travel – Page 4 – Globitrotter

Northland

In our “new” (actually quite old but therefore fairly cheap) home, the rebuilt Nissan van we rented for our stay in New Zealand, we headed north out of Auckland. The first day we did not drive far but checked in at a campground in Orewa to settle in and find a place for everything. The campground was situated at a very pretty beach perfect for an evening stroll.

Driving along the coast we made our way up to Russell and then on to Cape Reinga. There is an abundance of nice beaches, pretty islands and green, sheep filled hills in this part of the country.

Nice farmer’s market in Matakana.

Cape Reinga

At Cape Reinga we did a day hike along the coast. The trail was on grassy ridges with a view of the rugged coast line. The goal was to hike up to a lookout on one of the hills, supposedly the highest point in the area. We found the turn off but after climbing a hill we found ourselves at a locked gate. It did not say private property or anything so we decided to climb over the gate and continue. After a few hundred meters we found an old broken sign and continued along the trail only to find that it ended at a fence with no view what so ever. 🙁 The bush was so thick that is was impossible to try to find a spot with some sort of view. Disappointed we hiked back to an open area on the ridge where we cooked lunch and had a break. The rest of the hike though was lovely and definitely worth the effort.

Hiking along the coast

The day we did the hike there was a partial solar eclipse.

Auckland

Finally we arrived in New Zealand. There was a heavy rain welcoming us to this weather unpredictable country. To make us feel even more comfortable our bags arrived about 36 hours after us. Andy was only wearing shorts and being spring here it was a bit cold. We had to do some shopping to survive before we got our stuff.

View from Sky Tower in central Auckland.

We had already booked a few nights in Auckland before we were picking up our rental camper. We did some sightseeing although not so much because we were busy preparing a visa extension application and trying to transfer money from the States (which did not succeed btw due to rigorous restrictions and rules at the American bank. Once you have money at the bank it is almost impossible to use…). However a favorite restaurant was located, some views and yachts admired and parks strolled through. Auckland is a convenient and nice city. Everything is on walking distance or a short bus or ferry ride away. The outdoors seem to be important judging by amount of boats in the several harbors around town.

A yacht to die for.

Albert Park.

Hawaii

Our two weeks in Hawaii we regarded as a “vacation in the vacation”. Although we did some camping, hiking and sightseeing on the Big Island we have spent many days just hanging around the hotel, pool or beach without doing much at all. It has been great since the weather has been perfect with tropical temperatures without being too hot. The water is also warm enough for me to swim in without any larger issues (I really do not like cold water).

The pool at the Sheraton Waikiki. If you do decide to go to Waikiki we can really recommend this hotel. On the more expensive side but well worth it.

About a week we have been hanging in Waikiki which might be the most famous place in Hawaii with a nice beach, an abundance of restaurants and bars and hotels. The first two days before we went to the Big Island we actually got two nights in a luxury hotel free of charge from the travel agency where we booked our flights. That was really a treat and we hardly left the hotel for the entire time. They had a very pool by the beach and nice restaurants.

On the Big Island the main theme was volcanoes but we managed to spend some time on the coast as well. Kailua-Kona, on the west coast, turned out to be a very cosy little town with nice sunsets. If you want to escape the crowds in Waikiki this might be an alternative. Only thing is they don’t have a lot of nice, long, sandy beaches on the Big Island which might be what you are looking for in Hawaii.

Sunset in Kailua-Kona.

Unfortunately the volcanoes were not very active at this point. There was no place we could see lava which we were hoping for. We did have a pretty cool outing to the top of Mauna Loa, one of the two high volcanoes on the island. It is higher than 42oo m and we camped on the summit. It was hard carrying everything up there. Obviously we are not used to the altitude anymore after spending more than 2 months on sea level… We made it eventually and it was a lot more windy than we thought. But the views were nice and worth the effort.

Pinching the tent at the summit at sunset.

At the summit with the crater in the background. It is always cold above 4000 m, even in Hawaii.

For the last 5 days at Waikiki we had decided to treat ourselves a nicer hotel with a balcony for lazy mornings and the afternoon glas of wine or beer. We booked a balcony with pool view to avoid facing a street with lots of traffic. We were upgraded and ended up a bit higher so that we could also see the sea from our room. Nice.

The pool from our balcony at night.

The view from the balcony in the afternoon.

Tomorrow we leave for New Zealand where it is spring and probably about the same temperatures as in California. But summer is coming, again… 🙂

Here you can see more images from Hawaii:

Hawaii

Halloween in Waikiki

The day we returned to Waikiki after spending one week on the Big Island it happened to be Halloween. This was of course nothing we kept track of and were very surprised to find that the main street was full of people dressed up as all sorts of things.

We saw tigers, polar bears, frogs, bees, angels, devils, birds, Chip and Dale, Ironman, Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Darth Vader, Darth Maul, Leia, Luke Skywalker, doctors, nurses, patients, police, convicts, Pacman, Angry Birds, Super Marios, the Hulk, pirates, zombies, scary looking people and of course the people that are just wearing as little as possible just to get the attention.

We had a lot of fun just walking around looking at the spectacle. It reminded me a lot of the Halloween I spent in Castro, San Francisco, more than ten years ago. The difference being there was less alcohol in Waikiki, everyone seemed sober and it was really quite calm although lots of people. Everyone wanted to be photographed with the best dressed and often it was impossible to move because a photo session was going on with a Batman, a bunch of crayons (yes, people dressed up like crayons with different colors) or an octopus and Jack Sparrow meeting. The street performers had a rough night when the normal people were stealing all the attention. 🙂

A guy taking pictures of the Hulk and the Black Widow

My personal favorite, the cookie.

