Our arrival in Auckland - Diary

It has been 5 days now that we have arrived in Auckland. Time to look back for the first time and sum up our first impressions.

Flights:

Well, what can we say?

We:

• travelled, I think, for 24 hours,

• took 3 different airplanes,

• had to go through China customs twice (they checked us and our passports 4 times at each China airport),

• did not sleep for 48 hours

• and had approx. 12 times noodles or rice with chicken and pork.

But we arrived happily ever after right on schedule in Auckland.

As we travelled with China Southern, the space for our legs was rather limited, the service was a little bit more than self-service but last but not least the pilots did a good job (and in the end that is the most important thing, right?)

Monty

We were very lucky that the German guy who promised us Monty (the Van, just in case someone does not Monty) came directly to the airport. We were able to do the ‘take over’ within 30 minutes (payment, putting it on our name etc.) so we did not have to worry anymore how to get from A to B.

Look at him…is not he pretty?

Auckland

Auckland is the biggest city in New Zealand (1,3 million inhabitants). For the first few days we stayed in an air bnb (with a very friendly chinese couple and their dog) in One Tree Hill. That is a calm suburb of Auckland. In order not to bore you right away with a whole essay about Auckland, this is what we did the first couple of days:

Wedneysday 4th january:

We picked up Monty

I actually forgot what we did the first day … walking around, trying to stay awake.

Thursday 5th january:

We went shopping!!! (thanks to Rick, who forgot to bring shorts ha ha, we needed to go shopping.

Washed Monty

Visited the harbour (where we had a lovely lunch and our first Malborough wine)

Went to local pub in the near of our air bnb (well, we had to walk an hour to get there)

Friday 6th january:

First time in public transport (taking the bus – they have the same system here like in the Netherlands – the OV chip kaart).

‘Hanging out the tourist’ (worst translation ever) and took a hop on hop off bus!

We found out that having sushi is one of the cheapest way to have lunch

Saturday 7th january:

It took us the whole day to pimp Monty

Look how pretty he is now!

We tried to find a restaurant in the near of our air bnb to have a lovely dinner ..we did not succeed but had take away food which was suprisingly nice.

Sunday 8th january

Roadtrip starts!!