The Cook Islands

What can we say about The Cook! It is stunning!! We arrived with very bad weather and we thought: there goes our paradise vacation. After two days of orientating we decided to rent push bikes for a few days, the typical Dutch way to explore the island!!! This was fantastic, it gave us a true free feeling and we where very glad when it started to rain while riding our bikes, because the weather was simply too hot & humid.
After a couple of days the weather was turning better. We already decided to rent a car, not that the islands is so Big. It’s a half an hour drive around the island. In the evenings it was saver in a car to drive, then a pushbike without lights. Everywhere we looked we saw a Nissan convertible, a real Muppet car, and so we wanted to rent this one. It was a good choice!!

The locals where VERY friendly. When we where admiring a fruit tree in somebody’s garden and taking photos, the owner invited us to come in and started to tell some history about the tree and the island. The first impression of the Cook’s is that they look aggressive, because they are VERY big people with traditional tattoo’s and a rugby-look on their face….So we where a little bit afraid to ask some things in the first few days, but after 2 days we where laughing about our first impression!! We can say the Cook Islanders are the most Friendliest people we ever met!!! We love the Cook Islands!!

The nature is beautiful, the people are friendly, the food is Superb, and the sea and the beaches are amazing!! The blue waters with colorful fish swimming around, coconut trees everywhere and the freshest mangoes just picked from a tree aside the road (or you could do it yourself!!).

Because the weather wasn’t really good the first 6 days we decided not to go to Aitiutaki, what we regret afterwards…but hey, you can’t have it all right. We thought we would see it all in Tahiti….that’s a whole other story…

The last days on Rarotonga where amazing, real paradise, because the vibe was superb and we only lied on the beach the whole day, snorkeling, eating, just like a real vacation after a year work!! HAHAHA

Enjoy our photos…

Craters of the moon

On the way from Lake Taupo to Roturua are many sulfate areas. The whole area is known for the volcanic active ground. There are many famous places where you can stop, but to be honest you will be one of the many tourists on the same time admiring one of those attractions, like the Geyser or the Polynesian Hot Spa or the mud pool. Unfortunately the prices are also very high and therefore as a backpacker you have to chose, what is worth your money and what do you want to see. So because we where in a hurry to be on time for our Christmas destination, we decided to just drive through the area and admire the scenery for free. But one sign stroke our attention: “Craters of the Moon”, along the way. We decided to stop there and just have a look…
A couple of years ago we went to Tenerife, where we drove around the Vulcano and that was magnificent!! Movies like Starwars have been filmed there, and the landscape really looks like a moonscape due to my opinion (I’ve never been to the moon yet). So that was the reason to stop, because we thought it could be like the same…

Well “Craters of the Moon” where different, but phenomenal as well. First of all the entrance was more like a charity fee, because it was almost nothing comparing it with all the other attractions. So we said to each other that it would probably be a disappointment, but let’s check it out...

Well I can say it was beautiful!! Steam coming out of the ground everywhere, the bubbling mud pool, the sizzling sounds that’s coming out of the craters, the view you had from a high point. Sometimes the smell of sulfate reaching your nose was quite an experience. It was like walking in another world, despite of the tourist walk you had to stick on (otherwise it’s to ‘dangerous’) we where walking alone together with just a few other tourists. Which is still better then hundreds.

So might you ever be in the region, stop for the “Craters of the Moon”, it only takes you an hour to see everything. And admire the photo’s, I’m sorry you can’t hear or smell the Craters…but the look is Fantastic!!

Art in the Park

Every year in New Zealand, the Festival of Lights is held in New Plymouth around Christmas time. In the evening the park is decorated with all kind of lights and there’s a lot of (on stage) entertainment for both children and adults. It’s beautiful to see how nature looks with different colours of light. See the pictures for yourself. Definitely a Travel Flavour because of it’s uniqueness. You will not find this in any other city of New Zealand and New Plymouth is definitely a place to go. A great small city with character!

Milford Sound

There are moments in your life that you are truly happy. We had one of those moments in Milford Sound. We booked three excursions around Te Anau, the fiord area of NZ, one of them was a cruise on the Milford Sound. This Fiord (or Sound) is also well known from films like Lord of the Rings. Well, We didn’t expected much from it, because we'd put all of our money (literally) on Doubtful Sound, a more pure nature - and not so touristy cruise (so they said).

The drive to Milford was really superb! The nature was changing constantly and so did the weather. One moment the sun was shining - the other moment it was raining. So, we were happy it was raining, because everybody told us that the waterfalls would be perfect when the extra rain comes in. There was one tunnel to pass on the road and that was an experience as well. It was a one lane tunnel, no lights, a lot of bumbs & holes and water was pouring out of the rocks right against our front window screen!! Right before we went in the tunnel, we stopped at the parking lot to watch the Kea’s (native cheeky birds, because they molest your car) and it was SNOWING at the time as well! Yep, snow! It was windy and very cold. We even had to buy winter jackets a few days before. But on the other side of the tunnel the sun was shining and it was very warm! Very confusing weather, but funny at the same time. It was like we were passing 4 seasons on one road. It was beautiful and the boat cruise still had to come.

We had a beautiful sail boat from Real Journeys. The crew was perfect because they were very informative in an entertaining way. We took one of the longest journeys there is, from 2,5 hours and this boat also went on the Tasman sea. Once on the boat we couldn’t even settle down because the first waterfall was coming up. We grabbed our cameras and started shooting everything and everywhere because the scenery was amazingly beautiful. We were impressed of the heights and the colours of the fiord area. It was so green and the water was so calm that we got the feeling we were in paradise!

They told us that there was a chance of spotting penguins, fur seals and dolphins, but off course the chance was small they said. But we didn’t need to wait long before we saw some fur seals. They were chilling together with their baby seals on the rocks and they weren’t impressed by us, or at least they pretended. They just ignored us and it looked like they were having fun while sunbathing.

We were still excited from the fur seals and the captain was already telling us that we were lucky because they spotted two juvenile penguins and that we were sailing towards them. We already saw some penguins on our trip (the Blue and the Yellow Eyed penguin). We like penguins because they are really funny and sweet (go watch the happy feet movie (not only for kids you know!) and you will know what we mean)...

We sailed further and enjoyed our trip very much. It was beautiful weather, like 26 degrees and a blue sky, no clouds at all. When we entered the Tasman Sea it became a little bit more rough but it was still nice. We hoped to see some dolphins and once we told that to each other they were jumping out of the water right in front of us!! (see photo). What a beautiful animals!!! Everybody was overwhelmed from excitement and running on the boat to follow the dolphins. It was a pod with little baby dolphins and apparently they liked us and sticked around for a while. Together with a beautiful scenery around us, they jumped and were doing tricks near the boat. We loved it!! This was so amazing and we were still shooting everything, but to freeze a moment of them was difficult with the still camera, they were to fast. We’d got some special dolphin tricks on film.

Last but not least Real Journeys took us to the biggest and most famous waterfall. This was superb because they went with the front of the boat into the waterfall and almost everyone got wet. This was really powerfull! The crew told us that 1 out of 3 visitors has beautiful weather when visiting Milford and normally it’s raining. And, in Milford Sound alone, 9000 mm. of rain is falling every year!!! That’s a lot, so therefore we felt very lucky to have the sun up out there all day…

Georgia broke her record of shooting pictures (with 452 photos) on one day and in a couple of hours. We loved Milford! For us it was like a day in paradise!

Enjoy our photos...

Photos Milford Sound - NZ