New Zealand: North of Auckland

To the north of Auckland there are many beautiful spots on the coastline. All the Palm trees around make you believe to be in the Carribean or the South Sea rather than in NZ. The water around here is much cooler though.

The people here are so friendly and relaxed that it takes quite some adapting for a German to deal with them. This is especially true for the busdrivers. In every sentence they use either the word “cool”, “sweet” or “awesome”. They even wave friendly at roadworkers as they pass by. That would be completely unheard of at home.





With all the hills the landscape mainly consists of, you have many opportunities to enjoy beautiful views on the bays here. Apart from that there are many historic maori sites ranging from the occasional Pa (outlook post) that comes into view to the waitangi treaty grounds in Paihia.





Further to the north lies the Ninety-Mile-Beach. It is really "0nly" 46 miles long, but impressive even though. Cape Reinga is the northernmost part of New Zealand and a spiritual place for the Maori.

New Zealand: Auckland

New Zealand is simply amazing. to call it green would be using a well-known cliché, but it fits. When the plane descended for the landing, at 7 am and with perfect sunshine, the landscape below looked like a romantizised model, with nice hills and patches of forest.

The city of Auckland itself has many trees and parks and so even near the ugliest skyscrapers you can find something to offset this ugliness.



You can find people from all parts of the world here, besides the native kiwis there are asians from China, Corea and Japan as well as tourists from Europe and the Americas. I couldn´t spend an hour without seeing some Germans here.

I really love the funny advertising ideas some places come up with:

It´s very interesting to see the foreign plants and animals. The birds around here sound so much different than at home that I sometimes just sit in a park and listen to them.

I can´t pass by a museum without visiting it and the Auckland museum is really worth it. They have a big section about the Maori culture with many objects on display. I don´t dare to guess how long it may have taken to carve a whole house like this:

There´s nearly no high place around here that you can´t jump down from, be it the harbour bridge or the Skytower. I just wonder who are the insane here, the kiwis who invented the business or the tourists who actually do the jumping.