - we still love them, even though we had them almost daily in Santiago. The last band performing was »Bolas de Fuego« which was founded by Marcos y Ezequiel, who at the same time are the head of »Superestudio«, whom we should also meet the next morning, when we went to visit them at their studio.

bienvendio a la primavera

2007-09-23T21:33:00.001-07:00

On our second day in Buenos Aires we followed the invitation of Juan and left the city for an original argentinian »asado«. Six brothers invited all of their friends to come to their farm, where they breed cattel and celebrate with them the beginning of Spring. We were told that everyone is looking forward to that day the whole year long and when we arrived there we understood the anticipation. It almost felt at a festival venue, with all the guests, music and the great weather.
Especially for this occasion a »novillo« (young bull) was slaughtered and grilled and the meat was incredibly good and served only with salt, bread and some salad.
Almost 12 hours we all together celebrated the start of Spring and drunk vine, ate meat and took a long walk through the grounds and visited the cattles (which will be eaten next time...)
We met a lot of people there, most of them designers aswell. Although this day was not about working, design or what so ever we want to post at least some of the webpages of the people we met:

Laura Varsky
Christian Montenegro
Karin y Paula

twocollect in Buenos Aires

2007-09-23T21:13:00.001-07:00

After celebrating the »dia de la patria« in Santiago de Chile, where we went to a »fonda« and saw many great bands, danced a lot and had our last » pisco sour« we had one day left to pack our rucksacks, say thank you and good bye to everyone we met during the four weeks. On thursday we finally we headed on to Buenos Aires.
We were very lucky that Natalia and Pablo offered us to stay at their place for the first couple of days. So right now we are living in »Belgrano« in a beautiful house, that is full of inspiration as both of them also work as graphic designers. And there is Loli, their labrador dog, who loves to be petted and hugged all day long.
Please vistit Natis and Pablos flickr page to see some of their beautiful illustrations, and aswell Pablos website.
On the fist night we arrived they took us on a night tour in the car around Buenos Aires and the first impression was already great - we are sure will have a lot of interesting stuff to post within the next days!

2007-09-23T12:50:00.001-07:00

Charley Harper

2007-09-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

Today we discovered Charley Harper and for all of you, who are not familiar with his work - check it out. It is absolutely beautiful:)

2007-09-17T18:21:00.000-07:00

twocollect for le toy

2007-09-15T18:52:00.000-07:00

»Le Toy« from spain asked us to do a twocollect version fo their logo. Here in Santiago de Chile we finally found the time and space to do recreate their parachute boy.
To take a look at all the other versions of the logo please visit their flickr page.

rojo con texto y twocollect

2007-09-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

Today we had our last working day of a three week collaboration with Alejandra y Magdalena from »rojo con texto« (www.rojocontexto.cl). Just in time we completed Ignacio Infantes website, who had the opening of his photo exhibition in Belgium this week. So for those who can't make it to the exhibition about Chile in Brussels you can take a look at Ignacios pictures at www.ignacioinfante.cl
In addition we did the wall- and floor graphcis for the project called "ClubMinga", a mobile kindergarden. The name is taken from the expression "minga", which referres to unities who help each other in every situation. »Mingas« were originally held on Chiloe, a small island in the south of Chile and are especially famous for their house movings, where they literally move the whole househould by the help of an oxcarts. Once beeing introduced into the subject of mobility we also worked on the coporate identity of a mobile café which is due to open up in October. Like »Club Minga« this café ist situated in a container and can easily change its position. For »inspiration« we were given some of the handmade chocolates that will also be sold there - it was so delicious!
We quit working at 1 pm and had a nice barbeque at the cortyard of the office, including traditional empanadas and »vino con frutilla«. This was the start into a week's time of celebration for 18th of September, the National Holiday of Chile. So we are looking foward to more asados, fondas, cuecas, rodeos, pisco, empanadas and of course spring time!

2007-09-12T13:56:00.002-07:00

Benito Cabanas

2007-09-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

Following a recommendation of Alejandra we went to visit the exhibition of Benito Cabañas at the Universidad Diego Portales here in Santiago. He is a deeply commited graphic artist and to get an impression of his work, please visit: elveno.blogspot.com

un par de raros...

