Early class this morning

Wow, I thought BA at saturday morning 9.00 am was early. Well try BC at 6.30 am. I was exhausted, but it was cool though. Real good Muy Tai track. I had never done this one and I really liked it. Afterwards I had breakfast and took the bus to the Wellington Zoo. I can tell one thing, visiting a Zoo here is quite a workout too. It's located on a hill side and just walking around gets pretty steep sometimes.
In the evening I took another BA class. This time Sue was teaching. I had a great time and she did one track op BA55. Be prepared you guys at home :-) Tonight I have to pack my bags as I'm heading up north to Auckland tomorrow. Talk to you later.

Les Mills Wellington Extreme

Just a quick update a I am exhausted. Not working out for 2 weeks and all of a sudden working out again. Pffffff... but it was great fun. This morning I did a BC class. Not too crowded but it was a great class and a nice instructor. Maybe because she is half dutch?! No kidding, it was fun and it felt great afterwards having worked out again. I also got a tour around the whole gym, which was quite big and has 4 levels and a lot of stairs to go with that :-). Studio one is also pretty big, but not as big as in Auckland. Nice work out areas and a womens only floor. Studio 2 is during the day a child care place and only used in the evening for classes. The RPM studio holds about 30-35 bikes so that's not extremely big. That number gets pretty close to our own Cycling studio.
During the day I have been walking around town, going to the cable car, wnet up the hill wwith it, went to the cable car museum (boring) and walked around the botanical gardens. Then I found my way down again and very suprisingly I saw the sun coming thru and the sky was clearing up. I sat down at a starbucks cafe for a bit and wrote my travel journal. Then I took a nice stroll along the harbor site and enjoyed the view on the water. At the end of the afternoon I went back to the gym for a BA class. It felt sooooooo good. Wow, now I realized how much I have missed my BA workouts. It's so good the give your body a rest, but I have missed it a lot, so I am happy I was able to work out. Tomorrow I am gonna do another BA class and maybe (if I am manage to wake up early) another BC class.

Koru

Coincidence or not? From the first time on when I was in New Zealand the Maori carving Koru catched my eye and somehow stayed on my mind ever since. The way the sign looks and what it means somehow did something with me.

The koru shape is a scroll shape and is linked to the New Zealand fern plant. The shoot of the fern has a curled-over tip which unfurls and becomes a fernleaf.
The koru reaches towards the light, striving for perfection, encouraging new positive beginnings... The koru, represents the unfolding of new life, that everything is reborn and continues. It represents renewal and hope for the future. Spiral, geometry of life, sacred creation...

I was just checking Les Mills' Kia Kaha and read Steve's post about the Maori signs and checked the Signs and their meanings. For those of you who didn't know ... my favourite program is BA, which is very very closely followed by BP. But check out the sign for BA and the meaning:

The outwardly spiralling koru motif depicts powerful energy being released from within. Shown this way, it also references a collision of growth and change

Wellington

This afternoon I arrived in Wellington. First I planned to stay another day in Whakapapa at the national park, but as the weather wasn't to good I decided to leave for Wellington one day earlier as beside being outdoors and walking, there's not much to do in Whakapapa. It took about 6 1/2 including all stops to get to Wellington. We had one stop in a little town where they had a dutch shop. Ofcourse I went in there to see what they where selling. There is another dutch guy on the bus and we decided to buy some haring (rolmops) at the store. I guess all the other people at the bus thought we were a kinf of weird since we were eating raw fish, but it's something typical dutch and we both liked it. They also sold 'ontbijtkoek', 'pepernoten', 'stroopwafels', 'beschuit met muisjes', 'hagelslag', 'vlokken' dutch cheeses and even dutch 'senseo' coffee. Sorry don't know the other english words for all this dutch food. After that we drove straight on to Wellington. It was again a nice drive. Upon arrival a went to explore the area for a bit and right now it's raining again so I am glad I am here writing my emails and updating my blog. Unfortunately I have to go out again to go back to the hostel. Tomorrow I think I'll be going to the Te Papa museum, which is (according to Lonely planet), THE Museum of New Zealand and something you should not miss being in Wellington. Well I guess with the weather like this it's defenitely something I going to be doing :-).

