Swizzy's go East!: Bay of Islands

After some calm days in Auckland, we drove the 250km north to Paihia which is the centre point to discover the Bay of Islands (which is a Bay with over 100 islands as the name suggests!). On the way there we made one or two stops (for example in Waipu) to learn more about the history of the first settlers in New Zealand or to look at beautiful sights (e.g. Whangarei Falls, some Toilets). But due to our new constaints, i.e. that we are not carrying our bed and home with us, we needed to be on time in Paihia to find accomodation for the night.

Driving in New Zealand with our Corolla....btw this is a single lane Highway / Fahren in Neuseeland mit unserem Corola....übrigens dies ist eine ein-spurige Autobahn

One of the stops driving up north...Waipu / Einer unserer Stopps auf dem Weg in den Norden...Waipu

Driving for the past 6 weeks through Australia and New Zealand U-turn truly turned out to be very useful....but I guess God meant it in a different way / (auf der Tafel steht: 'Gott erlaubt Kehrtwenden') Herumfahren in Australien und Neuseeland für die verganenen 6 Wochen da hat sich gezeigt, dass Kehrtwenden sehr nützlich sind....aber ich nehme an, dass Gott es auf etwas anderes bezogen hatte

The Whangarei Falls.....unfortunately not enough time to climb down and get a proper picture of them / Die Whangarei Wasserfälle....leider hatten wir nicht genug Zeit um nach unten zu klettern und ein gutes Foto zu machen

And then we took some scenic drive....which actually was not so scenic / Und dann haben wir einen malerischen Weg genommen....der war aber gar nicht so malerisch

ahhh......that's the name of the scenic drive....but avoid it when you get here! / Ahh....das ist der Name des malerischen Wegs...aber vermeide Ihn wenn Du nach Neuseeland kommst!

The drive up north took us through some thick jungle.... / Die Fahrt in den Norden hat uns durch dichten Jungel geführt..

Well...surely the only toilets on our travels worth mentioning: the 'Hundertwasser toilets / Zimlich sicher die Einzigen Toiletten auf unserer Reise die es Wert sind erwähnt zu werden: die Hundertwasser Toiletten

We were not yet sure what to expect or for what sort of accomodation to look for...So we told the guy in the information centre our budget (80 to 100 AUD per night) and he recommended us some backpacker place that has rooms with en suites for about 85 AUD. Which is how we made our first contacts with backpackers and now can officially label ourselves as such! WOW! :)

After accomodation was sorted out, we followed the other recommendation given by the info-guy and went to some steak house in town. The first thing what Pasci notidced was the accent of the waitress (the wife of the chef) which turned out to be Swiss.

She's from Aargau and migrated to New Zealand some 14 years ago (don't think that could happen to us!). Dinner turned out to be not as good (probably our steak-standards were to high coming from Australia) as expected. *hrmph*

The next morning we planned to go on a boat trip to see dolphins (which are very common up here) so we had an early sleep (o.k. not that early...there was some movie on TV and some blogging needed to be done).

Enjoying the sunshine at the harbour of Paihia / Mishell geniesst die Sonne im Hafen von Paihia

Looks like we're not the first Swizzys to get here / Es schaut so aus als ob wir nicht die ersten Schweizer sind die hierher kommen

Our dinner (different restaurant from the signboard above but Swiss owner) was some steak! / Unser Abendessen war Steak (in einem anderen Restaurant als das Schild oben aber es war auch eine Schweizer Besitzerin)

Mishell checking out the beach in Paihia / Mishell überprüft den Strand in Paihia

Our first backpackers lodge....let's see how we'll sleep?! / Unsere erste Backpacker Erfahrung...mal sehen wie wir schlafen?

Our cabinet including En-suite / Unsere Kabine hatte eine Dusche

Sharp at eight o'clock the alarm went off and Pasci tried to get his wife out of bed (as usual on this trip). Today it was easier than normal since Mishell was excited to see the little 'Flippers' and we made it to the Jetty where the boat was scheduled to leave by 9am (including buying breakfast on the way there).

We boarded the boat with lots of hope but tried to keep our expectations low, since the guys on the day before did not see any dolphins (you get a voucher for another trip if that happens, but we did not want to stay in Paihia another night because of our limited time budget) so we were hoping for a eventful morning. And we were definitely blessed..... :))

The trip started slow due to picking up some more people across from Paihia in Russell (apparently used to be the 'Whore-capital of New Zealand' in the 1860s...gone are the days...) and dropping off some dude on his 'private island'. After this we headed straight out into the Bay to look for some dolphins.

And we got lucky quite quickly....after some cruising along the marine-biologist on board announced over the speaker that there is a pod of false-killer whales ahead of us. The boat steered into the directions of the pod to get a better sight. And ohh...how exciting...it was a nursing pod, i.e. there were some baby dolphins! The pod was actually constantly swimming at full throttle and our boat and another one were chasing them. :) so far so good...hehe!