2007-09-10T08:48:00.001-07:00

los colores de Valparaiso

2007-09-10T08:36:00.001-07:00

twocollect tiles

2007-09-10T08:22:00.000-07:00

»La Colombina«

2007-09-10T07:40:00.000-07:00

The decision where we would spend the night in Valparaiso was, thanks to the recommendation of Alejandra very easy. Otherwise we would have ended up quite desperate choosing one the thousand posibilities. So we slept that night at the »La Colombina« in probably the biggest room we had so far during our journey. It was situated on the hill »Concepción« one the most beautiful and colorful areas of Valparaiso.

Valpo

2007-09-10T07:30:00.001-07:00

This weekend we left Santiago for a trip to Valparaiso, which is by bus about 1 1/2 h away. This harbor town used to be called »pearl of the pacific« and is being visited by much more tourists than Santiago itself. Unfortunately the constant lack of money caused a vast decay during the last years. But all the painted walls and houses with giant murals distract the view and give the whole town a very special character. We have never seen such a multicolored town before and took a picture almost every step we went. For coffee we had a break in a little café and were served by an old pirate..

Primavera!!!!

2007-09-10T07:25:00.000-07:00

twocollect reloaded

2007-09-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

After almost four months of travelling we've been working in many different design studios and thought it could be of interest for you to get a selection of some of the projects we did during this time. The difference inbetween all the places we've visited so far is also reflected in the broad variety of work we did there. You will find the new projects in the portfolio section marked by little stars, aswell a new selection of images from Hong Kong, Melbourne, New Zealand.
www.twocollect.com

2007-09-05T20:23:00.001-07:00

rica rica

2007-09-03T20:41:00.000-07:00

After sunset it became quite cold outside, so we went down the hill to where Ignacio and Alejandra live and had cup of »rica rica« tea, a plant that comes from the northern parts of Chile and is very tasty. Ignacio brought a branch from one of his foto excursions with him. To make the tea you just breake a tiny part of the branch an put hot water on top of it.
Muy rica, la rica rica!

asado chileno

2007-09-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

Un dia perfecto para hacer una barilla!

Los Andes

2007-09-03T20:27:00.001-07:00

After spending the entire Saturday walking around in Santiago, visting the second house of Pablo Neruda »La Chascona« and enjoying the sun, we left the city on Sundy for a trip to the Andes. Ignacio and Alejandra took us to a national park called »Yerba loca« where we spend half of the day lying in the sun on the big rocks beside the river. Antonia was brave enough to check whether the snowfields here and there were real (and they were...) whereas I tried to ignore them...

»La Peluqueria Francesa«

2007-09-03T20:10:00.000-07:00

It is not only about working! This Thursday Ignacio, the chilean fotografer for whom we are designig his website right now, and his wife Alejandra took us out to show us some of their favorite places in Santiago:
Besides being a hairdresser during the week »La Peluqueria Francesa« is an excelent bar/restaurant in the district »Brasil«. The entire restaurant looks more like an antique shop and you can buy everything, upto to the table you are eating at. The toilet was hidden in a closet and I first thought the waitress was joking when she showed it to me. We tried to control our urge to start collecting and concentrated on the food and drinks instead. So we had our favorite chilean drink called »Pisco sour« and delicious food - the foto only shows the desert we shared alltogether...

Adios Ñuñoa - Bienvenido Providencia

2007-08-31T14:44:00.001-07:00

2007-08-28T15:29:00.001-07:00

La Isla Negra tambien

2007-08-28T06:36:00.001-07:00

La Isla Negra y Santiago

2007-08-27T19:20:00.000-07:00

El gran colector: Señor Pablo Neruda

2007-08-27T18:50:00.001-07:00

Here in Chile we found a person we really learned to admire: the chilean writer Pablo Neruda. Not only famous for his poems, but also for his enormous collection of everything. All of his three houses he had in Chile were turned into Museums full of curiosities from all over the world. As an embassador he traveld a lot and seemed to find everywhere people who were willing to do him the favor to deliver whatever he found (no matter of size or weight) to his home.
Neruda loved the sea, but prefered to watch it from land. So he built parts of his house in ship shapes, enjoyed to sit in a small boat in his garden to take a drink or wellcome friends ringing an original ship-bell hanging beside it.
Paulina took us to this weekend to one of his houses in »Isla Negra«, directly build at the seaside with a beautiful view and of course a great collection of everything you can imagine.

