At first I didn’t know that you could only walk to the cape at low tide. Then low tide was always at the wrong time of the day (well, at least not when it was convenient for me) or I didn’t have enough time to do a 5 hour hike.

This time I was spending five days up here – so this time it was bound to happen, right?

Well……… I tried.
- More after the break :)

I wasn’t going there for the birds. Cape Kidnappers plateau is one of only three (large) mainland colonies for Gannets worldwide. But Nesting season is between November and March, just before the chicks (who have never flown before) start their journey over to Australia.
I was going there for the landscape. I had seen so many awesome pictures of the cape – plus I already had seen some Gannets at Muriwai Beach.

It started out to be a beautiful morning, but I had to wait for another three hours after highest tide before I could start my walk towards the cape.
It’s an astonishing landscape: huge cliffs (up to 100m high) going right to the edge of the beach – “the beach” being just a 5-10m narrow stripe of small (and some larger) gravel and stones, washed round by the enormous power of the waves and tides.

When I finally parked my car in Clifton (Te Awanga) just before the entrance to the Kidnappers campground around mid day, the sun was shining – where I was. The cape however was covered by misty rain – and black storm clouds where out on the ocean…
I decided to start my walk anyway. The wind (a light southwesterly) was in my favor after all.

After walking for about 40 minutes on loose gravel and rocks (very tiring), it started drizzling! Not the best place to be right now: Rough waves to the left of me and huge cliffs that were getting soft from all the rain to the right. I already had noticed a few smaller land slides and rock falls – nothing major so far, but I did see another massive one, just a couple hundred meters in front of me. It had pulled quite a few trees down. The tide was not yet low enough for me to pass this barrier – so i turned around after all.
Being back at the entrance to the walk a good half hour later, Cape Kidnappers behind me was laying in the sun – blue skies above it. Damn!

Step One: Learners license
Getting your learners license isn’t too hard. You need to pass:

• a basic handling skill (BHS) test, in which you have to proof that you can keep your balance even at walking speed, come to a stop within a target square and stick to a given (slalom) path
• a road rules theory test

While on a learner licence:

• you must ride a motorcycle of up to 250cc only
• you must not go faster than 70km/h
• your motorcycle must display a learner (L) plate – rear only
• you must not carry a passenger
• you must not ride between 10pm and 5am

You have to have your learners license for at least 6 months, before you can take the test for the restricted license.

Step Two: Restricted License
While on a restricted licence:

• You must only ride a motorcycle of up to 250cc
• You must not ride between 10pm and 5am
• You must not carry passengers.

Update 27.10.2010:

I’ve done my restricted licence test. Not that hard. Basically a little driving around in Wellington (mostly Mt. Vic), showing that you can do a U-turn and get around in moderate traffic. Don’t forget to check your bike before doing the test: It needs to be in road-safe condition!

Step Three: Full License
You can apply for a full licence after three to 18 months on a restricted licence. How quickly you can apply depends on your age and any approved courses you’ve taken.

To progress to a full licence you have to pass a practical test to demonstrate that you:

• have basic riding skills
• can recognise and respond to a range of common road hazards
• can ride in higher speed zones

The full licence test takes about one hour in total and is made up of three parts:

• Part 1: Basic riding (about 15 minutes).
• Part 2: Detecting and responding to riding hazards in built-up areas (about 20 minutes).
• Part 3: Detecting and responding to riding hazards in higher speed zones (about 10 minutes).

… to be elaborated …

Fees (as of April 2010)

Gisborne was pretty much dead on Good friday, so we spent our time at the beach and decided to have a movie night. We watched Clash Of The Titans.

After some grocery shopping on Saturday we went to see the East Coast Museum of Technology. The word “Museum” is probably a little bit (or hugely!) over-exaggerated, because it looked more like a junk yard. Stuff EVERYWHERE! Anyway: There were some quite neat photo motives.
On our way back, we stopped at the Mahia peninsula and spend Saturday to Sunday night, having fresh fish and chips (yes, even I had fish!).

Easter Sunday we stopped at Tutira lakes again – this time way to windy and cold, so we decided to head on to Napier, where we spent the afternoon at the spa pools. As there was hardly any traffic that evening, we made great time and got back to Wellington around 9:30pm. NO wait! We didn’t notice that NZ switched back to standard time after daylight savings! It was only 8:30pm! :-)

Easter pics (click for full size!) :

• Coromandel/Christmas
• South Island
• West coast – from Nelson to Franz Josef
• Wanaka & Queenstown
• Milford Sounds
• East coast – from Dunedin to Christchurch
• Marlborough

Well, so we did! :)

Originally we planned to:
* take the Overlander train from Wellington up to Auckland on the 19th.
* have a rental car for a week, driving around coromandel
* spend Christmas with Barbaras family and friends in Auckland
* fly down to Christchurch on the 26th
* rent a campervan and drive around the south island for 2 weeks
* take the train from Christchurch to Picton
* return to Wellington via SoundsAir on the 9th of January 2010

Well….. since two weeks of campervan rental fee was about 1/4th of the price of an excellent offer for a new (used) car/minivan, we decided to go ahead and just buy & build our own “campervan”. :-)

We got a really great deal for a Mazda MPV from 2000. It’s a four wheel drive and has got enough space to sleep in – once we take the last row of seats out and build a bed frame into it. :) VTNZ evaluated the car to be twice as much as we paid.

