We drove together with Kevin to Tauranga to visit the farmers market. Here it's local farmers produce and nothing else. No big retailers here. We went for a walk up Mount Maunganui. Done this before, but I was pooped when we got to the top, but it was well worth it. Ice creams all round when we eventually got down again.

Sasha the dog had to be entertained, throwing anything we could so she could fetch it. Only problem was that she could go on all day and if she didn't find what you threw, she would come back with something else!

On our way towards Lake Taupo. Stopped at hot springs on road 36 and had a dip. You could decide how warm you wanted the water yourself. In towards the left was cooler and the opposite if you go to the right. A girl from China came for a dip and she was giving the low down on her country.

We did something known as the Wai-Tapu loop and called into see a mud pool. I think this was one of the best mud pool area I have seen, and it was free. We camped at Huka Falls camp. This was a free camp down by the river, with a couple of toilets. Great camp, but it was really cold during the night - 2 degrees. There was ice on the tent on the back of the vehicle. Saw Huka Falls and later "moon landscape" with mud pools and lots of steam. It was a nice walk around the area, with snow on the mountain in the background. Unfortunately while we were away, someone had driven into our vehicle and damaged the front fender - and just driven off. I could swear here now, but I won't!!!

 We drove around Lake Taupo, which is the largest lake in Australasia. We had hoped to see two waterfalls on the north west side as we drove around clockwise, but the road petered out into private property, so we had to about turn.

Jenenne had come home, so it was great to see her again. Spent the evening catching up on what she had been up to on her trip and we saw the photos she had taken. Aways great to be at the Kramers, because you really feel welcome. Karen and Jenenne went into town to swim and see a couple of waterfalls. I stayed home and trained sasha the dog and washed the Jenenne's car and sasha got washed at least five times. The girls got home and hadn't had time to swim, all their time had been spent seeing the waterfalls. Kevin is out during the day. On friday it's Karalla's birthday and she will be coming home - so it's party time!!! Jenenne has baked a cake and Karen will decorate it.

Katalla came home to enjoy a birthday meal with us. A leg of lamb done in the oven. The lamb was a year old before slaughter. It had a fantastic taste, even better than the younger lambs we have been used to eating. After a great dinner we were off to a river at Mclain's falls, where we would kajak down towards the power station to see "glowworms". only problem was - it is was pitch black when we got to the river.

Kevin and Jenenne got the boats safely into the water, and off we went, Karen, Katalla as guide, me and a couple of torches. It took about half an hour to reach the glow worms. It was really worth the effort. Thanks again to the Kramers for another unique experience.

A posh night out

Today we are relaxing, reading, crosswords, throwing things around the garden for Sasha to bring back all chewed up. The avacodos are getting a right bashing, but no matter how many we can eat, there are always more to fill up the bowl. Poor Jenenne isn't relaxing too much, she is hard at work knitting two sweaters for Karen and myself. She finished Karens today.

Drove out to Okere Falls to see Katalla kajak over two of the drops on the river. Facinating to see people really enjoy kajaking over small waterfalls and generally getting wet. Played 18 holes at Te Puke golf course. Great to swing a golf club again. We enjoyed playing in T shirt and shorts in warm weather. Brett a friend of Jenennes and Kevin called at the house during the evening. Nice to see him again.

The time had arrived where we had to say farewell to the Kramers. We have had a fantastic time with you guys and it's difficult to say goodbye, but leave we must. They made sure we were stocked up with everything we needed, especially avacados!!! Thanks a million Jenenne for the two lovely sweaters you knitted. We will always think of you both when we have them on. Thanks for the fresh bread waiting for us in the mornings Kevin. We can't buy anything like it. Hope to see you both again in the not too distant future.

On our way up to Hot Water Beach in the Coromandel peninsular. Drove through Karangahake Gorge and saw the remnants of an old gold mining town from the early 1900s. They had bored deep into the rock faces and dynamited and dug out many tunnels to get at the gold and then get it out through a maze of extra tunnels in hop cars that they pushed themselves. It was hard in those days. Saw the waterfall at Owharoa. We camped at Hot Water Beach Top 10. campsite. Lots of people and noisy. We went down to the "hot water beach" to see what it was. Hot thermal water (about 64 degrees C) bubbles up through the sand on the beach, so if you dig a hole and let it fill up, you have a nice warm bath. Luckily cooler water come up as well. The idea is to mix the two. We couldn't see much because it was dark. We will try again tomorrow.

