Well, the title says all.This is the reason we are on the beach all the time and we are enjoying ourselves very much.
Till now we didn't found coconuts but I believe we will have some soon.
vrijdag 4 december 2009
Tahiti girl with catamaran
Well, the title says all.This is the reason we are on the beach all the time and we are enjoying ourselves very much.
Till now we didn't found coconuts but I believe we will have some soon.
Waterfall on the coast of Tahiti
When walking along the beach we found this waterfall (there are high mountains on Tahiti and some are 2000 meters high) and there are lots of waterfalls on the island.
Of course there was this nice tahitian girl who liked to pose for us and we even didn't have to pay.
They walk around almost bare naked and I go to the beach all the time.
Sailing boat on the sea near Tahiti.
WSell, this is a typical Tahitian sailing boat (look at the lateen sail and the baot itseld, a sort of catamaran).
Paul Gauguin
This is a copy of one of the paintings of Paul Gauguin (famous throughout the world and especially in France, Europe and Tahiti and everywhere else).
He lived here for a long time and died overhere in 1903.
There is a Gauguin Museum of course, but I don't know whether we will visit this museum because our landlord told us it is not worth the while.
The Bounty
Tahiti has a rich history and one of the main "historic events" was the mutiny on the HMS Bounty some 150 years ago.The mutineers sailed arount Tahiti too and some of them were left on this island and (our tour guide tells us but I don't know whether this is true) their descendents still live on the island.
Island in the front of our beach
This island lies not far away from our beach.
If you look well, you see a girl in the sea.
The beach
When we leave our appartment this is what we see and since there are no other guests (the crisis hits this island as well) it is OUR beach.
Map of Tahiti
This is the Map of Tahiti.We are staying near a little village of which I don't know the name yet but it is on the west coast of the island near the first T of Tahiti on this map.
On Tahiti Island
We are now on the Tahiti Island.
When we landed on the airport there was a three men band playing Tahitian music and the hula girls were dancing on the platform.
We all got a nice smelling garland around our neck and after that we had to go through customs and then we were brought to our hotel/appartment.
It is a small complex with (I think) about six or seven "appartments" and ours has see view when you look out of the windows.
We are the only guests so we have everything for ourselves and it is relaxing (I can tell ye!!!)
This morning we visited the supermarket and bought our groceries.
We have had breakfast and lunch already and tonight we go to a small restaurant, about 300 meters away from our appartment.
We swam in the see too and the water is very nice, not to cold or to warm, super!!!
The complex is well maintained (beautifull garden) and we can go canoeing this afternoon (maybe if we like to go).
This ia all for today.
Everything is OK.
When I look outside (the sliding door is open) i see turtles swimming and sunning.
When we landed on the airport there was a three men band playing Tahitian music and the hula girls were dancing on the platform.
We all got a nice smelling garland around our neck and after that we had to go through customs and then we were brought to our hotel/appartment.
It is a small complex with (I think) about six or seven "appartments" and ours has see view when you look out of the windows.
We are the only guests so we have everything for ourselves and it is relaxing (I can tell ye!!!)
This morning we visited the supermarket and bought our groceries.
We have had breakfast and lunch already and tonight we go to a small restaurant, about 300 meters away from our appartment.
We swam in the see too and the water is very nice, not to cold or to warm, super!!!
The complex is well maintained (beautifull garden) and we can go canoeing this afternoon (maybe if we like to go).
This ia all for today.
Everything is OK.
When I look outside (the sliding door is open) i see turtles swimming and sunning.
donderdag 3 december 2009
TAHITI
And what did I tell you guys? Here they are, the hula girls form Tahiti.
We all got garlands (or something like that) around our necks when we left the plane, got kissed over and over and they promised to be on our beach every day!! This will be a very nice part of our holiday in Tahiti and I will tell you all about when we have arrived at our hotel.
The temperature is very good (28/29 or so) and the island is beautiful as we thought it would be.
We will now unpack and see what awaits us on the beach tomorrow.
We all got garlands (or something like that) around our necks when we left the plane, got kissed over and over and they promised to be on our beach every day!! This will be a very nice part of our holiday in Tahiti and I will tell you all about when we have arrived at our hotel.
The temperature is very good (28/29 or so) and the island is beautiful as we thought it would be.
We will now unpack and see what awaits us on the beach tomorrow.
Bye bye New Zealand and aloha Hiti Moana villa's
It's now friday the 4th. and tomorrow it will be friday again (in Tahiti).
In an half hour we'll be brought to the airport in Auckland and we'll fly around 15.00 hours to Tahiti (Papeete is the capital city).
