Chapter 5 - Roadtrip 👯‍♀️

My best friend lives exactly eight minutes away from me. It takes eight minutes to ride down the street at a leisurely pace on a bicycle, greet the neighbor's dog, find the light switch in the shed, search for the key, drop it twice, and finally dig out my phone and text her "I'm here". When I had to tell her that those eight minutes would soon become 18,000 km, she naturally understood that no distance is too far, even if it's not easily reachable by bicycle. So on October 22nd at five o'clock, my best friend landed in Auckland and our road trip through New Zealand began. We had rented a campervan for 10 days to sleep in and explore the roads at the same time. Our first destination was the Coromandel Peninsula. I have already traveled this route by bus once, so I knew what to expect and was accordingly very excited, because steep, winding roads in left-hand traffic are of course an ideal way to start. However, I even had a lot of fun and in the end it was my friend whose face lost a little color. We were rewarded with a beautiful campsite, right by the sea, with a breathtaking view. The beach was about 30 seconds away from our pitch and at night we could hear the sound of the ocean. The next day, after our hike to Cathedral Cove, we even went swimming there, because swimming in the Pacific Ocean was our goal. Even though this could be described more as a short wave hop.

Our next stop was Lake Taupo. There, we visited the Huka Falls, discovered our own little beach, and enjoyed the sun once again before it decided to stay away for the next few days.

Due to the bad weather, we changed our plans and drove towards Rotorua, the city with steaming springs and thermal baths. Along the way, we stopped at a national park. When we opened the car door, it already smelled incredibly sulfuric and like rotten eggs, but what we saw was unique!