Auckland 2.0

On Wednesday, I said goodbye to Fritz - he is now going to the South Island with his dad - and for me, it was time to go back up to Auckland.

I took the bus at 8:30 in the morning and had an 11-hour bus ride ahead of me. There were hardly any other people on the bus - until we arrived in Rotorua in the afternoon, where two German girls, a Swiss guy, and a Kiwi guy got on. They were all pretty funny - but the worst was the English of the two German girls, neither pronunciation nor grammar was correct and their translations of German words into English gave me goosebumps, absolutely horrible!!

7:30 pm in Auckland - the bus finally arrived, I packed my backpacks and made my way to the bus stop, I drove about 10 minutes to Ponsonby Road, where I will stay for 5 nights at the BBH Hostel 'Uenkunu Lodge'.

The first evening was totally shitty, everyone from my dorm was out, except for Max - an English guy who caught something in Sri Lanka and is now sick.

At 1 am, I woke up from the noise of my roommates - but I only saw them in the dark in the middle of the night, because they had all gotten up again at 6 am and gone somewhere else.

I spent Thursday in bed until noon before I went out to do some shopping - I left most of the food stuff to Fritz so I wouldn't have to carry it.

In the afternoon, I talked to 2 Germans who were looking for a campervan.

Friday, December 16th: I got up pretty early, after breakfast, I talked to Max, who had been to the doctor the night before, he cut his feet while surfing in Sri Lanka and it had gotten infected, he is now taking antibiotics and feeling much better. Max asked me where he can find the 'isite' (tourist information center), and since I was going to the city anyway, we decided to go to the city together.

We split up at the isite and I wandered around Queen Street for a few hours, but unfortunately didn't find anything.

I spent the afternoon with the two Germans and two French guys on the terrace of the hostel, the sun was shining and it was really nice.

In the evening, 'the French guys' wanted to go to a pub, but since we were still sitting on the terrace at 10 pm, I went to bed to be fit for the next day.

I still haven't met my roommates and besides me, I have only met one girl in the hostel, who is here with her boyfriend and will leave on Saturday. Totally strange.

Saturday, December 18th:

At around 10 am, I made my way to the ferry, on the way I got a smoothie at 'Tank' and half an hour later I met Philipp (yes, with two L's and two P's - greetings to Sven) at the harbor.

The line at the ticket office was endless, so we didn't take the ferry until 11 am.

40 minutes later, we arrived at Waiheke Island.

We tried to orient ourselves first, then walked about 20 minutes to the city center in the village of Oneroa. We visited a relatively boring art gallery before going down to the beach. It was about 22 degrees and very sunny, so I put on a pair of shorts.

The beach was white and the sea turquoise, an incredibly beautiful sight!

We walked along the beach and talked, it was so nice to finally exchange with someone and talk to someone you've known for a long time and with whom you don't have to ask the typical questions like 'where are you from? Where have you been? How long have you been in New Zealand? How long will you stay? What will you do afterwards? ......' but just to be able to talk about things that are really interesting.

At Oneroa Beach, we climbed over a few rocks towards the east. Here we found a small path to a lookout - we bravely marched up there in the weather for about 15 minutes and had a great view of the beach, applied sunblock and drank some water before making our way back and then taking the bus to Onetangi - to the next beach.

We sat down in the warm sand, enjoyed the sun, and chatted.

At some point, we got hungry and took the bus to a small street with cafes and food stalls. We sat down in one called 'Surfdale' where I could get ridiculously cheap fries and Philipp got a burger.

Shortly before 4 pm, we started heading back - we walked along a small signposted path, which ended in a boring street in the middle of a residential area. We continued walking along the street until we arrived back at Oneroa Beach.

This time we didn't have to climb over the rocks anymore - due to low tide, we could simply walk past them and sat down a few meters away for the rest of the afternoon at the beach.

At around 8 pm, we were back in Auckland and since Philipp wanted to make the sandwiches I had raved about before his next appointment, we said goodbye and I started the 30-minute walk back to Ponsonby Road.

I'm spending Sunday cozying up with some series in the hostel and will probably do my laundry later before taking the bus to Tairua (Coromandel) tomorrow afternoon.