After we have landed in Papeete somebody form our hotel there will fetch from the airport and we will be brought to Hiti Moana Villa's.
An d I'm sure the hula girls await us at the airport (our tour guide promised).
This isa it for today and till the next time.
woensdag 2 december 2009
The last picture of New Zealand
This is a gull on the hot water beach in the evening. I think it is a nice gull.
Funny
The day before yesterday we were camping and next to us was a small campervan with on its tail:
"Proudly baking Possum Pancakes since 1992".
I thought it was funny.
"Proudly baking Possum Pancakes since 1992".
I thought it was funny.
Entrance of the Waipu Museum in .............. Waipu
The entrance of the Waipu museum with a Scottish "welcome" which I can't read but then, I am not a scotsman and the Scotts are.
The Waipu museum in Waipu
Picture of a bagpiper in the Waipu museum in Waipu.It's not the best picture I made in New Zealand because of the glass in fornt of the bagpiper.
But.......it looks Scottish.
Helenville North Island
On this rainy day it is Wednesday december 2nd. 2009 and we reached Helenville.
So Helen, you must have achieved a lot since they thought here to name their city (or village or ville) after you. Congratulations!!!
We don’t know what is exciting about Helenville, because we didn’t try to find out (it rains practically all day) but it has lots of old buildings (from 1912 I saw one: the post office) and the town main street looks like Dodge City but than mostly built of stone.
And of course there was no Wyatt Earp or Daltons in sight.
This morning we left Wangharei (which is a rather large city; you could get lost over there) and thus set for Helenville.
Why?
Apart from the old buildings (in every town and village they are very proud of their old buildings, as you can imagine and that is why they all have a city museum with old stuff of like 50 years old and so) there are hot pools and Ankie is going to go there, this afternoon. It doesn’t matter when it rains and you are lying in some hot spring pool.
You get wet anyway, isn’t?
Somewhere, halfway to Helenville we visited the town of Waipu.
Waipu is a city with a Scottish heritage or something like that.
As you know the living conditions 200 years back in Scotland were bad.
Highland landowners in Scotland discovered the opportunity to make wealth form sheep farming and they forced their traditional tenant farmers (not seldom kinsmen) off the land and replaced them with sheep and I suppose you know ALL about sheep now.
Thousands of Scotts were forced to emigrate and in 1817 the first small group left the West Highland port of Ullapoole (very well known in Ullapoole and surroundings; they have one hotel/restaurant* and six houses now. I have seen that myself) destined for (YES!!) Nova Scotia.
They were under the leadership of a forceful Calvinist preacher Norman Mc Leod.
Looking at his photograph (there are a few) he certainly didn’t go happy and joyful through life. No frolics with the Reverend Mc Leod!!
* The food was awful and the service the same.
To cut the story short, they lived a while in Nova Scotia in St. Ann’s**, Cape Breton, but famine and sickness produced disaster and than was decided to look for a better life in Australia.
With six ships they sailed for Australia.
The ships names (you have to know your history and somebody elses!!):
- Margaret,
- Highland Lassie (doesn’t have anything to do with rice),
- Gertrude,
- Spray,
- Ellen Lewis (called after some girl of the Isle of Lewis or so),
- Breadalbane.
After much hardship (storms, typhoid and one or two ships almost wrecked on some rocky coast) the Scotts arrived at Adelaide but unfortunately there was a drought and no land available but Mc Leod successfully negotiated with the New Zealand Governor for land in New Zealand.
Since they sold their ships in Australia they had to purchase another one named “Gazelle” and around 1850 about 940 Scotts found their “Promised Land” in the North Island, near and in the town of Waipu and thousands of descendants (they didn’t sit still during the day and the night) live their today. Waipu doesn’t look Scottish but the names on their mailboxes are certainly Scottish like:
- Mc Beth (very well known in England as well),
- Mc Leod,
- Mc Duff,
- Mc Lennan,
- Cameron,
- Duncan,
- MacLean,
- MacKenzie,
- Roberts,
- Munro,
- McKay (do you remember Bobby?),
- McInnes,
- Mc Donald (famous all over the world),
and lots and lots of other Macs.
** Here something about a guy, famous in Nova Scotia and apparently in Waipu as well: Giant Angus McAskill.
He lived in St. Ann’s around the time that the Reverend McLeod decided to find a land where they could prosper.
Angus McAskill was well over 2.50 meters (or so) and his hands were 20 cm’s wide and 30 cm’s long (to get the idea) and he was the strongest man around.
Many tales are told about this giant.