No dress up party without a Darth Vader. We saw a number of different Vaders with different costumes. This one was one of the better.

Wondering where to go next Halloween? Waikiki is not a bad place.

Testimonial after 100 days of travel

During our first 100 days on the road we have visited 14 national parks, climbed 29 mountain peaks, spotted 11 bears (no grizzly, only black bears), driven about 15000 km, taken 3 ferries, stayed 20 nights in hotels (the rest camping), visited 4 larger cities and a lot of more or less small towns. You can say we have seen and done quite a lot during this time. I do not have the feeling though that we have been busy, we have had a lot of lazy days in between driving, hiking and sightseeing. A few times I have felt that maybe we should have stayed longer because it was a great place and the chances that we will return is not so high. But USA and Canada are really big countries and even though we are only visiting parts of them we can still not see it all.

Sightseeing at Lake Louise, Banff National Park.

It is extremely rewarding to be able to decide every day what we want to do. Being fully flexible and having the possibility to change plans as we please. But it is not always fun. When it is raining and is cold it is not so much fun to hang around a campground in the evening. This kind of trip requires good weather. Luckily we have had very little rain. Usually it was only showers and we could still cook and do the things we wanted outdoors. The times we have had to change plans due to rain we can easily count. Fortunately we can follow the good weather which it is time to do now. We will shortly be heading south in search of warmer temperatures.

Our camp at Movie Flats at the foot of Mt Whitney. This was a great camp. Free, calm, warm, bear free and easy access to Whitney Portal.

It is also hard to always be moving. Having to pack up all our stuff and find a new place to stay for the night. When we camp it is not so difficult because we have to pack up the car to be able to drive somewhere and then it is easy to move. But to always search for a new place to stay gets to you after a while. It has been great the few times we have stayed longer in one place. In Tuolumne we chose to pinch our tent so that we did not have to pack the car every day. In Vancouver we stayed in a hotel with a small kitchen and washing machine which was a real treat. Probably from now on we will try to stay longer in a few places rather than moving all the time.

In about a month we are going to Hawaii where we also have a hotel booked for a number of nights. We are looking forward to that and consider this to be our “vacation”. 🙂

Just the other day we left the city of Vancouver. We both loved it there and did extend our planned stay with a few days. We have both wanted to go there for a long time and it was just as good as we thought.

During our bike ride through Vancouver.

Being in a great city like this makes us both want to go back to a normal life. We suddenly miss having an apartment, a wardrobe, a kitchen and money to have dinner and drinks for. It is funny how we can spend weeks in the mountains without any problems but when in a city we start actually missing a home. Don´t get me wrong, we are not ending our trip. We just need to go back to what this trip is all about. This time it is more about having the luxury of time and no responsibilities rather than doing expensive stuff. Our budget does not allow us to spend too much time in cities because at the same time as it is fun it is also expensive. Not being able to spend money in a city makes it boring therefore we choose to spend less time there but more money. 🙂 We do like cities so we´ll see how it goes…

Vancouver Island

What we did not really think about when we booked our hotel in Vancouver, which also decided how long we were going to stay on Vancouver Island, was that this island is almost the size of Switzerland. Trying to see the entire country of Switzerland in 6 days is very optimistic and so was our time schedule for Vancouver Island.

We decided to skip hiking the mountains. Due to lack of time and a cold. Instead we were eager to walk on the beaches. We had after all not been on a beach in a very long time. The ferry had taken us to the northern part of the island and we drove down the east coast to were we could find a road that would take us to the west coast and the ocean. The small sleepy villages along the coast all looked cosy and I got the feeling I wanted to just stay longer in every place we visited.

Our camping spot

On the west coast we settled in to a campground in Ukluelet. This might have been my favorite campground so far, just next to the harbor. We tried to find some sort of beach in town but did not succeed. Here the coast line was rugged with dark uninviting rocks. A new sport we learnt about here is storm watching. To make people come here even in the winter time they make watching huge waves pounding on the coast from a warm and cosy hotel sound like a nice thing to do. And actually I am tempted. I could definitely sit with a good book, a cup of something hot and a blanket in a comfortable chair and look out a window for a few days.

Rugged coast line in Ukluelet

Eventually we did find the beach which happens to be the longest surfable beach in the country. It is an about 18 km long sandy beach which is situated in a national park and therefore also accessible to the public. The visitor center is right on the beach with a café that promises safe storm watching in the winter time.

The visitor center on Long Beach

Surfers on Long Beach

The south east coast of the island which is the most populated, is littered with cute villages along the water front. We did not visit them all but one favorite is Cowichan Bay which we passed by accident really in search of ice cream. A sleepy little town on stilts with a very high concentration of restaurants and cafés.

Cowichan Bay

Apart from the small towns, Victoria, the largest city, is also very charming and well worth a visit. We particularly liked Fisherman´s Wharf. Unlike the more famous version in San Francisco, this is a little community on the water. There are a few restaurants but most of the buildings are houses.

The harbor in Victoria

Fisherman´s Wharf

Vancouver Island is pretty much the perfect place for vacation. There is hiking, surfing, kayaking, fishing, biking, wine tasting, city sightseeing, whale and bear watching – you name it. I am very sure we will return to this area in a not distant future. 🙂

More images:

Vancouver Island