The Doubtful Sound at the south island’s west coast is one of the large impressive fjords New Zealand has on offer. Unlike Milford Sound, that is usually more known to visitors, it is more winding, has even a couple of islands and its steep slopes are entirely uninhabited unlike Norway’s fjords. Normally clouds hang low between its escarpments and it rains a lot but also for Doubtful Sound the summer of 2013 was a pretty dry one. The wild albatrosses living at the fjord’s estuary don’t care much about that as they have their own water supply. Meeting them close enough to touch and seeing them flying above the wave crests is the most august wildlife experience of southern New Zealand »»

The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is one of New Zealand’s most known hikes, a so called Great Walk and like the name already tells visitors can cross the massif of an active volcano. In particular movie fans will know about this place from the epic “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy as it is the place where finally gets rid of evil ring. Today and in the real world countless tourists are meandering along the foot of the picturesque Ngauruhoe cone and do the climb up to Red Crater, Emerald Lakes and Blue Lake »»

The islands of Palau are an archipelago being located some 1500km to the east of the Philippines. Several thousand years ago a tectonic uplifting process elevated its 356 islands literally to the second storey making them now looking like as if a sloppy painter was at work somewhere amidst the turquoise waters of the Pacific Ocean and left dozens of green patches behind. The rock islands of Palau are forming a large lagoon housing a worldwide unique variety of submarine life. Doesn’t matter if going below the waterline by snorkel or scuba, unavoidably you’ll become eyewitness of toilet sized giant clams, sharks en masse and countless fish being painted in all possible colours. Palau’s most amazing miracle of nature is a small stand-alone pond full of thousands of golden jellyfish drifting around in time with the shining sun at the Jellyfish Lake »»

Rabaul, a settlement in the East of magic exotic Papua New Guinea, has literally one of the hottest chronicles worldwide. On the one hand the equatorial sun is frying everything at temperatures around 30°C and air moisture of ~90%, on the other hand during World War II. Rabaul was caught in the middle when Japanese and US Americans were battling against each other and for dominance in the Pacific Ocean. That’s only the most recent history though. The biggest imminence was and still is the forces of nature as within living memory they ever emerged at that remote spot of our planet. In particular the eastern end of New Britain Island is at the mercy of volcanism and tectonics; there Earth’s most powerful forces are clashing at top speed and get all too often fully unleashed. Earthquakes are a daily occurrence and being powered by a magma chamber located only 3 to 4 kilometres deep, even two fire mountains – Vulcan Crater and the pretty explosive beast of Tavurvur – are letting off their infernal steam. Although this sounds like hell on Earth life, nature and humans are always coming back to this place and in particular wildlife under water could develop to worldwide unique undersea beauty »»

Passing the Immigration and getting one’s passport checked is actually the same everywhere in the world: a more or less bored grumpy officers stamp the ink seal uninterestedly into one’s travel document. The welcome at the doorstep of the island republic of Vanuatu is different. Friendliness is the most normal thing in the world and the Chief can also acclaim you with an “Ey man, you got a really nice watch!” – Being located eastern of Australia and well over 16.000km far away from European homeland, the Vanuatu archipelago is home of one of the most active and magic fire mountains in the world: the Yasur »»