…less than 5 hours until take-off for Shanghai and Hong Kong. Good-Bye Australia. Three weeks from Adelaide to Sydney in a campervan, what an experience! We also would like to thank Julie and Mike for their hospitality, again…lovely pool experience and a great dinner. We hope to seeing you soon in Europe.
After a record heat wave (we had 43 degrees in Sydney during daytime and about 32 degrees at night), we will head to the northern hemisphere = winter time 🙂
Sydney (Downtown/Harbour & Dinner Sailing Cruise)
 
Narrabeen Beach
  
Kangaroo Valley / Fitzroy Falls
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 1,900 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 3 years to get that many views.
Lakes Entrance:
Paynesville (koala colony):
Eden:
Batemans Bay:
XMas in Victoria’s capital city…Melbourne did not disappoint at all. We also met Anja and Frank, friends from home (=Unterfranken) 🙂 . They brought Rene’s new credit card and bank card, which got shipped to Germany and should get us through the remaining two months of traveling.
That’s what you get, when ordering a piccolino latte at Starbucks in Australia 😉
View from top of Eureka tower
Melbourne’s fantastic museum
1.) Naracoorte Caves
2.) Grampians National Park (Aussie’s “Grand” Canyon)
3.) Great Ocean Road
4.) Otway Beech Forrest (Treetop Walk & Zip Line Tour)
We made it!
 Auckland is the final destination of our NZ encounter…we are blessed with summer & sunshine. Almost 4 weeks of travel by campervan have turned a holiday into adventure. We very much enjoyed both south and north island.
Skycity: Skytower = Highest building in southern hemisphere
Christmas in Auckland = Xmas & Summer…must be the heat 😉
Santa’s Little Helper / Stand-In
Our stay in Auckland was topped by a very special screening of “The Hobbit” in fantastic 3D HFR (high frame rate)…
NEXT STOP: AUSTRALIA! Adelaide, we are coming! (well, actually this blog is already written here in our hotel room in central Adelaide 🙂 = we had a safe flight to Aussie-land)
 Continuing with our tour of middle earth, this time in the center of the north island in the volcano area. The volcanoes Tongariro and Ngauruhoe were used as Mount Doom filming loctaions in LoTR.
Due to the eruption of Tongariro at the end of November only half the route is currently open, with the walk requiring trampers to turn round at the red crater and head back along the same track. But with Tongariro still venting a large amount of steam and throwing out the odd rock we could understand why the route was partially closed.
After a 1.5 hour walk through a valley full of signs of lava flows, the walk then steeply climbs up to the southern crater, which could also double for a moon crater. After crossing the crater it is more steep climbing up scree rock to the red crater with views then over to the blue and emerald lakes, and steam cloud of Mount Tongariro.
Described as New Zealand’s best one day hike, the hike took us 7 hours there and back.
Pictures of the day:
 
 
Most photographed sign in NZ: A “skiwi” 🙂
Round the World 2012 / 2013 