Bello Barrio

2007-08-27T18:31:00.001-07:00

Bello Barrio, recently declared as the »Zona tipica« from Santiago is where we are staying at the moment. These few streets try to maintain the original spirit of the former Santiago and resist all the skycrapers and modern buildings surrounding us. The entire »barrio« was designed by the famous chilean architect Luciano Kulczewski, who decided to make each of the houses slightly different and by that special. One of these details are the small metal decorations that cover the ventilation holes beneath the floors of the houses.
If you want to see more pictures of these really nice houses please visit Paulinas flickr page or the web-blog about the barrio.

twocollect en la época precolombina

2007-08-23T19:20:00.000-07:00

Santiago me gusta mucho

2007-08-23T18:20:00.002-07:00

Yo soy Antonia. Yo vivo en Ñuñoa. Estoy Santiago hace cuatro dias. Estoy en Santiago dos semanas. Santiago me gusta mucho. Hoy fue al museo de artes precolombino. Ahora estoy viendo la television y estudio castellano.

Two sundays in a row..

2007-08-20T18:48:00.001-07:00

After 18 hours of traveling we arrived quite exhausted but very happy in sunny Santiago de Chile. The interesting thing about this trip was that we left Christchurch at 3 pm on Sunday and arrived in Santiago at noon on exactely the same day. Paulina, the mother of our friend Gonzalo welcomed us very heartily and took us for a small trip up to the mountains which are very close to Santiago. Surprisingly we found a chilean Rodeo taking place at the spot, where Paulina wanted to show us the sunset. All of a sudden we were sitting at the tribune applauding these brave men. The show was almost over but fortunately we could attend the winners celebration. The best »Huaso« was rewarded with two television sets and got the admission to dance with a beautiful girl - the rodeo queen... they had quite a hard time dancing gracefully in the gravel sand.
On our way back to Paulinas house the sunset sky was full of colored kites. If you followed the string back to the ground you found lots of excited children running through the streets with big bobbins in their arms.

rock on...

2007-08-19T18:17:00.000-07:00

twocollect buttons (after a great supper!)

2007-08-18T01:25:00.001-07:00

Christine and Rosetta invited us and some other friends to have supper at their place on friday night. It was really delicious and a very nice way to end our week of work here in Christchurch. After the desert we all joined Christine in making some fabric buttons for »retreasured«. They colleceted heaps of different cloths in second hand stores, which they use to make their bags - some of them are very weird and we had lots of fun searching through all of them!

hand made...

2007-08-18T01:20:00.000-07:00

Helping out at »Timezone one« by doing one of my favorits: paper cutting!

twocollect at timezone one

2007-08-15T00:56:00.000-07:00

Gathering more work experience at the Christchurch based design agency »Timezone one«. We are really happy, that Nigel offered us a job for our last week here in New Zealand.
Thanks a lot to Christine and Rosetta for connecting us to Brett, a graphic designer and friend of theirs, who is working at »Timezone one« and is taking care of us there. Thank you very much for that. Please take a look at Brett's webblog to find some of his really nice design work.

Greymouth

2007-08-13T02:16:00.000-07:00

True to the motto Greymoth welcomed us with pouring rain and a stiff breeze. Instead of following the tourist information center recommendations to visit the Jade-Stone-Gallery or local brewery we took a walk up to the very top of Greymouths harbor. At that point the grey river meets the wild ocean. Each of them fighting to get along their way are creating a very dangerous part to pass where already many fisherboats sunk.

Für Papa!

2007-08-13T02:10:00.000-07:00

sunny Christchurch

2007-08-09T23:29:00.001-07:00

9° C

2007-08-09T23:24:00.000-07:00

retreasured

2007-08-06T17:36:00.001-07:00

Christine and Rosetta just recently started their own business and are producing beautiful handmade bags. Searching the whole city for interesting farbric is part of the concept of "retreasured". Be it whoolen blankets, curtains or pullovers - they combine them all in their bags and give them a unique style.
This sunday was the first time Christine went to the local arts and crafts market in Sumner to sell their bags and it was quite a success. If anyone is interested in a orginal "retreasured" bag, please contact us!

the end

2007-08-06T17:26:00.001-07:00

Getting rid of all the mud and dirt of the gravel roads before returning our faithful home...

Coromandel

2007-08-06T17:11:00.000-07:00

After smelly Rotorua we once again went for some nice beaches (and fresh air!) at "Coromandel" where we also met Stuard. Standing at the beach, still dressed in his wetsuite from the last surf, checking out the sea in his home village we started to talk and got invited to his home. Before we went there he took us to his own launderette and while taking the chance to wash all our clothes too he prepared the best flat white and hot chocolate we had so far in his café at the side of the launderette. If anyone happens to come to New Zealand we can strongly recommend to go for a coffee at "Toasted" either in Auckland or Whangamata: www.toased.co.nz
We spent the night talking outside in his garden sitting close to the warm campfire he lit in his garden. We are really impressed how hospitable and open the Kiwis are and we really have a great time here. Thank you so much!

collecting trees

2007-08-06T17:06:00.000-07:00

Greeting to Treeson!