One is as follows:
Once, coming home late with a load of firewood the oxen were so slow that Angus decided to unyoke them and pulled home the wood himself in no time.
Another story tells us that the fishermen of St. Ann’s envied his strength.
While they laboriously bailed out their boats, Angus set his weight under his half ton boat, tipped it up on its beam ends and bilged out the water.
I tried to make a photograph of the portrait of Angus in the museum
but I failed because almost every portrait and picture sits behind glass and then it is very difficult to make a good picture.
So, shit happens and no picture of Angus.
All about Angus and the story of the Scotts who came from the highlands and arrived at Waipu in the end, you can see in the Waipu Museum in an exhibition called “from croft to cottage” about one of the most extraordinary global migrations in world history (our guide tells us).
Museum Opening Hours
9.30 am – 4.30 pm
7 days a week,
But…………….……………..winter hours may be reduced so if you go there during the winter, call them first 09 432 0746.
E-mail: info@waipumuseum.com.
This was the main event of this day.
Tomorrow will be our last full day in New Zealand.
The day after - on the 4th of December - we will fly to Tahiti!!!
When we are there I will explain why Tahiti is well known throughout the whole world, but now already I can lift one tip of the veil:
- dancing Hula Girls will await us with bare (.)(.) !!!
When you read this, it will be the 3rd. of December or maybe even the 4th (there is no wireless on the camping in Helenville and if you look at the faces of the people around here, they won’t have wireless for a very long time).
As I wrote, we will leave on the 4th. of December and we will arrive in Tahiti on the ………..3rd. (Read “around the world in 80 days” with Philias Fogg and others, amongst which an real Indian Princess as well).
It was a nice day again and till the next time.
We are a little further in time and today is (the next time) and Thursday 3rd. December and we arrived at our hotel in Auckland.
This morning we cleaned (moreless) our campervan and packed our suitcases and backpacks and other bags and the other ones.
We drove from Helenville to Auckland and nothing eventful (to write about) happened and we brought our campervan back (Pacific Horizons the rental company is called) and everything was OK and we were brought to our hotel (The Quadrant) in the city centre and we have free wireless.
It rained practically all day and we have to decide whether to go visiting the city centre in the rain or stay in our room looking TV, read books, etc.
So Helen, you must have achieved a lot since they thought here to name their city (or village or ville) after you. Congratulations!!!
We don’t know what is exciting about Helenville, because we didn’t try to find out (it rains practically all day) but it has lots of old buildings (from 1912 I saw one: the post office) and the town main street looks like Dodge City but than mostly built of stone.
And of course there was no Wyatt Earp or Daltons in sight.
This morning we left Wangharei (which is a rather large city; you could get lost over there) and thus set for Helenville.
Why?
Apart from the old buildings (in every town and village they are very proud of their old buildings, as you can imagine and that is why they all have a city museum with old stuff of like 50 years old and so) there are hot pools and Ankie is going to go there, this afternoon. It doesn’t matter when it rains and you are lying in some hot spring pool.
You get wet anyway, isn’t?
Somewhere, halfway to Helenville we visited the town of Waipu.
Waipu is a city with a Scottish heritage or something like that.
As you know the living conditions 200 years back in Scotland were bad.
Highland landowners in Scotland discovered the opportunity to make wealth form sheep farming and they forced their traditional tenant farmers (not seldom kinsmen) off the land and replaced them with sheep and I suppose you know ALL about sheep now.
Thousands of Scotts were forced to emigrate and in 1817 the first small group left the West Highland port of Ullapoole (very well known in Ullapoole and surroundings; they have one hotel/restaurant* and six houses now. I have seen that myself) destined for (YES!!) Nova Scotia.
They were under the leadership of a forceful Calvinist preacher Norman Mc Leod.
Looking at his photograph (there are a few) he certainly didn’t go happy and joyful through life. No frolics with the Reverend Mc Leod!!
* The food was awful and the service the same.
To cut the story short, they lived a while in Nova Scotia in St. Ann’s**, Cape Breton, but famine and sickness produced disaster and than was decided to look for a better life in Australia.
With six ships they sailed for Australia.
The ships names (you have to know your history and somebody elses!!):
- Margaret,
- Highland Lassie (doesn’t have anything to do with rice),
- Gertrude,
- Spray,
- Ellen Lewis (called after some girl of the Isle of Lewis or so),
- Breadalbane.
After much hardship (storms, typhoid and one or two ships almost wrecked on some rocky coast) the Scotts arrived at Adelaide but unfortunately there was a drought and no land available but Mc Leod successfully negotiated with the New Zealand Governor for land in New Zealand.
