Maifeiertag (“May Celebrations“) – in October??? Well, it’s supposed to be Tag der Arbeit (“Day of work“) which is 1st of May in Germany – and that’s the same as Labour day in NZ.

My absolute favorite however is the next one:
Tag des Boxens (“Day of boxing“) – boxing as in “box fights”! :-) We just say 2. Weihnachtstag (“2nd Christmas day“) for Boxing day in German. Hardly anyone knows anymore that it used to be called Stephanstag (“St. Stephen’s Day“). (See Wikipedia for more info.)

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.

… to be elaborated …

Step Three: Full License
… 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.