As the biologist was explaining these kind of dolphins (yes, false killer whales are a kind of dolphins) are not the normal inhabitants of the bay but they live further out or might have been on the way to somewhere else. The normal ones (about 450 of them) are common dolphins or bottle-nose dolphins.

She went on explaining that she never has seen these dolphins swimming on this speed for such a long time...and the only reason that this would make sense is that they are being chased by a predator or....or...?!

Having said that people on board turned their heads to look out if their really is something there that might chase these false killer whales....and....oh wow....the biologist was right.....one could see spouts of water being blown into the air - far away coming towards us and the dolphins. What could that be???! So much action going on here.....

The marine biologist with her binoculars could identify the predators as Orcas, i.e. Killer whales! And these guys are apparently the 'lions of the sea' and they travel with about double the speed than anything else in the sea...so.....there were the orcas swimming (fast) towards the false killer whales and us in the middle.

Our boat was getting slower while the false killer whales were still trying to get away. The orcas were catching up rapidly swimming past our boat (WHOPPEE...we saw real live orcas in the sea - one could really see the typical white spots on the side of them) and towards their prey...what is going to happen?

And what the fu**...our vessel got slower!!?! Houh....hello there is some action going on and we get slower? Can I speak to the captain please??! In that moment the marine biologist came back on the speaker explaining that this might be a nasty and bloody sight and therefore, and to give the false killer whale the chance to escape (and not irritate them with our boat) we are staying behind and continue with our chase for the bottle-nose dolphin.

Still watching from far for a moment one could see how easily the Orcas caught up with their prey and how they were assaulting the pod. There was lots of splashing on the surface that one could identify and one of the dolphins got such a hard push by the orca that he made a backflip out of the water (visible for us) and splashed back in the water. Unbelivable!!!

As the marine biologist explained later, the orcas would do that in order so that the prey loses its sense of orientation and separate him from his pod to make him an easier target. Well, although we were sad for the dolphins...it is nature and it is the normal food-chain...

One day later we actually saw a short clip of the whole chase on the evening news. Somebody from another boat must have videoed the whole assault! (check it out: http://video.yahoo.com/watch/7238994/18870860)

Everybody on the boat got very excited at the sight of the pod of False killer whales from far / Alle auf dem Boot habe sich sehr darüber gefreut die Falschen Killerwale zu sehen (von weitem)

The pod was a nursing pod and had some babies with them....coming closer towards our boat! / In der Gruppe waren auch Baby-Wale....und sie kamen näher zu uns!

...and closer.... / ...und näher...

They swam towards us and crossed our boat....wow....they were soooo close! / Sie schwammen in unsere Richtung und unter unserem Boot hindurch....wow....sie waren so nah!

The pod had about 40 to 50 animals....quite a big group! / Die Gruppe umfasste ca. 40 bis 50 Tiere....eine grosse Gruppe!

The map of the assault and the assumed hiding spot of the local dolphins (Kerikeri Inlet) / Die Landkarte des Angriffs und das vermutete Versteck der lokalen Delphine (Kerikeri Inlet)

Anyway...as said we then followed the real purpose of our boat trip to see some of the local bottle-nose dolphins. Therefore we drove out to the "hole in the rock" (that we even crossed) and we got lucky again :) Soon after we were cruising around there we came across a pod of dolphins which were just hanging around there and most likely hiding from the Orcas.

As the marine biologist explained, dolphins can pick up the sound that the Orcas send out to locate their prey. As we were heading back to Paihia, the dolphins were showing off their swimming capabilities and jumping in the waves at the back of our boat :) so cool to see dolphins in their natural surrounding! Mission succesfully completed! Fully satisfied with our boat trip we drove off back to the south (direction Auckland)...

The "hole in the rock"....which we even managed to cross with our vessel / Das Loch im Fels...welches wir sogar mit unserem Boot durchqueren konnten

Aren't they cute? The local bottlenose delphins.... / Sind sie nicht süss? Die lokalen Flaschennase Delphins....

A close-up.... / Eine Nah-Aufnahme...

The trip back south (in the afternoon) took us through some heavy jungle where we made a quick stop to appreciate the lord of the forest (one of the most ancient trees of New Zealand) which was pretty impressive (or have you seen a 2000 years old tree before???).

Tarzan back in the Jungle / Tarzan zurück im Jungel

And there he stands...the lord of the forest (aparently 2000 years old) - a very old Kaori Tree / Und da steht er....der König des Waldes (angeblich ungefähr 2000 Jahre alt)

Some landscape shot on the way south / Ein Foto der Landschaft auf dem Weg in den Süden

We stayed over night at Matakana wich is a scenic village about an hour north of Auckland. It is a cute town with lots of cute shops and some new buildings. But as we found out, it is as well a very pricy place (for our Motel we paid 110 AUD!!!) and the Pizza would have costed around 25 AUD which we refused to pay and went to a 'fast-food' place called 'The fat cat' instead.

Matakana Village...cute but expensive / Matakana Dorf....hübsch aber teuer