Every beginning is difficult..

Last morning in the hostel. The weather is terrible. Grey in grey Auckland, sinking in rain and gusts of wind. Do we really want to leave and the warmth and comfort of our beloved 'Freemans Lodge' behind? And the Wi-Fi? The warm showers and our own bed?? Definitely! The city bores us and if we want to see the world, we have to leave our comfort zones behind. We pack our stuff - we have to be out by 11 am. There are still many errands to run and things to take care of. In the kitchen of our hostel, we meet 2 German girls - both traveling alone through New Zealand. One of them - in her late 20s - is taking a sabbatical (a year of paid leave from work) and is traveling the world with her backpack. Africa, Siberia, Asia - she has already experienced stories everywhere and shares many of them with us during our breakfast. Good and bad experiences. This only strengthens our plan to travel on our own.

It's almost 11. we say goodbye to our warm host Sheema (who gives us tips on the most beautiful places in NZ) and walk out the door. Where to? We're going on an adventure. Wherever our feet take us - or rather, wherever the car takes us. Always following the road, no matter what it looks like.

But before we can start our road trip, we still need a lot of stuff..

The agony of choice.

A highly professional warehouse.

We need more than just odds and ends like a few more pots and stuff. The most important purchase of the trip (besides the car, of course) is the camping stove. Our built-in kitchen for 6 months. We have chosen 2 connected gas burners in a suitcase design, sheltered from the wind. Yellow. Top-of-the-line model. New. About $140 + a new, empty 2kg gas bottle. Once again, we try everything to bargain for a lower price. We manage to lower the price by an impressive $5! We are really bad at haggling. But it doesn't matter. We want to go to the bank to pay in cash 'real quick' and in the meantime, apply for our tax ID that we need for work. 'Real quick' turns into 4 hours of printing copies of all documents, running from A to B, filling out lengthy forms, and standing in line. So this is what an adventure looks like. 🤔

When we finally finish, we go back to the second-hand shop and pay for our kitchen and the rest. $140 for a camping stove. We googled it a week later - the same model costs €80 on Amazon.. 🙄

But now. Everything loaded into our Honda and off we go! But where to? Using our indispensable app 'Camper mate', we found a camping site north of Whangarei - we wanted to see the 'Whangarei Falls' first - and off we went, out of Auckland into the evening traffic. Frustrating to be stuck in traffic when you want to see the world. But we are already used to that in Germany.

The subsequent drive is long. We are hungry, but we need a gas station that can refill our gas bottle for the camping stove. In vain, we are sent from one station to another in our search. It's getting dark. Rainy. Cold. Really cold. We decide to just eat toast and head to the campsite, after all, it's half past 9 and we still have to convert our car into a bed. Oh God, this 'bed' would cause us problems..

To our horror, we realize that the campgrounds close their gates at 7 pm. And now what?! It is illegal in New Zealand to sleep in a car outside of designated camping sites and can be very expensive.. In pouring rain, hungry and frustrated, we go to Wien Anlage, talking to a few campers. They tell us to just park in front of the facility and drive away early in the morning, they won't notice..

Since we can't think of a better alternative, we will do that. And since it's raining and freezing cold, we won't be able to set up the bed either. We sleep in the front seats, under some blankets and sweaters, jackets, etc. It's uncomfortable, cold, and every noise wakes us up, fearing that an angry campground staff might be standing at the window. In the end, we sleep only 4 hours and leave at 6 am when it gets light. We park at a nearby lookout point, sleep for another 1-2 hours, and brush our teeth with a view of the sea down the hill.

Every beginning is difficult. But for the view when we wake up, it was somehow worth it. We're just at the beginning.