Fairy Falls, Mt Eden, Mission Bay and Piha Beach

Next weekend, I took the train to the city - it usually takes 50 minutes by train, although you can drive by car without much traffic (which is very rare) in just under 20 minutes. However, the trains here are really slow and stop everywhere, unlike the German trains, so it took me over an hour. Besides, the trains are air-conditioned to the point that you start to feel cold.
Anyway, when I finally arrived in the city, I met up with a friend who flew with me from Frankfurt to Auckland (Alex) on Queen Street - Auckland's shopping street. However, we quickly realized that only a few stores fit our budget, but fortunately we managed to find some.

After our little shopping tour, we met up with Lea - she is also an au pair, but she is traveling without an organization and we met her during the orientation days on Mount Eden. We drove with her to Fairy Falls, which are quite beautiful waterfalls about a 20-minute drive from Auckland. To reach the waterfalls, we had to take a short hike, which was not very strenuous on the way there. When we arrived, there were a lot of locals in the water right by the waterfalls, which made us feel uncomfortable, so we walked a bit further to come back later when there were fewer people. Overall, the waterfalls were nice to see, but not really overwhelming.
When we were back in the city, I soon made my way back home by train.

The next day, I took the train to the city again to meet up with Alex. Since Monday was a holiday and I didn't want to go home in the evening, I stayed overnight with Alex.
In the afternoon, we went back to Mount Eden, which offers the most beautiful view over Auckland (apart from the Sky Tower). We were already there during the orientation days, but only for about 5 minutes, so we wanted to go again because you can relax in the sun and have a beautiful view of the entire city.
In the afternoon, we took the bus to Mission Bay. Mission Bay is a bay in the middle of Auckland's city center, which has a very nice but unfortunately dirty beach. The water is also not very clean, which is due to the nearby ship harbor. Despite everything, we had a great Sunday, which unfortunately resulted in sunburn for me.

On Monday, we tried to sleep in as much as possible (very difficult with screaming children in the house who wake up very early) and then made our way to Piha Beach with Lea. Piha Beach is a famous surfing beach about a 30-minute drive from Auckland. It is very dangerous due to the many reefs beneath the surface, and there is even a series about it that mentions that almost weekly someone gets carried away by the strong currents and a lifeguard has to come to the rescue.
On the way to Piha Beach, we already had a beautiful view of the beach and the surrounding area. The beach itself was simply breathtakingly beautiful! Despite the concerns of our host parents, we all went into the water, but only in the marked area that was safe and monitored by lifeguards. The waves were very strong despite the ebb, and the current was very strong, so we only went waist-deep into the water, but still got completely wet from the waves :-D
After lying in the sun for a while, we took a little walk along the beach, which is truly stunning!! On the way back, we already had a bit of trouble getting back without getting wet, as the tide was getting stronger. On the way there, we could still walk through the water and only our feet got wet, but on the way back, we had to climb over rocks because we couldn't go into the water anymore. The area where swimming was allowed moved further away from the rocks as the tide increased, as it would be too dangerous to get close to the rocks. However, the surfers who arrived with the tide didn't care...
After our walk, we made our way back to Auckland, where another 50-minute train ride in the icy cold train awaited me... After eventful and exhausting weekend, I fell into bed completely exhausted.
Pictures will follow! :-)