When we got on the plane in Sydney we thought we’d be going to Auckland in New Zealand – turns out the city was right, the country not so much…we ended up in Middle Earth.
We got the first clues on the flight, when the New Zealand Air Security Video was featuring beloved characters like elves, dwarfs, Gollum and Peter Jackson. When we landed and the whole airport looked like Disneyland, all dressed up with gateways, forests and mystical symbols we should have known for sure. But only when we got into Auckland and tons of real live elves and hobbits, dwarfs and wizards crossed our path on their way to the movies we realized that we really ended up in middle earth – or at least at the closest place to it you’ll find on our little planet.
Auckland is a beautiful city, situated brilliantly between two oceans on an old volcanic field (hence many very steep hills that we had to climb up and down with all our luggage on the day we arrived – what a pain…). It is the biggest city of New Zealand with some 1.5 million people living there (it’s not the capital though) and it is still pretty green everywhere you go. Temperatures were low compared to what we were used to, but very nice for walking around and exploring. So that’s what we did.
The first day we walked around little Myer’s park, the civic place where we listened to some great live music at the Christmas festival while sitting in the sunshine, and ended up in the Auckland Art Gallery early afternoon. We only meant to peep in there to catch a glimpse of the famous Maori portraits of old and some Maori art but we stumbled upon a great exhibition called “Who shot Rock’n’Roll” that showed the greatest Rock’n’Roll pictures and their stories. From very early pictures of Elvis over the Jagger Leopard to modern provocation a la Amy Winehouse – it was captivating and we spent hours in there. When we got out we decided to get further in the New Zealand mood through a visit to the IMAX theatre to watch “The Hobbit” on a seriously big screen. Say about the movie what you want – watching it with a bunch of pointy-eared creatures in the biggest theatre in Middle Earth while enjoying a bucket of popcorn is great fun!
Next on our list was our first encounter with the mighty Pacific – so we went to the downtown harbor. The promenades are packed with restaurants, cafes and tour operators that take you out on the water. For us it was enough to just sit on a bench and watch all the people that seemed to slowly get into their holiday mood with bright smiles on their faces, see the turquoise waters and volcanic islands rise out of the ocean and enjoy the sun on our faces. We went on to explore the beautiful Albert Park with its fountain, statues and old trees and entered the uni quarter to see the beautiful clock tower and old townhouses. The streets were quite, the many trees were freshly green and tropical flowers bloomed in front of the white walls of old villas that shone bright in the sun light, and on the bench in front sat some students reading their books and chatting with each other. Could have been taken right from a university prospect…That was too much summer day perfection for us –we went back to the hostel to bake us some good old German Christmas cookies.
The next day was the longest day of the year – deja vue – and it was also what might have been the end of the world. So we decided to get ourselves some first row seats for that and climbed the highest volcano in Auckland, the Mount Eden. From there, we thought, we’d have a great view of the world’s end, with a ton of volcanos lying in front of us. When we got up there, the view was great indeed, though it was not the view we had expected. Instead of lava, fire and flames we saw Auckland nestled between both oceans with a perfect view on a clear, hot day. Mount Eden itself was the calmest and most welcoming volcano ever, with its conic crater (a holy place to the Maori that lived here and therefore not to be walked around in), its picturesque green slopes and the great lookout on its top. So we came to the conclusion that the end of the world was not near at all and left our first row seats to check out the Auckland Domain, the biggest park in the city.
The next day we got up early to go pick up our new home, a campervan. We were all excited and ready to go, but when we got to the super busy rental office, they had to tell us that our van wasn’t returned to the office yet and that they only expected it to be back that night. We were a little disappointed but also didn’t care too much once we cleared that we’d be getting our money back for that day. Then we even got pretty happy about the situation when the people from Happy Campers started to give us lots of free stuff like
a small Campervan with a full tank for that day, a GPS for the whole time and tons of accessories so that we wouldn’t be angry with them (although we weren’t at all, we were a little like fish: just sitting there, staring at the guy who talked to us with a very red face, not really fully grasping what he was saying and only thinking “blubb”). We realized just how little we cared when another
German couple at the next counter made a serious scene when they found out that they had to wait for their van two hours longer than expected – we really are chilled out after having travelled Asia, I guess. Anyway, we ended up with a temporary campervan that we took to the east coast of Auckland, to Muriwai beach, where we spent our first camping night. The beach looked dramatic: rough, blue water hit black sand from volcanic stone in front of rugged native bush and a lush green backdrop of forests with skies dark from the tropical storm that was closing in from the pacific. We took a nice long walk down the 60km long beach and also checked out the Takapu Refuge gannet colony. The birds only have one chick per couple and right now it is just that time to watch the little ones start testing out their wings. The colony is sitting on some pretty steep cliffs with the winds blowing hard around those corners – that must be some brave little birds out there. They smell funny, too.
The next day we went back to Auckland and picked up our very own campervan, a pretty big beast for only the two of us. Jens is mastering it and the driving on the left pretty well, though. We made our way up north to the part of New Zealand that is called Northland. The lonely planet says: “If it sounds remote than that’s because it is.” It is right.
On our way we stopped at Orewa beach, some 60 km north of Auckland, where we spotted lots of kites behind the dunes. When we got there, we saw it was all kite surfers that recklessly surfed the massive waves. They shared the wind with some seriously fast wind surfers and all of them made for some great time at the beach. After that we continued up what is called the Hibiscus Coast, NZ’s east coast. The way offered stunning views of the ocean, the coast, of jungle and green fields on rolling hills – the Shire and Rohan all in
one day – how awesome is that?! Not so great are the streets and the speed limit on those streets so it took us a long time until we finally reached the Bay of Islands, where we are staying over Christmas Eve. We are in Paihia, where New Zealand was founded through a contract between the British and the Maori. Other than the historical importance this place is supposed to offer great aquatic activities in the (supposed to be) beautiful Bay of Islands. All the aquatic activity we got so far is running through pouring
rain, though. The Philippines sent a nice strong storm to New Zealand for Christmas so we’ve had pouring rain for 2 days straight and haven’t been out much. We went to the beach and tried to catch a glimpse of the Bay but didn’t see much. We also went into a church for Christmas Eve (we really wanted to go to a serive but the catholic mass is at midnight tonight and all the others only have services tomorrow…). We went back to the campground, decorated our home all christmassy and listened to lots of Christmas music while playing Yatzie or reading a book and hoping for better weather.
That’s our wish for Christmas now…
