I had to leave hotel before 12PM. I am taking sky train to downtown and from there bus to Kuala Lumpur airport on afternoon. I am going to have flight from KL to Auckland with stopover in Gold Coast. This is my first trip to Oceania, to one of the most distant countries ever. I was quite excited. The flight schedule was at 9PM so I had more than enough time at airport, so I started to work on plan how I will proceed in New Zealand. I figured out that best option would be to get a car and drive around the north island. I was surprised by size of the islands always New Zealand was that small squeezed dot down there on world map, just with little attention. Now I am heading there, that country which is far from everything! Due to unique position I was later considering to visit some Island countries around. The top candidate was Tahiti or Fiji. But I took easier path, but about that I will talk later.
And here I am. I booked room through Airbnb in some house on edge of Auckland administration. It was quite far but thanks to high quality of local transportation it didn’t take long to get to the central district. The first thing I had to do I needed to find somebody who has the same goal as I have. To travel around north island by car. The point is, New Zealand have a lot of places around the islands where is something interesting to see, I would say, the country by itself is one big breathtaking landscape and it that case I needed car to travel to achieve travel satisfaction in New Zealand. By bus it would be possible too but it’s incredible expensive. Imagination, that I would travel 1000km around by just bus wasn’t very attempting. I needed to find somebody quickly because this time, exceptionally I had already fly ticket from New Zealand to another destination. Unfortunately, I had no more than two weeks. I did this due fact that New Zealand is relatively expensive travel destination, and another fact that this country is far from everything which reflect to prices of flights and I could imagine how much it costs if would like to buy fly ticket one week prior to departure as before I commonly always did. So, to prevent some unexpected longer staying, I bought ticket. I bought ticket to Argentina which was one of the scariest moments of my journey because I just didn’t have idea where I am actually going. My knowledge about South America was the weakest at that time. I am sure it sound silly but I never liked long term planning for anything and especially travel planning. I just believed that after all, it will be even more exiting.
Auckland was the typical modern western city where everything was clean, nice and in order. Some slight differences but generally you can imagine what I am talking about. What little bit surprised me, in Auckland was huge population from Asia and after done some research I would say most of them were Chinese. Interesting to see in country such as New Zealand. I am mentioning this because it was surprisingly uncommonly much bigger transition between different cultures than in any other multinational city I have seen before. I have spent in Auckland few days, looking for my travel buddy on internet and hoped that I will not waste all my time in the capital. On lonelyplanet.com site is special forum topic designated to seek some traveler with common travel goals. Meanwhile, I checked up the meetup.com site to meet some new people usually through English conversation meetings, it was quite fun. Finally, after several days spent in Auckland I got message from somebody, some guy from Netherland. He told me, he has a car, lives in Hamilton which wasn’t far away from Auckland and that he is open to any suggestion about further plans where to go and what to do. I was like, awesome this is exactly what I was looking for. So, we agreed to meet in Auckland, we went through my “plan”. At the next day, we got started immediately. I didn’t have more than 8 days so had to travel with high time efficiency. Everyday new stop so, we can make all around the north island. Unfortunately, I knew can’t make to the south island. I tried to somehow include it but I then I realize how huge it’s just the north island, and there a lot of palaces to see and visit.
First, we decided to take trip from Auckland up to north along east coast on main highway. By following this route, we should reach north side of the island after few days. Then we planned return back to Auckland along the west coast, along Tasman sea. One of our first stop was Red Beach and later city Whangarei. Nearby we visited very nice waterfalls and then we went back to the city to find some place to spent overnight. Next day morning we continued on highway to town named Paihia in bay of islands. I told my friend we had to switch driver spot time to time, otherwise he could get exhausted. So, since morning he was driving until afternoon then I took his place. At the begging, I was little bit uncertain about my ability to drive on left site but after few hours I felt more confident, it was quite easy. It’s everything was the same as in Europe, just mirrored. Ok, back to our journey. The town Paihia was famous to have tours to bay of islands where arise many dolphins, possibly even orcas, depend on season. It was great, we could swim with the dolphins, in case the dolphins were interested enough. I took clothes off put on the gear for scuba diving and jumped into cold water. Unfortunately, dolphins didn’t have mood for visitors so I enjoyed sea for a while and then we went back to the docks. We slept overnight in Paihia and continued with our journey. We were thinking about that we would go to Cape Reinga but time was essential. Later we went through the options and I choose to go back to south, this time along west coast.
On next day, I drove to Kaikohe and Pakotai through Tangowahine to Matakohe. Small insignificant town but that nature around was spetactular. As I drove it was so difficult to focus only on road because we were surrounded by so much incredible, colorful views of natural wonders. Time to time I just had to pull over the car and take always some good situated pictures. In Matakoe we found some place to sleep and on next morning we went straight to place named Piha. It was beach west coast beach with very interesting combination of big rocks, tall, huge cliffs and beautiful black sanded beach. From Piha we went back to east on highway close to Auckland and this time we were heading on south to city Hamilton. My Dutch friend has in Hamilton family, so went there to visit his aunt. Her aunt explained me how they were first members of big family who moved to New Zealand, how other members were followed and the family grew and grew. We enjoyed aunt’s hospitality, stayed overnight and at next day early on morning we left Hamilton. Our first stop was town Matamata. Here is only one thing worth to visit, yes, the Hobbiton. I wasn’t exactly excited about it but to hell with it, this rare opportunity, I would say once and for last time ever. We met some girl from Germany on way to Matamata, yeah bad memory for names, so she went with us to Hobbiton. My Dutch friend stayed out of it because he already was in Hobbiton and to pay again 60$ for the same would be pointless.
Honestly, about details I don’t know too much, I lost some memories. At that time we went quite fast through island, we were able to see quite a lot from north island, just I don’t remember it with details because of short period of time of happening… I am writing this after year since it happened so...
Later we checked Rotoura, Huka Falls and volcano Tongariro in Tongariro National Park. This park includes even volcano Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom in “The Lord of the Rings" films). Then we went to New Plymouth from south around mountain Taranaki and then back to Hamilton where I spent last night in New Zealand. Next day my friend took me to Auckland airport and that was the end of New Zealand journey. Finally I finished this article, seriously! :)
And is comming soon... South America! Buenos Aires!