Up to Christchurch

Hi Folks
I have made my way up the east coast and arrived in Christchurch yesterday. On the way I passed the university town of Dunedin, where I spent a couple of days. Amazing town, completely dominated by the university and student, which gives the city a unique progressive drive. I visited the Cadburry chocolate factory (wasn't overly impressed) and managed to get kicked out of a vegan restaurant with a couple of friends. Well, never mind. Oh, and I visited the worlds steepest road. To steep to skate. Waaaaaay to step to skate, holy cow!
The journey from Dunedin to Christchurch was fun itself, got a lift by a  meat worker booze cruise, fun bunch, but that must have been the slowest lift I ever had. We stopped at each and every pub on the way! I had to spend an extra night in Omaru, but that was alright, as it gave me the opportunity to go and watch the blue penguins in the evening.
Christchurch then is weird. The earthquake is still very present, in both the city and the people. But they seem to make the best out of it, seldom have I visited a city with so much small amazing things to discover. The Christchurchonians have filled the gaps in their city with art installations, street art and make shift buildings. But I will only spend two days here, as I have decided that it is time for me to start my way home.
Surprise surprise! Yes, you  have read right. I will fly back to Europe soon, Belgium to be precise, from where I will make my way to Denmark where I will visit some friends. And in May I will be back in Switzerland.
I never knew when this journey would end, I always thought that I would run out of money at one point and would have to return home before I reached the point of satisfaction. I am glad that it is the other way round now, I have reached a point where I felt that I had travelled long enough for now, and that I would rather want to go home and do something else. I missed home! And now I still have some funds left that will give me a head start at home.
Although I have not skated as far as I had in mind when I set off on this journey, I have skated as much as was reasonably possible without turning a fun journey into a self destructing race against my own will. And over three thousand kilometers on the board is not nothing as well.  I have seen so much, had so many experiences, it is hard to write down the feeling I get when thinking back of this journey. I am glad I did it and can't wait to tell you guys at home all the stories.

Cheers
And see you soon!

All the way to Bluff

Hi Folks
Unbelievable! I made it to Bluff! In one piece!
And I even managed to find some decent skating on the way! 50km from Franz Joseph Glacier to the Copland track starting point, very decent paved road with nice slope, and the 30km from Invercargill to Bluff, horribel narrow lane with way to many trucks.
And in Bluff itself, I celebrated by eating some Bluff oysters with matching wine. Awesome.
So I crossed the whole country, about 2000km, of which I skated about 400km and hitchhiked the rest.
Not what I announced initially but still satisfying. And it took the estimated one and a half months, even with a lot of hitchhiking.
In Queenstown I climbed Ben Lomond and vitnessed the nerve thrilling local sport of Bowling on grass.
Next I will pay a visit to the worlds steepest road in Dunedin.

Cheers

Picton to Havelock, Nelson and Greymouth

Hi Folks
Greymouth now. On the way here I found unbelievable 50km with good pavement, which allowed a nice skate day from Picton to Havelock. Unfortunately thats it. Since Havelock the streets are back to the gravel-roads-with-glue style from the north island. I still skated on in the hope of finding better pavement again, but without much success, I had to hitchhike over large distances. I did manage to fall twice more though, which resulted in a gaping hole in my right elbow and a painfully sprained left shoulder. Yay skatebarding in New Zealand. Very frustrating, to pass all these amazing landscapes and not be able to skate them.
I think it is safe to say that I was overambitious when I announced to skate New Zealand in its length. That is not going to happen. I am very sorry to have disappointed those expectations. Those who know me do know that I do not give up very easily, but New Zealand beat me. I will still keep trying to find nice stretches to skate, but I have given up the hope on doing considerable long distance. Sorry guys!
Other than that, the landscape is as mentioned really nice, a very rugged coastline with green mountains in the background and some farms dotted in between.
I spent a nice weekend in Greymouth with a couple of couchsurfers and visited a knivesmith, very interesting. Next I will go direction Queenstown, because if everything else fails, they claim to have the worlds best burger there...
Cheers

Wellington

Hi Folks
Current location: Wellington. Lovely town, has the highest longboard and skateboard concentration I have ever come accross in a town. And probably also the highest concentration of hipsters. Correlation is no causation though.
Wellington is the southernmost town of New Zealands north island, and from here I will cross the Cook strait to the south island. Tomorrow. Very early in the morning.
Unfortunately I can report that besides inside of towns and a couple of glorious exceptions (see last post), the roads in the south of the north island are equally bad for long distance longboarding as they where in the north. Why chipseal? And why so coarse? Seriously New Zealand, you could build smoother roads, other countries can manage too. But I am getting tired of ranting about bad road conditions. Hope for smooth pavement on the south island.
I stayed for a couple of days here at a friends place, to wait out that Cyclone that was forecasted, it didn't hit Wellington as hard though, and to ponder and organize over my  future. Came up with some interesting ideas that I will not foreshadow here now. Gotta wait until time is right.