Tongariro Crossing

Wow, this one the the most amazing 1 day walks I have ever done. I guess I really lucked out with the weather, as the morning started out very cloudy and few raindrops came down. The driver of the bus checked with the weatherstation and the forecast for the rest of the day was supposed to be good. And it was!! It cleared up and doing the trek the sun came thru and we had pretty clear sights at the top. It was awesome. It started out quite flat in the beginning, but pretty soon we came to the 'Devils Staircase'. I can understand why they call it like that. It's a very steep climb up on the rocks. The reward after this first climb was gooed though, a nice view which was quite clear already and snow tops and also real snow right next to me! Then the track continued and the the sky became all blue, the sun was shining, but is was cold 'cause the wind was blowing. Another steep hill came up and the reward was even better. Only a little but further up, could it become even better? Oh yeah it sure did. At the highest point we would reach at this trek the view was magnificent. Snowy tops, 3 bright blue/green crater lakes, clear skies.... I don't know how to describe it.... This is not my picture but one found on the internet, I guess it 'll do for now...... The rest of track was also very beautyful. Passing some hot streams (water running down from the hot springs) and finally ending the track in the forest. This whole area is volcanic area. There are 3 volcanoes in the area, Mt. Ngauruhoe, Mt. Tongariro and Mt. Ruapehu. All three all still active. The nameTongariro actually covered all three mountains and means Tonga (south wind) and riro (carried away). At the hostel there was a jacuzzi so it was a good ending of the day, relaxing in this hot water after this 17 km walk. Especially because it started to rain again...

Lake Taupo

At the moment I am in Taupo. Left Rotorua yesterday after a visit at a Maori Village called Te Whakarewarewa. Took me quite some time to pronounce this right, but I think I am able to do so now. It was an interesting visit and very nice to learn some more about the Maori culture. On the way to Taupo we have stopped at a hot water springs. Weird thought that when you put your hand in a river stream it appears to be very warm water. We had the possibilty to go swim in it, which I ofcourse did. We had another stop and some boiling and exploding mud, which was quite neat to see. Close to Taupo the bus stopped at the Huka Falls. Impressive to see how much water comes down these falls. They say it's anough to fill 2 Olympic size swimmingpools every second, can you imagine!
Rightnow I am sitting in an Internet place, but listening to the music I got the feeling I am in a Les Mills gym. I think I've heard about 10 BP and 4 BA tracks. Quite hard to sit still and type my travel journal that way :-) Well anyway, I am gonna go for a walk now. I hope I will not be too cold as the outside temperature isn't very warm. But at least it's not raining right now.
Later!!!

Kia Ora

Yeah, I'm back and having a great time here in New Zealand. Friday I arrived in Auckland after a pretty long trip. I was very lucky to travel business class on the flight Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur, so I had a good sleep. When I arrived in Auckland a went to the hotel and arranged the buspass. I planned to travel on Magic bus, but their schedule isn't very good at the moment due still winter times, so I switched to Stray Travel. A bit more expensive, but with a better schedule.
Saturday morning I left right away for Hahei at the Coromandel Peninsula. A beauthfull ride, which started of at Mt. Eden. Unfortunately it was so foggy, there was notjing to see up there, I could hardly see my own arm when I stretched it out in front of me. So I might have to get up there again when I'm back in Auckland. We arrived around 1.30pm in Hahei and I went of for a Kayak trip along the eastcoast. Beautyfull green/blue ocean, the sun even came out and I had a great time. Spotted a penguin and a bird divig from way up in the sky to the fish in the ocean to get his dinner. Pretty cool to see how he did that.
The next day the bus drove on to the westcoast, to Raglan, known for the surfers waves. I had never done surfing before, but I can tell you now, it's awesome. It was very difficult, but I managed to get up 5 times for at least 5 seconds. The feeling when you're up on the waves.... can't describe it. I know I'd like to do that more often :-)
This morning we first went to Waitomo, to see the glowworm caves. Pretty awesome, I'd like my bedroom ceiling to be like that. Would be neat to have these small lights. It's amazing how bright the larves shine. We also went in another cave and have been walking around the area for a bit. Unfortunately it has been raining all day. Not just a little, I was soaking wet and cold as well. Hopefully this is only for one day....At the moment I'm in Rotorua and tomorrow afternoon I'll be leaving for Taupo. Let you know later what's going on there.

One more day....

Tomorrow I will be leaving for New Zealand again. Today I still have lots of things to do, as I still have to go to work tomorrow. Not really for work but for a training, but still, no time left then, so all has to be done today. This weekend was quite busy as I did a demo at the Fitvak convention in Utrecht. We did the LM demo with 3 LM assessors. We had a lot of fun. We had to do the whole thing 3 times a day. It was a combo of BC, BA, BJ, BS and BB. It took a little less than 15 mins. We have met a lot of nice people at the convention and even though we were afraid the days would be taking forever, time flew. I think it's really true: Time flies when you're having fun!

My holiday plans are as follows: I will fly via Kuala Lumpur to Auckland, I wil stay in Auckland for 2 days and then I will be heading south for Waitomo and Rotorua, then I will be going towards Taupo, Turangi and Wellington. From Wellington I will be going up north again to Napier and Mt. Maunganui. I will also be going to Whitianga and Thames. Then I will be in Auckland for about a week. And last but not least I am going up North to Cape Reinga, Bay of Islands and Paihia. I will be leaving Auckland 13 November, to be back in time for our MEGA quarterly 18-19 November.