Auckland, Paihia, Hahei, Waitomo and Rotorua

As I told before my arrival in New Zealand was not very easy. And it did not end by that. On the third day in Auckland all my money from my bank account was gone. I was in a shop buying some very cheap merino clothing and my card didn't work. I went to check my account and there was only 1,78 dollar on my bank. I directly went to check what happened and apparently Avis took another 667 dollar from my account. I called my bank to make that transaction undone and hope it'll work out. In the meantime I mailed Avis again to work it out. Guess I'll finally learn how to stand up for myself.
Luckily my Dutch account was still full so I could book a tour/transport. I now have a stray everywhere pass, which means that in 35 days I'll see almost everything that New Zealand has to offer. It also has some cool included activities and accommodation gets a lot cheaper this way.
The first thing I did was going to Paihia, which is located north of Auckland. It is the stop to see the bay of Islands, Cape Reinga, 90 mile beach (more like 80 km) and some kauri (pronounce as cody) forests. Kauri trees are the biggest in the world when looking in terms of tree volume, the ones in California are still taller.
It was tree hugging day (seriously a national day in NZ), so I hugged some kauri trees, which by Maori (maodi) people is considered to be very healthy. Afterwards we drove on the 90 mile beach, which is a beach with lots of "quicksand" places where buses actually have to increase speed to not get stuck (there are actually signs saying 'Danger, increase speed', which I've never seen before).
We also went sand boarding there. It was lots of fun and I reached speeds of 40-45 km/h. A Swedish guy and I enjoyed it the most and we went up the dune 5 times and eventually were the only ones going fast enough to skip over a stream and hitting the grass on the other side of it (after which you can say you're a professional sand boarder according to our tour guide).
We then went to cape Reinga to see the Tasman sea and the South Pacific colliding. The two seas have different colours and waves come from two different sides and collide and make a line. This line is considered to be the route to 'heaven' by Maori people.
I also did some very nice walks near Paihia to fill up my time there.

A couple of days later we went to the Coromandel peninsula where we could see cathedral cove and some nice beaches. It also was the first time I could use my tent which I bought 4 days before. After 2 months of hostels you can imagine that I needed some privacy. No snoring people and nice and close to the ground instead of unstable bunk beds.
It also saved me 10 dollars and with the night in Raglan it saved me 25 dollars in total (already 10% of the tent). So I'm going to do this more often.
When we cruised through Waitomo (known for its glow worm caves, which actually are glow maggots) we stopped for some caving.
It was very nice although no photos from that. It was not allowed to bring one and for 2 photos I had to pay 40 dollars. We did abseil 20 m and had to crawl through very small holes. The glow worms were also quite nice to see.
In the evening we went to experience the real Maori culture.
We went to a community and were officially invited on their property and are officially family now. We learnt the haka and ate traditional meals, such as woodpidgeons, sweet potatoes and more. They also performed for us and told us stories about their culture.
We slept in the most sacred place of the Maori community, it was the house where all their ancestors are. The good thing about the place is that this was the real deal. It really was to show their culture and not to sell themselves as clowns. They worn normal clothes and didn't pretend things they were not.
It was an insight in their culture and it was totally worth it.
Now I'm in Rotorua, a city around a volcanic lake where every corner of town smells like rotten eggs. It has some charm though and I met an American named Eric where I walked with. We went to see a geyser (we didn't because the entrance was 50 $) and continued to walk to a redwood forest. Also very high trees such as the kauri.
Next up is the east coast where I'll see the first sunrise of the earth.
Looking forward to it, as long as the weather stays nice which you'll never know in New Zealand.