Leaving a rainy Auckland behind, I made my way to the Coromandel Peninsula on Wednesday and stayed in a town called Whitianga for 4 nights. On the way up there we stopped briefly at the Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove ( for a picture stop ). The beaches over here are spotless and the water is crystal clear - even the weather was lovely. If you walk along the beach in the evening, maybe after having some exportgold, and look down upon your sandy feet, you realise that it doesn't necessarily need much creativity to design the look of Frodo's feet. Did some kajaking with a german girl I shared the room with, we paddled along beautiful beaches, white cliffs and trained to navigate around rocks close to the coastline without getting stranded on a beach or a cliff that may be behind it. And finally it payed off to carry that backpack around all the time, because my arms and shoulders didn't get tired while paddling back. And while I waited for that little paddling point at the horizont to come ashore I realised that we were carried through the whole bay on our way back. I rented a bike the next day, and while I took the little passenger ferry over to the other side of the habour , I saw a dozen dolphins leaving the Whitianga habour, taking the same route along the coastline into the Bay of Mercury we had taken with our kajaks the day before, jumping and obviously having fun on their way out there ( WHERE HAVE THEY BEEN THE DAY BEFORE?? ) . I hiked to Cathedral Cove, not only to see the Cove again, but to explore all those magnificent bays around there...one of them, Stingray Bay, just looked like paradise......I went on to Hot Water Beach in the late afternoon just in time for the low tide, there were lots of people digging holes in the sand, mixing the cold ocean water with the boiling hot water that comes up there at this vulcano terrain, enjoying their natural spa, some of them even had brought along a glass of wine...but you didn't have to dig a hole to feel the heat, you could just let your feed sink into the sand for a few centimeters at the right places....here and there you saw someone jump from one feet to the other because he/she got to close to the hot spots. After boiling my feed for a while I had to start biking back and I was happy when I finally reached the ferry again, some of those hills drove me nuts ( Let's blame the bike! ). I did a hike the next day up one of those hills to have a nice view over the lovely Mercury Bay. "Sweet" - as a Kiwi would say ( I really have a hard time understanding them, but I love their accent, it's kind of cute ). There was a cycling race going on that day and on my way back I passed along some fans who cheered and clapped their hands to motivate the bikers on their way up the hill ( WHERE HAVE THEY BEEN THE DAY BEFORE?? I doubt that I would have made it up the hill with their help, but I would have used them as an excuse to get off the bike to have a chat). Did some horsebackriding in the afternoon, through the tropic rainforest to a small waterfall, up those green hills to enjoy once more an amazing view, chasing away cows, sheeps, lambs and turkeys (??)...took a bus to Waitomo on sunday when it started raining again, but fortunally they have 2 worlds over there.....the one you see when getting there and the other one underneath the earth.....saw the caves over there, filled with glowworms, thousands of blue dots over your head in the middle of the dark, did some abseiling into a canyon aswell......but it gets very quiet over there in the evening when all the tourist-busses have left, me and the girl I shared a cabin with went to the bar in the evening, just in time to get a beer before they closed the bar, that was at 8.30 p.m.(!) and we had half an hour to drink it and to talk to 2 local guys playing pool, as those were the only people in there. Just arrived in Rotorua today, it's nice to be at a place with a decent grocery store again.