Freeriding Mount Ruahepu

I just finished my longest freeride so far, 17km long and 800m altitude difference. And if I am not completely mistaken this was on the flank of an old volcano.
Bäm!

Central North Island

Hi Folks!
I have travelled south to the center of the north island, and you wouldn't believe it, but the pavement is worse. Plus there are more cars now. Nope.
To not be completely without adventure, I decided to do some lord of the rings fan things. I visited the Bilbos village, hobbiton, which was marvelous. On the outside, as all the insides of the buildings were missing.
Next thing I travelled to the Tongariro national park, where some scenes of mordor where shut. And at the center of the park there thrones mount Doom. Couldn't resist and hiked for three days through the barren landscape of the park, and climbed mount Doom. At 3.30 in the morning to be able to see the sunrise from top of an active volcano. That was pretty good. Although I did expect the peak to be loud and hot, in reality it was ice cold and so quiet that I started to make noise to make sure my ears still work.
Now I am heading towards Wellington and hope the roads are better on the south island.
Cheers

Conquering New Zealand; The battle for Northland

Hi Folks
Whew, who would have thought that. New Zealand is the most difficult longboarding I have experienced on this entire skateawhile trip. By far. I have managed to skate 275km from Cape Reinga to Dargaville, took me five days of skating, up to nine hours a day to reach the daily 50+km. Hard work I tell you. The street surface is unmatched rough, up to a point where you have to push for going down mild downhills. Steep downhills on the other hand get very very icy with my wheels, and I have a destroied pant, gloves and a impressively colourfull bruise now. (Yes, I fell again). Oh and did I mention constant headwind and walking up steep uphills for half of the day.
To make it short it is slow and painful. In fact it is so skate unfriendly that I have decided to abandon the North, and hitchhiked the remaining distance into Auckland (around 225km). So there I am right now, struggling with my decision and feeling bad for already having a gap in my skating through New Zealand. Well, unexpected things happen while traveling.
I will still try to cover some distance further South though, and hike the Tongariro Nature Park crossing (also known as Mount Doom).
But there is positive to report aswell. The New Zealanders are still one of the most welcoming and hospitable people I have met so far. And the landscape is still incredible. I have seen the biggest, no most humongous tree in my life, at a sacred place for Maori, they call him the father of life. Unimaginably beautiful. I had one of the most amazing freeride experiences in my life after the tree, riding down a perfectly steep, windy road with not so bad street surface. Took me about 1h continuously. Simply awesome. The next day I was invited by a local farmer to spend the night at their house, and went spear hunting for flounders with him in the evening.
And in general I can start to feel a travel saturation setting in, now that I have reached the other end of the planet I have started to think about after traveling. I have yet to reach a conclusion and will continue for a while, but I at least feel satisfied with what I have accoplished so far, even though I have covered less distance than initially thought.
We'll see where I end up.
Cheers

It has begun

Hi Folks
Some good news and some sad news. Good news first: I succesfully started the conquering of New Zealand from Cape Reinga. The bad news: I wrecked my tablet/phone that I used for blogging, so I now have to rely on good old internet cafes to upload new blogs. So I suspect I migth not be able to do that too often, but we will see.
About the skating in New Zealand, well, they have no clue how to build skater friendly roads. Seriously, the surface is about as comfortable as I have last experienced it in Laos. Not fun at all. But at least the temperatures are very comfortable and I have decided to give those roads a go for a couple of days and hope the surface gets better. And the people are helping too, I get a lot of positive feedback from people I meet along the road. New Zealanders are incredibly friendly and open, although for most parts the landscape has been empty of people so far. I have skated two days now, each day around 65km, which took me about nine hours and a steak pie for lunch each. And then it happened. I fell. Not too hard, but hard enough to hurt. The phone was already broken then though. But it was a good enough reason to call in my early first break day and get a rest at a nice and very hospitable campsite near Shipwreck Bay, where I went fishing and clam digging with some of the guys there.
For the next couple of days I plan to skate along the west coast, as there are fewer people there, and end up in Auckland in a little more than a week. Latest there I will update you guys with a blog post again. Cheers

