This country is for nature lovers
After Bay Islands we cruised around Great Barrier Island in the Gulf of Auraki, where every bay has lots of hiking trails to offer and so instead of daily swimming in Fiji we had daily hiking in NZ. Now we are securely tied to a dock in Tauranga, out of the zone of dreaded cyclones of SW Pacific. This is a year of El Nino, and here in NZ they are already worried about how drought is going to affect their agriculture. In El Nino year cyclones have a tendency to occur mainly Est of our longitude and the French Polynesia is preparing for the worst. We hope they and the low laying atolls of Tuamotu are not going to get hit too hard, but will escape cyclones completely! Here El Nino brings dryness, but for now rain still comes now and then and everywhere we look the flowers are blooming between many shades of green. This country is a real heaven for nature lovers and fit people, who are ready to carry all they need on their backs. This unfortunately is not for us anymore, but there are still many, many day trails that we can enjoy. Tauranga is a real small tourist town with a lot of activity around and so it looks like JP is not going to miss me too much while I'll be away! He has a lot of projects he wants to accomplish before I come back, so we can still enjoy the many islands, bays, trails in this country, before we sail away for good sometimes in May. We still didn't settle on exactly where we will go, but for sure the adventure will start with Vanuatu, followed by New Caledonia and then either Australia or through Indonesia. For now we wish you to enjoy the magic this wonderful holiday has to offer and may it bring you joy that will last throughout the whole year. JP would like to share a final thought with you all: “Our small planet Earth is beautiful, so lets do better in preserving its diversity and resources.” – and I do hope his wish will come through...