Things we learned:

Kiwis and the E

When arriving in NZ you will immediately learn something about their local language. And yes, they speak English of course. But they do have their little local accent going on. And they seem to have a special relationship with the letter E.

It is pronounced as if it came in a very thin glass bubble. You can’t just say it the way the British say it. It may break. So, you have to handle it with great care. It has to have its own little space, cannot be too close to any other letter. Transport it very carefully over your tongue through your mouth into the air, so that it can float to someone else’s ear.

You say yEs and sEvEn, sEptEmbEr and wEt.

We loved it and enjoyed hearing it.

You get used to the accent after a while. And after one month you start to change yourself… Oh yEs!

Stuff we saw:

These blossoms are everywhere here…

rolling green hills with patches of forest. cow paradise

Piha, used to be a quite place, now its the weekend destination for stressed-out Aucklanders and tourists

The sand of the beach is volcanic and black

The waves are rolling in

The next morning is more quite and nice

there is still some wind blasting though

a little walk up a hill and we get stunning views

surfers paradise

need a new hair style? go to the beach!

Outside Piha the deep rainforest Dovers the land.

gecko doing yoga

The Hot Water Beach is located on the Coromandel Peninsula. There are some nice walks in this area.

Stuff we did:

We wanted to go to the Coromandel Peninsula directly, but a closed main road and rush hour traffic in Auckland convinced us that a short visit in Piha would be a nice alternative.

A curvy road leads down to a picture book beach. Long breaking waves attract surfers from all over the country. But mainly this is a mere hour drive from Auckland, so this is a resort for people from the city. There are many small little huts on the huge coastal descent. They all have a fantastic view. In between huge villas for the rich people.

We chose a nice little campsite and got some dinner in the campsite kitchen.

This is a very New Zealand kind of thing: the campsites. I have never in the world seen campsites like this. Even the simplest ones have a commune area with a usually fully equipped kitchen. Some even offer cutleries, pans and plates. All have some gas stoves, fridges and a weather protected area to sit and eat.

They are not exactly cheap (with averaging at 20 – 25 Euros) in general, but really very nice. Some have stunning locations and one of these extraordinary locations was Piha.

The sand of the beach is of volcanic origin and is completely black. A huge rock offers a fantastic view. We climbed it as far as it was safe and enjoyed the view before we continued to our next destination: The Hot Water Beach.