Auckland

Hi Folks
So I made it into Auckland. Luckily. After a lot of struggles at the airport in Singapore. The airline refused to let me board the plane because I had no flight ticket out of New Zealand again. Gladly I was early enough at the airport to scramble and go buy one. Which in turn they refused to sell me because I lacked a visa to the destination country of that ticket. Which in turn I then also had to get last minute, luckily that was possible at the airport. Which allowed me to buy that extra flight and board the plane. Whew. What a stress.
On the other hand, Auckland is really nice. Kind of small, clean and friendly, reminds me a little of Zurich.
I spent three days here preparing for my epic skateboard journey accross New Zealand, and tomorrow I am going to travel to my starting point at the tip of New Zealand, Cape Reinga. I think it will take me about two days getting there with hitchhiking.
So stay tuned, there is a lot coming soon.
Cheers

Announcement: Conquering New Zealand

Skateawhile skateawhile. I have been away a while now, and have also skated a while.
I started with succesfully skating 1200 km in one piece through the amazing Baltic states, continued by failing to skate around lake Baikal thanks to insane Russian driving and a misconstructed skateboard trailer, skated 330 km through the outskirts of Tibet in northern Yunnan province, China, my highest altitude ever at 3500 meters above sea level, stubborned on for 490 km in constant rain on Vietnams infamous Ho Chi Minh highway, suffered through 200 feet killing kilometers on the roughest pavement so far in Laos, exchanged the board for a rowing boat for 150 km in Cambodia (I'm not going to count that in the skateboarding total but mentioned it because it was awesome) and skated another 500 km through blazing heat on Thailands east coast. That's a total of 2720 km in 9 countries.
But I am not done yet, no.
I have decided to step up the skateboarding a little. How about two thousand (2000) kilometers straight? From the very north of New Zealands north island, Cape Reinga, to the very south of the south island, Bluff. All in one go. As usually unasisted. Alone. And fast. I expect to have no longer than two months, in fact I imagine I could even make it in one and a half.
When am I going to do this? Well, very soon. In fact I am flying to Auckland, New Zealand on the 17th February. Taking a few days to prepare in Auckland and to travel to the starting point at Cape Reinga, I expect to start somewhen end of February.

Cheers

Cameron Highlands and Ipoh

Hi Folks
My sister and I made it to the Cameron Highlands, a area somewhere in the middle of Malaysia where tea farming is big busines. Besides that there is a bit of rainforrest left, through which we hiked. What started as a light walk in the woods soon turned to climbing through tangled roots and under fallen trees, until we reached the peak at 2130m. Quite chilly up here, but a welcoming break from the Malayian heat. Next day the obligatory tea farm visit was on. Quite a nice vista, I have to admit and the smell in the tea factory is uncomparable. Besides those two things, jungle and tea, there is not much to see or do in the Cameron Highlands, and the town itself, Tanah Rata isn't exactly a beauty.
That's why whe moved on to Ipoh, a former tin mining city. The first impression of this city wasn't good either. No life on the street, closed businesses, run down buildings and a reputation for prostitution. Not exactly a must see. But upon exploring the town, we found a nice little oldtown area, less preserved than Georgetown or Melakka, but with a more genuine feeling. And it also felt like progress, like the city is about to change and put its name on the map of a worthwhile destination. We found a couple of gorgeous cafés in discretely renovated buildings, still keeping the vintage chic, or "origin" as the call it here, alive. Coupled with a impressive cave temple covered with murals and a young progressive citizenship, I started growing fond of this town. Never the less we are restlessly pressing on and arrived in Kuala Lumpur this afternoon, as my Sister is flying back to Switzerland very soon. Then I'll be travelling on my own again, for the first time in almost six months. How will that feel?
Cheers

Zipping through Malaysia

Hi Folks.
Since my last post I have travelled the Malaysian peninsula in its full lenght, picking up my Sister in Singapore. This included one day stopover at Kuala Lumpur, where I was approached by a highly religious muslim in the park behind the Petronas towers. In the ensuing diskussion I was granted a insight into the thinking and the logic of a believer. He must do an enormous effort day to day to ignore the facts that contradict his belief. Even on me pointing out the flaws in his argumentation did not have any effect but a change of topic. When I left I suggested the book "The god delusion" to him, and he at least agreed to have a look at it.
Next I went to Singapure to meet my sister, who supplied me with almost one kilogram of chocolate. Thanks! And I also have my old longboard deck back, so I am ready to skate again soon.
Then we spent two days in Singapore, poking around town, checking out the fancy new "Gardens at the Bay", walking through the impressive banking district, and somehow completely missing the Chinese new year festivities.
Next was back to Malaysia, first stop in Melakka. A nice little colonial town. There is quite many colonial towns in Malaysia I reckon. This one was occupied by Chinese, Portugese, Dutch and English, one after another and boasts the oldest Dutch building outside the Netherlands.
Cheers