New Zealand

We didn’t have much of a plan for New Zealand, but we knew we were landing early and had a few hours to kill before the first bus into Auckland at 9 AM.

My genius idea was to rely on airport Wi-Fi to get some information about Auckland—big mistake. There wasn’t any internet. Luckily, New Zealand’s tourism industry is so well-organized that during the short walk from the plane to the airport exit, we picked up about 4,000 brochures on everything you could possibly do in the country (plus a bunch of things we asked ourselves “why the hell you would ever want to do that”).

I’m also proud to report that Greece is a well-known place here, as we discovered from the airport immigration officer. Apparently, illegal immigrants who come here do so via Greece, where they can pick up fake Greek passports on the cheap (not surprising). So, we were welcomed into the country with a nice 15-minute interrogation.

Another highlight of the morning was a little video you get to see on the plane just before you land, with Steve Irwin telling you to declare any plants, animals, fruits, seeds, or other crap you might be carrying that could unleash environmental chaos on New Zealand if they start breeding or something.

This isn’t fair. If the UK did that, none of the Kiwis themselves would ever make it into England.

Anyway, rules are rules, so I had to eat all the biscuits I stole from the plane in the 5-minute walk to passport control. Breakfast sorted…

My impression of Kiwis was only what you see in London (backpackers who live like students) thinking that backpacking is what these people do while traveling abroad.

Here, I realized that backpacking is a whole industry that defines who they are.

It’s the first place I’ve been where the word “backpacker” is more acceptable than “student.” There are more discounts, more benefits, and more information for travellers than in any other place we’ve been. They are so organized when it comes to cheap travel that you’re spoiled for choice. For any service, tour, cruise, restaurant, trip, accommodation, transport, or holiday on the island, there’s a voucher (somewhere inside those 4,000 brochures) that will give you a 10-20% discount.

To be honest, as a country, it’s not cheaper than any place in South America, but we knew this, and taking those offers into account, we’re going to save lots of money.

Auckland has a population of 1.3 million, which is about the population of Hammersmith in London (probably counting only the Kiwis there), but everything is nicely spread out and gives you the impression that you’re always in the suburbs.

After 6 weeks in the Spanish colonies of Central and South America, it’s nice to be in a country where you understand the language (English, with the addition of “sweet,” “awesome,” and “mate” at the end of every sentence).

We stayed in a hostel in the centre of Auckland and spent most of the day organizing the sightseeing for the next 3 days.

I had no sleep on the plane, and jetlag said “allo, my little sleepy friend” early in the afternoon, which kept me in a zombie state for the rest of the day. I don’t remember much of the first day, as everything was moving too fast (or maybe I was too slow), and I had my eyes closed for most of the time.

Dora dealt with jetlag much better than I did. She slept twice, she had 8+8=16 hours of sleep across two continents, and she also slept for most of the flight, which gives us ~22 hours of sleep in 48 hours total (This is how much I slept in the last 4 days).

At least we know where Dora’s missing Friday went…

On the second and third day, we did all the sightseeing in Auckland. We visited all the hills (locals call them mountains for some bizarre reason), the main museums, a fantastic exotic animal zoo (here they call it just a zoo), the highest building in town with nice views of the city, and we walked around some shopping centres and main streets.

Kiwis are incredibly proud of their country—every sight or attraction has a "biggest," "tallest," or "best" label attached to it, even if it comes with a ridiculous caveat like “tallest in the southern hemisphere” or “biggest volcano near a city”.

Take an example from the tourist bus audio description: “This is the tallest mountain that was created by a volcano (and it’s not active, and you can see from the top a city with two different harbours) in the whole southern hemisphere.”

Let me give you another one: “We’re passing now the main road next to the coast. This is the longest fun-run in the world.” What the f$%k is a “fun-run”?

The weather is very unpredictable. It’s like Welsh weather with a bit of sunshine.

We wanted to go a bit further than Auckland and see the countryside, but the weather forecast had some sunny days ahead, so we decided instead to go to a popular island nearby. Waiheke Island is a popular destination for locals, and it has very nice beaches. A 35-minute ferry from Auckland will get us there on Tuesday, and we’ll possibly stay there until we leave for Australia on Friday.

Check out the next blog with pictures from another so-called paradise with the best beaches in the world (that are on an island close to a main city that is not the capital and has an inactive volcano where you can see two ports… blah blah blah)