Since they sold their ships in Australia they had to purchase another one named “Gazelle” and around 1850 about 940 Scotts found their “Promised Land” in the North Island, near and in the town of Waipu and thousands of descendants (they didn’t sit still during the day and the night) live their today. Waipu doesn’t look Scottish but the names on their mailboxes are certainly Scottish like:
- Mc Beth (very well known in England as well),
- Mc Leod,
- Mc Duff,
- Mc Lennan,
- Cameron,
- Duncan,
- MacLean,
- MacKenzie,
- Roberts,
- Munro,
- McKay (do you remember Bobby?),
- McInnes,
- Mc Donald (famous all over the world),
and lots and lots of other Macs.
** Here something about a guy, famous in Nova Scotia and apparently in Waipu as well: Giant Angus McAskill.
He lived in St. Ann’s around the time that the Reverend McLeod decided to find a land where they could prosper.
Angus McAskill was well over 2.50 meters (or so) and his hands were 20 cm’s wide and 30 cm’s long (to get the idea) and he was the strongest man around.
Many tales are told about this giant.
One is as follows:
Once, coming home late with a load of firewood the oxen were so slow that Angus decided to unyoke them and pulled home the wood himself in no time.
Another story tells us that the fishermen of St. Ann’s envied his strength.
While they laboriously bailed out their boats, Angus set his weight under his half ton boat, tipped it up on its beam ends and bilged out the water.
I tried to make a photograph of the portrait of Angus in the museum
but I failed because almost every portrait and picture sits behind glass and then it is very difficult to make a good picture.
So, shit happens and no picture of Angus.
All about Angus and the story of the Scotts who came from the highlands and arrived at Waipu in the end, you can see in the Waipu Museum in an exhibition called “from croft to cottage” about one of the most extraordinary global migrations in world history (our guide tells us).
Museum Opening Hours
9.30 am – 4.30 pm
7 days a week,
But…………….……………..winter hours may be reduced so if you go there during the winter, call them first 09 432 0746.
E-mail: info@waipumuseum.com.
This was the main event of this day.
Tomorrow will be our last full day in New Zealand.
The day after - on the 4th of December - we will fly to Tahiti!!!
When we are there I will explain why Tahiti is well known throughout the whole world, but now already I can lift one tip of the veil:
- dancing Hula Girls will await us with bare (.)(.) !!!
When you read this, it will be the 3rd. of December or maybe even the 4th (there is no wireless on the camping in Helenville and if you look at the faces of the people around here, they won’t have wireless for a very long time).
As I wrote, we will leave on the 4th. of December and we will arrive in Tahiti on the ………..3rd. (Read “around the world in 80 days” with Philias Fogg and others, amongst which an real Indian Princess as well).
It was a nice day again and till the next time.
We are a little further in time and today is (the next time) and Thursday 3rd. December and we arrived at our hotel in Auckland.
This morning we cleaned (moreless) our campervan and packed our suitcases and backpacks and other bags and the other ones.
We drove from Helenville to Auckland and nothing eventful (to write about) happened and we brought our campervan back (Pacific Horizons the rental company is called) and everything was OK and we were brought to our hotel (The Quadrant) in the city centre and we have free wireless.
It rained practically all day and we have to decide whether to go visiting the city centre in the rain or stay in our room looking TV, read books, etc.
maandag 30 november 2009
The Watiki Glow-worm Caves
This is a picture of the rocks in which the glow-worm caves are situated.
You can see the rocks in the middle/top of the picture.
The animals in the middle are cows and we didn't see any sheep today.
Lots of sheep farmers have cows now because they can earn more with cows.
Saint Michael's Anglican Church
This is the church which was built on the spot where the English were slain by the maori's in 1845.
The famous toilet of Hundertwasser in Kawakawa
This is the front of the colourful toilet of the famous artist Hundertwasser in Kawakawa.Look at the roof (Hundertwasser was a ecologist as well) and the people of the city of Kawakawa remember him well, beacause he planted thousands of trees but...........the people don't like the trees because they are pinetrees and they have lots of those already.
Hundertwasser and the Kawiti Glow-worm Caves
Today is December 1st 2009 and we are still on the North Island of New Zealand.
Like the last days the day began with a few drops of rain. After that it became less and less clierwdy and the rest of the day was rather sunny and warm.
To have something to do we first went to a city called Kawakawa.
Not too far from Paihia.
Kawakawa is famous throughout the North Island because of the fact that a rather famous Austrian artist (his name was Hundertwasser) lived in Kawakawa for a long time and got the order from the town council to design the city toilet.
Large signs on the side of the road announce the toilet of Hundertwasser.
