Return flight Auckland-LA-Frankfurt

Հրատարակվել է: 08.12.2022

The last morning in New Zealand😟

We had a stormy and rainy night 🌜

After breakfast and a short walk through Takapuna, we head towards Auckland. Refuel, fill up the tank, return the car, take an Uber to the airport.

Since we still have receipts for clothes we bought upon arrival because our luggage wasn't there, we are looking for the right counter for a refund. We wait at one counter.... but no one comes. We line up at another counter, but they cannot help us. So we go back to the other counter and hope someone shows up. After what feels like an eternity, someone finally comes and issues us a voucher to redeem at another counter. Unfortunately, we are again waiting in line here and it's the wrong counter again. At the next counter, we get our money, but only in New Zealand dollars. Anyway, we line up for passport control and security check, which again takes forever, and after 3 hours we finally arrive at the lounge🫣

Summary of the trip:

We cruised around 4,600 km across the South and North Island in the small Rudy version.

At first we were a bit shocked at how small the camper was, but we quickly got used to it and had everything we needed.

We are really impressed with this country.

We have only met nice people here, not only New Zealanders, but the general atmosphere is very relaxed.

Unfortunately, we don't always understand the Kiwis because of their slang. But we can roughly guess what they mean.

The weather wasn't really good and the weather forecast never really matched, but we almost always had sunny spots and didn't really need our rain jackets. Nevertheless, we would always travel at this time of year, as it tends to be very empty and from mid-December, when it's vacation time here, some areas are closed for campers. So we always found a great spot for free or an affordable DOC site and occasionally found a better campground without making a reservation, which is probably not so easy in December.

Whenever we were freedom camping, there was always a clean public toilet nearby, at DOC sites there were mostly pit toilets and cold showers, as these sites were located in nature reserves.... but also very clean. And sometimes we treated ourselves to a 6-minute shower at a proper campground. (The water turned cold again after 6 minutes 🥶)

Due to the weather and our lost luggage, we couldn't do some things, and 4 weeks was too short for that anyway. But there's still plenty to see if we ever travel to New Zealand again.

The flora and fauna are fantastic. Although I was always looking, unfortunately I couldn't see a kiwi.... only roadkill 🫣 (Jürgen saw one though)

But we did see pheasants, peacocks, keas, strange black chickens, and various other birds.

New Zealand is full of palm trees, huge farms, and simply incredibly green.

In addition, there are flowers blooming everywhere that we have to buy from a florist in Germany.

There are soooo many beaches here that you can always find one to yourself.

You could sell the shells here for a lot of money.

and the sea is fantastically turquoise.

We have seen turquoise mountain lakes surrounded by a sea of lupines that take your breath away.

The country is very clean, you don't see any litter anywhere. You don't see any rubbish or plastic on the beaches, and we haven't seen anything lying around in the cities and national parks either. However, there are also no trash cans, so everyone takes their garbage with them.

Unfortunately, the towns/cities are partly deserted. This is probably due, among other things, to Corona and the lack of personnel.

So if you want to have a job here... no problem at all.

What has also pleasantly surprised us is that you hardly have to pay for parking here and you can camp for free in many places and almost always with incredible views of mountains, lakes, or the sea. We have woken up so many times with a view of the sea, which is simply priceless.

In addition, New Zealand is a truly safe country and you never feel uncomfortable when you stand alone in nature somewhere.

Furthermore, New Zealand is the country of con artists. We have never seen so many roadworks cones. The roads are checked every morning, which is justified because a piece of the road is constantly breaking away or a landslide is blocking the road, not to mention all the potholes.

In addition, there are almost only single-lane bridges here,

but since everyone drives very considerately, it works.

There are great road signs that probably only exist here.

New Zealand has almost all the landscapes that exist in the rest of the world, all united on one island. Some are impressive, some we have seen more impressive elsewhere.

Within a radius of 20 km, you can find parts that resemble the Westerwald, the Alps, and then the Caribbean right next door. As a complete package, it is simply a fantastic country for carefree and relaxed travel and letting your soul dangle.