The next day we drove to Hick’s Bay and before we arrived there we have already had a nice view on the waterfront.

Parking our car on the beach we enjoyed our lunch on the seaside. And without thinking we just spent some time on the beach, before we wanted to go for the next destination.

As we tried to drive back to the street, our car stopped moving after some meters. It didn’t take us long to realise that we drove straight into an area with deeper sand that was more soft than the area we drove onto the beach. What should I say, the next minutes were a desperate try to get that car back to the street, ending up with Anna pushing it while I tried not to make it any worse when driving forward. Luckily we were not too stuck and after some shocking minutes we made it back to the street, but we said to ourselves never to park the car on a beach again.

Our next stop was the oldest tree in new Zealand which looked pretty impressive, when we arrived there.

Our campsite was just some minutes away from the tree and we arrived there already in the afternoon. The friendly host made us feel very welcome and even said that we could pick some fruit from the trees if we wanted to.

Due to the fact that we arrived quite early, we could use our time to rest for the big following day.

The next morning we set an alarm for a time when it was still dark outside. For people like me, who are the definition of a night owl, this was the worst case scenario. We drove to the East Cape, New Zealand’s easternmost spot. Tired but excited we parked the car and made our way to the stairs. With 700 steps this was the next challenge after getting up on time and driving a narrow path to the cape in the dark.

Arriving on the top of the hill Otiki, the first thing we saw was the lighthouse. And the view which was awaiting us afterwards was the confirmation of our effort. We were ahead of our time plan and needed to wait for half an hour till the sun rose but we were happy to arrive that early because of the fact that more and more people arrived the closer we came to the sunrise.

But even though there were some people it didn’t feel too crowded and everyone had space enough to enjoy the view.

Driving back, the narrow path looked even more impressive than it seemed to be when driving along in the dark.

We spent a couple of hours on the road and arrived on the next spot. Looking at the time I was shocked that we arrived at quarter to ten at Tolaga Bay. It felt way too early for all that we had seen on that day already.

With 660 meters the Tolaga Bay Wharf is the longest pier in New Zealand. For a long time the area of Ruatoria could only be reached by ships.

1769 Captain Cook started his journey on the Endeavour on behalf of the British Royal Society to observe the sky from Tahiti. On his world travel he reached New Zealand’s East coast where he met friendly Maori.

Following the track of the famous explorer we hiked the path of the Cook’s Cove which was very hilly and there was not a cloud in the sky which made the lookouts even more beautiful.

Captain Cook compared the different measurements he took from different Earth perspectives to calculate the distance to the sun. His observations helped to define the actual distance of 149.6 million kilometres between the Earth and the sun with a deviation of only one per cent.

At the end of the hiking track we could see one of New Zealand’s famous wholes in the wall which looked like a painting.

Five minutes away from the whole in the wall we finally arrived to the Cook’s Cove and tried to imagine that one day in the past, Cook, the famous explorer, stood at the exact same spot and looked at the seaside like we did.

After walking all the way back to the car, we drove to our campsite. No matter where you drive in New Zealand, you will always find lookouts like this, while driving on an average road.

Anna and me were very certain about the fact that we would sleep very well that night after being up so early and very active afterwards.