Devil's Home

2007-08-06T16:46:00.001-07:00

Rotorua is very famous for its thermal area and sulfur lakes. Driving on the highway from Taupo we first thought the forests were burning, because steam was rising everywhere. After we took a closer look during a walk through the volcanic valleys we found out that the steam is produced by hundreds of bubbling craters.

key available in office for experienced pianists only please

2007-08-06T16:19:00.000-07:00

In Turengi we stayed at a camping site, which had a great stock of old machines, instruments and furniture in its lounge. Since it is winter we already got used to beeing most of the time the only guests everywhere we go. Sitting admist of this impressive and also a little bit spooky collection we felt more like visiting a museum. Already feeling quite strange we did not wonder much more when we met a snowmaker in there. He was responsible for the snow on Mount Ruapehu the big skiing area at the Tongariro National Park. Not enough he also was a hughe "Werner" fan, a comic character from northern part Germany. In the morning we found this very funny stove with its complicated buttons that looked like a cockpit. At least we managed to prepare the tea and porridge for our daily breakfast.

twodefrost

2007-08-06T16:10:00.000-07:00

After beeing stiff frozen we drove a few kilometers up north, to Lake Taupo and went to a thermal spa. Sitting in an open air, hot thermal pool, steam rising all around us and the rain falling was exactly what we needed! By the way this was our first time we saw a warmly dressed up pool supervisor sitting besides under an umbrella.

to collect vulcanos

2007-08-06T15:30:00.000-07:00

After so many beautiful beaches we went to see the famous vulcanos at "Tongariro National Park" - or at least we tried to see them... Always lucky with the weather so far we got completely soaked on our walk through the park. There was not a single tree to give us shelter and so we had to find a way of drying our clothes in the bus (conversations are getting really hard once you turned up the aircondition to full power). As we got used to getting up really early in the morning we were rewarded with a beautiful view on the three huge vulcanos of the park ("Mount Ngauruhoe" severd as Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings) - but as the weather changed quickly this was the only time we could actually see them. The land surrounding them was quite vast but not less impressive.

Karekare beach

2007-08-06T15:05:00.000-07:00

Especially for Christiane: a narrow and steep road took us down to Karekare beach, where the movie "The Piano" was filmed.

mobile home

2007-08-06T15:04:00.002-07:00

For ten days we drove with our moving castle around the island and had sometimes (for example in the morning and at night when it was completely dark) big troubles to organize our belongings. In the back of our car we had a few wooden boxes, where we stored everything. On top of them we had comfortable mattresses to sleep on. So imagine the worst case scenario us lying already dressed in pyjamas, welded in our sleeping bags, realizing that there was something very important missing, which was hidden in the depth of the boxes underneath ourselfes. Alltogether it was absolutely cosy, especially at night while it was raining outside. This bus gave us really great freedom to go everywhere we wanted which was just the perfect and most flexible way of travelling.

90 Miles Beach

2007-08-06T02:24:00.001-07:00

On our way down south, we stopped at the 90 miles beach - where we were the only persons as far as we could see. Anthony told us that we should drive all the way down directly on the beach, as all the tourist buses do. But we were too afraid, having no idea of the tides, the sand structure... Anyway, the view we had was perfect!

Cape Reinga

2007-08-06T02:04:00.000-07:00

Afterwards we headed up to Cape Reinga, on the very top of the north island. Once we came trough the one houre gravel road drive we arrived at the point where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet. As we liked it so much, we decided to stay longer and await the sunset, which was really worth it. While waiting for the sun going down we took several walks around the area.

Fish'n Chips at Mangonui

2007-08-06T01:57:00.000-07:00

On our way we followed the recommendation of Anthony and stopped at Mangonui, where they're supposed to have the best "fush'n chups". As it was only nine o'clock in the morning we decided to take his words for granted without trying it ourselfes and went for a nice coffee.

Russell

2007-08-06T01:50:00.000-07:00

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!

flown out again, exploring new zealand..

2007-07-23T04:49:00.001-07:00

2007-07-23T02:26:00.001-07:00

Auckland

2007-07-23T02:24:00.001-07:00

international connections

2007-07-23T02:21:00.001-07:00