We will still be taking the Overlander from Wellington to Auckland and have the rental car up there. That part didn’t change.
Instead flying directly to Christchurch though, we will be flying back to Wellington, jump into our van and take the Bluebridge ferry over to Picton. Then we have two weeks on the South Island before heading back to Wellington (taking the ferry again).

We still have to figure out what we will be doing with our Soundsair tickets, but it shouldn’t be a problem to fly another time.

Well, to be honest I don’t know… :) But I can try to outline my experiences for the airlines/routes I’ve flown so far – which are only Lufthansa, Air New Zealand and Qantas.

Generally you can say:
You’ve got to survive the long distance somehow, so try to make the best of it. Half empty (or half full? ;-) ) planes are always more comfortable than fully (or over-) booked planes – but you surely would be one lucky bastard if you catch an empty flight (or you’ve got way too much money, if you book all available seats…. ;-) )

East or west bound?
There are many ways to fly from Europe to New Zealand. Since the maximum distance of current airplanes is only about half the distance you have to cover, you will need to have at least a refuel stop.
Most popular routes are probably:

• London/LHR via Los Angeles/LAX or Hongkong/HKG to Auckland/AKL
• Frankfurt/FRA via San Francisco/SFO or Vancouver/YVR to Auckland/AKL
• Frankfurt/FRA via Singapore/SIN or Dubai/DXB to Auckland/AKL
• Frankfurt/FRA via Singapore/SIN & Sydney/SYD to New Zealand

In the end you have to get half around the world – no matter what.

Flights via US

• Pro: You will have more luggage (2 bags @23kg per person instead of 1 bag @23kg). One flight segment via the US will be enough to get the extra bag. Don’t need to fly both ways via the US.
• Contra: The US don’t offer a “transit” state for passengers just stopping over. That means you HAVE to pass through US immigration and you have to register prior to boarding the flight towards the US. (register here: http://www.esta.us/ )

Other criteria

• If you have a stop over, try to make it as short as possible (2 hours) OR at least 8-9 hours (depending on the city you’re stopping over)! That way you can go and do some sight seeing!
• Do you prefer longer flight segments and less stops (and sleep all the time) or shorter flights with one or two more stops to stretch your legs?

Airlines
As previously mentioned, I’ve been using Air New Zealand (NZ), Lufthansa (LH) & Qantas (QF) for my trips between Europe and New Zealand. Friends of mine will use Etihad in March, so it will be interesting to hear about their experience. Looking at their website, the economy class seems to be really comfy!

I guess I’m still preferring Air New Zealand.
The crew is friendly and obliging, but still discrete and won’t disturb you if you’re sleeping. The fleet consists of modern, quiet and fuel efficient airplanes.
Seat reservations could be made well in advance for my flights, so I had excellent exit seats and heaps of leg room. The seat maps are available on their website.
As far as I know, it need to be an NZ ticket though. LH tickets with NZ codeshare flights won’t allow you to pick your seats.

Lufthansa
I’ve had different experiences. While LH economy class is kind of famous for being crap, their newer planes seem to offer slightly more room. Still not as much as other airlines do, though.
On our way from San Francisco to Munich we had a brand-new Airbus, while our flight from Frankfurt to San Francisco was with an old, rattly, shaky 747 without an on seat entertainment system. Bad luck? Maybe, but you won’t have something like that with most other airline. They just don’t have planes that old!

Qantas
Unlike on NZ flights, you can’t use the entertainment system during taxi, take off and landing on QF flights. That really sucks, if they shut down the system 30-40 minutes before landing and you have 20 minutes of movie to watch… On NZ flights you can already start watching before take off. I liked that. :) (One exception to that one: if you sit in a seat without a seat in front of you, your screen is stowed in your arm rest – and needs to be put away for take off and landing.)

Food
It seems to be all the same microwaved food – more or less… Not too bad, but certainly no gourmet meal. My personal order: 1. NZ, 2. QF, 3. LH.

Frequent flyer programmes
Qantas seems to give best value here. For a one way flight I got 12.000 miles.
Lufthansa gave me 3.000 for the same distance!!
In the end, it doesn’t really matter, if you’re not flying much anyway I guess…

21 degrees