So we visited that toilet and Ankie even went inside and she told me that the toilet was clean.
Two years ago Ankie and I visited an exhibition of Hundertwasser in our famous and well known city (or village) Valkenburg in Limburg.
So we were of course very excited that we could visit the town where Hundertwasser built a very luxurious outhouse/bathroom/toilet/loo.
On the other side of the street we visited the Hundertwasser Museum which showed lots of copies of paintings of the painter and lots of photographs of the guy, together with all sorts of other people.
In this museum they showed also all the stuff the older people of the town of Kawakawa donated to the museum and so it just looked like all the other town and village museums which show:
- old photographs,
- old chairs,
- old kitchen utensils (like form 50 years back, they think it is really old),
- old books (millions of them),
- old telephones,
- old pots and pans and china and earthenware household things,
- old toys,
- old other things.
In the museum I found the copy of the report of an eyewitness of the battle of Ohaeawai in 1845, 1st of July. The eyewitness was a medical doctor who travelled around and was just there when the battle raged.
Funny to read what happened exactly during the days around the battle.
The second experience of this day was our visit to the Kawiti Glow-worm Caves of Kawiti.
The caves were discovered by a Maori tribe and one of the attendants we were told is a member of the mentioned tribe.
The caves are not very large but “impressive”. Beautiful massive pillars of pure white stalactites, stalagmites galore.
In the caves you can see millions of glow-worms (Arachnocampa Luminosa) and with the Maori name of Pura Toke (So that you know this as well).
This transparent larva of the Fungus Gnat, which has a life cycle of about eleven months, from the egg to the adult fly, aluminates the caves (a little).
The glow-worm grows from 2 mm to 40 mm long. It is as thin as a needle with a blue/green taillight.
It lives of mosquitoes, flies, moths which are attracted by the light and are caught in small chainlike webs the worms grow.
Our tour guide told us these glow-worms only live in caves in New Zealand and Australia.
The visit to these caves was really nice.
We are now camping in the city of Whangarei and we have internet so, we’ll do some updates now.
All is well in New Zealand and till the next time.
Like the last days the day began with a few drops of rain. After that it became less and less clierwdy and the rest of the day was rather sunny and warm.
To have something to do we first went to a city called Kawakawa.
Not too far from Paihia.
Kawakawa is famous throughout the North Island because of the fact that a rather famous Austrian artist (his name was Hundertwasser) lived in Kawakawa for a long time and got the order from the town council to design the city toilet.
Large signs on the side of the road announce the toilet of Hundertwasser.
So we visited that toilet and Ankie even went inside and she told me that the toilet was clean.
Two years ago Ankie and I visited an exhibition of Hundertwasser in our famous and well known city (or village) Valkenburg in Limburg.
So we were of course very excited that we could visit the town where Hundertwasser built a very luxurious outhouse/bathroom/toilet/loo.
On the other side of the street we visited the Hundertwasser Museum which showed lots of copies of paintings of the painter and lots of photographs of the guy, together with all sorts of other people.
In this museum they showed also all the stuff the older people of the town of Kawakawa donated to the museum and so it just looked like all the other town and village museums which show:
- old photographs,
- old chairs,
- old kitchen utensils (like form 50 years back, they think it is really old),
- old books (millions of them),
- old telephones,
- old pots and pans and china and earthenware household things,
- old toys,
- old other things.
In the museum I found the copy of the report of an eyewitness of the battle of Ohaeawai in 1845, 1st of July. The eyewitness was a medical doctor who travelled around and was just there when the battle raged.
Funny to read what happened exactly during the days around the battle.
The second experience of this day was our visit to the Kawiti Glow-worm Caves of Kawiti.
The caves were discovered by a Maori tribe and one of the attendants we were told is a member of the mentioned tribe.
The caves are not very large but “impressive”. Beautiful massive pillars of pure white stalactites, stalagmites galore.
In the caves you can see millions of glow-worms (Arachnocampa Luminosa) and with the Maori name of Pura Toke (So that you know this as well).
This transparent larva of the Fungus Gnat, which has a life cycle of about eleven months, from the egg to the adult fly, aluminates the caves (a little).
The glow-worm grows from 2 mm to 40 mm long. It is as thin as a needle with a blue/green taillight.
It lives of mosquitoes, flies, moths which are attracted by the light and are caught in small chainlike webs the worms grow.
Our tour guide told us these glow-worms only live in caves in New Zealand and Australia.
The visit to these caves was really nice.
We are now camping in the city of Whangarei and we have internet so, we’ll do some updates now.
All is well in New Zealand and till the next time.
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