Spent two hours on the beach in the warm water. We took the 309 towards Coromandel Town. Stopped off to see a forrest of Kouri trees. I don't remember seeing anything so big and high before. The ones we looked at were around 600 years old - wow. One has been recorded as being 4000 years old when it died. Called in at "waterworks" where you can see a various array of water contraptions, but we didn't because we have seen something similar in Denmark. Had coffe and cake at the "wet your whistle cafe" and on to Corremandel Town where we camped at Shelley Beach Campsite. A nice site more or less on the beach. We sat down on the beach and watched the sunset after our meal. A real paradise we have found again.

Slept until 8 am. We had "french toast" for breakfast with some of "Te Puke's" fresh eggs. Drove into Coromandel Town and had a nosy around. A small facinating town, not "touristy" at all. We had to try the local cakes and coffee and we weren't dissapointed.

There is a storm brewing that everyone is talking about at the moment. We have been advised to avoid going further north where the storm is expected to be worst. We are going to Auckland tomorrow and will stay there until the storm has passed, before deciding if we will travel further north. 

Hot water beach

On our way towards Auckland and Owera Top 10 where we will see if we can rent a cabin for the night. Our Danish friends Erling and Else were also at the camp, so we had a good chat when we arrived. Had a walk down down to the beach. We were in luck because they had a cancelation, so we got a cabin. The storm arrived during the night and we were glad we weren't out in the vehicle.

We have been lucky with the weather while we have been here (apart from the cool nights) and have had vertually no rain. Now we have the remains of a cyclone (Lucy) to contend with. Went down to the beach to see how the storm was pushing the incoming tide further up the beach. We all of a sudden had to run to avoid getting caught as the waves came rushing in.

Storm over and we decided to drive up north a bit to Waipu caves. Here we saw stalagmites and stalagtites in a fantastic setting. It was pitch black inside, but if you sit for 5 to 10 minutes you can really see a lot. We were the only people in which made it a bit earie. You can travel quite a distance underground if you want, but you will need to swim if you want to do that - we didn't! Next were the falls at Whangaru. A bit slippery on the way down, but another of the many supurb waterfalls NZ has.

Our last day in NZ and the sun was shinning. Got the vehicle washed and drove into Auckland and dropped it off at the Spaceship depot - no problems. We were early for the flight, so we found an area of grass outside the terminal building and relaxed there for a couple of hours. The trip to Beijing was tiring, because we didn't get much sleep on the 11½ hour flight into China.

Great to see Mathilde and Mathias who met us at the airport. We took a taxi to their flat and Mathilde prepared a fantastic English breakfast - welcome to Beijing. They live on the 16th floor and have a nice view over part of the city. We could see the school children down below excercising outside, all in their colourful clothes. No drab uniforms here. 

Had a walk round in the neighbourhood together with Mathilde and Mathias. This is one big town. The sun was shinning and people didn't even have masks on. We could see the mountains, which meant that the air wasn't so polluted today. Mathilde has bought a mask for me in case I needed one, but if it continues like today, I won't.

We had our lunch at a local cafe, where our two guides chose the menu which tasted really good. Had to get the feel of using chopsticks again. Now it was time to go to our hotel. Our bags weigh 20 kgs each and they aren't on wheels, so we were lucky that Mathilde and Mathias helped us carry them down the road. The ten minutes we thought it would take - took a bit longer, but we struggled all four of us into reception, hot and exhausted. The hotel gave all four of us a welcomes drink, but no spirits. Coffee, mineral water or a beer. We enjoyed it anyway.

The hotel (Holiday Inn) is simply fantastic. A lot better than we had imagined. The 11 days here won't be bad at all. We went over later to their flat and drew up a plan for the next few days.

Beijing

Beijing will be our home for the next 11 days and what a city it is. It must be an architects dream. Some of the buildings are just science fiction, so the Chinese definitely can build. It is still a city of contrasts, with the drab buildings and grey skyscrapers used to house the millions of people who live in the city. Everywhere you go you are more or less surrounded by people and cars. Crossing the roads needs a lot of vigilance, even if you use a pedestrian crossing where it's green for you and red for the traffic. The taxis and cyclists just keep coming, so we just move with the crowd when we cross. Using the Metro is easy once you get the hang of how the stations function.

The down side of the city is of course the pollution aspect, but not many people are wearing masks here. I thought more or less everyone did, but no. They are really trying to cambat it with the use of eletrically driven buses and hopefully even more are on the way. Motorbikes, scooters and mopeds are 95% electrically driven, so that is helping, but you think to yourself, "has it come too late"?

The other problem of couse is the size of the population. A seventh of the worlds population are Chinese already, so now a couple can only have one child. Again they should have maybe done it earlier, but I take my hat off to them for such a drastic move, even at this stage.

