• Hitchhiking to Golden Bay was Fun!Fun!Fun!. We met a lot of friendly people and saved some gas money… I’ll try to list the people we met: A women with a boy in a 4wd who hitchhiked through Europe, a Maori bus driver who was going to pick up some students up north, a girl in a van who was going to meet her German travel companion up north, a dutch girl cruising/camping through NZ who’s car got hit by a truck and you could smell some exhaust, a local couple, a nice mother of a three year old girl in a small car who owns an organic coffee shop and local art and crafts shop in Motueka took us to the McKee campground where we had dinner together and sat on the beach. The next day a east European couple on their way to Golden Bay picked us up after quite a while waiting around the campground (not a good start for hitching), we stopped at the lovely coffee shop “Four Winds” in Motueka, a guy in his van took us to Riwaka where we all bought tickets for the Black Seeds concert, then a packed van stopped for us and waived their friends out to take us over the mountains in their overheating van… and here we are in front of the Hangdog campground in Paynes Ford!
  
• We didn’t managed to go climbing that day, but we had a look around. The camp was quite busy, but not too crowded — we found an ok place to place our tent (thx CUTC). From the last night at the McKee campground we knew it better and found a place in the shade (the morning sun heats up the tent and wakes you up at 8am).
  Then the 24th Christmas? NoNo. Only for the wired European legacy… and it was raining… enough so make climbing in Paynes a pain. We went to Pohara with a German dude. The walls there were dry and we had some fun, later it was raining quite hard, but we still had fun on a sheltered wall. An 18 was the challenge for the day, the last two meters were wet and slippery.
• The 25th: Christmas Day! It stopped raining in the morning, the xmas trees (we had two) where decorated and it was a question of going climbing or not, because today was the big day. About 50 people joint the Hangdog Christmas meal (the deal was to chip in NZ$10 for a giant lunch/dinner/meal). So we were just hanging around, offering our help with preparing the food… and so on. We couldn’t wait to get going with eating. When the food was finally served we didn’t exactly know how to act: Grab a plate a.s.a.p. or take pictures of the great view of four camping tables full with gorgeous food? I chose option #1. Plenty of salads and veggies and salmon… wow! Eating, eating, eating until we were fully full man, and then desert (and party poppers!). Some people passed out… after a while. At some point and some desserts we decided to go for a climb, but changed our mind and went swimming at Pohara Beach. It was quite windy, but it seemed to be nice to go for a swim on Christmas. What a day!
  
• We then had three more days of climbing in Paynes.

(Pictures temporarily stolen from tom)

Then we went to Picton and took the ferry to Wellington. We met a nice girl on the windy deck and had a chat. We had to hold on tight to the table and our stuff. Wellington is really windy. We cruised a bit over Wellingtonian motorways, before we managed to get into town to have a snack and coffee (go to Midnight Espresso on Cuba St).
That night we stayed on a campground between Wellington and Taupo. The next day we went to Taupo’s hot pools. And stayed at a local camp ground. We reached Auckland the next day and spend the night at a backpackers. Funny was the price for the internet:

$3 for 30min or $7 for unlimited use — but if you use the pool it is free!

Your next question would be “How much is it to use the pool?” and we asked the question five times: It was free ;)

The next day the three boys went off to Tonga and I met Tash (I know her from India). I spend the next days with her and her two flatmates.

Tbc.