All four of us took the subway over to the other side of the city. Here we walked down a newly constructed "pedestrian" way, with buildings built up in the old style with lots of bronze statues outside. These are a tourist haven for taking photos. We went into a tea establishment, where we tried different types of tea. Mathilde and Mathias bought some, but we didn't, because we just didn't like the tea. It was too weak for our tastes. We visited the Planning Exibition Hall where there were models of Beijing exhibited and you begin to realise how big this city really is.

Mathilde had to attend classes in the afternoon, so Karen and myself continued on into the Tiananmen square (the monument to the peoples heroes). This was scene we all remember from our TV screens, when the guy stood in front of the procession of tanks and stopped them moving forward. For a short time anyway. Now the place is full of tourists.

Through the square we continued into The Forbidden City. The Forbidden city was the Chinese Imperial Palace of the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. For approx. 500 years it served as the home of the emperors and their housholds, as well as the centre of government. Built in 1406, it consists of 980 buildings with some 10,000 rooms - some palace what! Today it is a "world heritage sight".

The city is surrounded by a moat six meters deep and a wall ten meters high. This was to keep out "ordinary" citizens, hence the citys name. At the gate you can rent a digital talking map to guide you through the maize of buildings. All the buildings and temples have names such as - The Palace of Heavenly Purity, The Palace of Earthly Tranquility or The Hall of Supreme Harmony and the list goes on. The map helped, but it's to overwhelming to remember them all.

Jingshan Park overlooks the city, so we climbed that to get an areal view. The smog was still thick as it has been for the last few days, so you couldn't see too far.

Today I stayed at the hotel. The smog is really thick and I can feel I had better stay indoors today. Mathilde and Karen are out doing a bit of shopping on their own. If it's the same tomorrow I will be wearing a mask.

Up early, because today we are going to Great Wall. The bus picked us up at 7.40 am outside the hotel. The only problem was, we were the only ones on the bus and the driver spoke no English. We drove around Beijing for an hour without picking anyone up with the driver talking in his cell phone all the time. We got the impression that he didn't know what he was supposed to do. Eventually, after trying to ask him what was going on, he handed the phone over and an English speaking person said he would meet us.

Eventually the bus stopped and a guy opened the door and beckoned us out. We were transferred to another bus filled with seven people, plus driver and guide. Now we were on our way. On our way we stopped at a "jade" business where they sold all sorts of jade, which is big here in China. Everything was very expensive, so we didn't buy anything. We ate a good lunch then on towards the wall. All we can say about the wall is that we have been there and done it! The smog was so thick that visability was down to under 100 meters. We went up to the highest point, but we couldn't really see anything.

 Back at the hotel at 3.0 pm and went down the Mathilde and Mathias after we had eaten at a Hong Kong restaurant.

Today we are visiting the Summer Palace. Mathilde and Mathias came to the hotel where we enjoyed breakfast together. Then a taxi to then palace. This as you would expect is no ordinary palace. It covers 290 hectares. Kunming lake is in the centre and her we hired a paddle boat and the four of us tried our hand at paddling the vessel. The view from the lake was fantastic. Not too foggy today, so we could see a lot. The palace was the home of the Imperial Qing Dynasty. It is so weel preserved. that it's difficult to believe it's hundreds of years old.

This was one of the better days spent in the city and we really enjoyed everything the palace had to offer.

Weather fine today - no smog, just sunshine and 24 degrees C. Today we visited the old Summer Palace, or as it's known today Yuanmingyuan Park. The park seems like a series of islands, with lots of bridges all over the place. We were here at the right time, because everything is springing out because of the warm weather. We found a bench and just relaxed and read. Later we walked round and found another bench overlooking one of the many lakes. A nice park to relax in.

Beijing is housing the mens world curling championships, which started yesterday. Denmark played against Canada tonight, so we had to go in and cheer them on. I have to admit that curling won't be something I will standing in a queue to buy tickets for in the future. I thought it was quite boring actually, but we cheered them on, but they lost to Canada I think. We left with a couple of frames still to play, but Denmark were so far behind that it would take a miracle to catch the Canadians. Caught the underground back to the hotel.

A nice sunny day today, with no smog. relaxed outside the hotel. The China Open snooker championship is being held in Beijing from the 31st for a week. They held a press conference at our hotel, so we joined in to see what was going on. The English world champion was present, so everyone was taking photos of him. We stayed for an hour, then it was off downtown to get a massage - wow it was good. Funny thing here is that men give women massages and women give men. No arguments from me on that score. Well now it's time to say goodbye to Beijing and travel back to Denmark after 3 months away.