Auckland Days, Good-Bye City and Welcome Jason

The days in Auckland always start with a delicious breakfast to get energized for the day in the city. On Tuesday, we spent our time exploring the harbor (if you like Hamburg, you'll love any harbor ;)), strolling along Queen Street again, buying hiking clothes, and then exploring Albert Park and later the park around the museum... we keep noticing the funny birds here, communicating in a funny way. We still haven't figured out which one it is... we still have 4 weeks to find out 😁

In the evening, we went to the Les Mills Studio again to do Bodyattack with Lisa (wow, what a body and stamina she has at 55) and then Pump with Glen...

Both Kylie Gates and Jackie Mills joined us because they wanted to try out new tracks for filming, which we will be doing in Germany from July - there were big smiles on our faces and we immediately took photos for our colleagues 😍

Afterwards, we treated ourselves to some amazing sushi and went to bed tired.

For Wednesday, we had another plan 😅 in the morning, we climbed Mount Eden where we noticed that we were the only ones walking up from the city. In the end, it's just a one-hour walk. There, we met countless Chinese tourists who were once again driven up by buses. It's good that we can enjoy so many vacation days per year and don't have to pack all the hardcore sightseeing into 2 weeks.. it's something to be grateful for!

Afterwards, we had another meal at the food market right next to our hostel (we have to say, the location of our hostel is unbeatable for the price) and in the afternoon, we planned to do some laundry... we can't pack our dirty sportswear into the camper after all 🙃

In the evening, I (Claudi) had the highlight again with Rachel - doing bodycombat, and before that, we did Grit Cardio with Ben, whom we already met in Stockholm.

Oh yeah, Papa, we now have our first Merino clothes for hiking - yeah!

And so, the days in Auckland passed by and we are very excited about the next 4 weeks!

And here comes the exciting new day - we're getting our camper 🤪 we went back to the airport with the Skybus and then took a shuttle to Jucy Rental. We've seen quite a few other people do that as well, and now we have to wait and get oriented.

The briefing was nice and brief (we just said yes yes - let's see what we remember) and off we went... just like almost everyone there - first to Warehouse and Countdown to do some shopping. Camping chairs, table, food, drinks, and everything else we need.

The mood almost turned sour but thanks to KFC, we were able to take it easy.

And so, we embarked on our journey in the left-hand traffic. Right from the start, we drove the wrong way but we had a 2 1/2 hour practice drive ahead of us to Hot Water Beach. The way there already gave us a glimpse of New Zealand's nature and we are full of anticipation for the coming weeks.

Arriving at Hot Water Beach, we met our buddies (Jucy camper) again and immediately ended up in the wrong parking lot... in any case, there were no shovels to rent there... so we went on and my first thought when I saw what was happening was "oh no, what a touristy thing". We didn't really feel like getting a shovel but we were still interested to see what everyone was going there for...

So we started digging with our hands in different spots until we had a small "puddle" where we could experience the whole spectacle. And in the end, it was really cool 😂 sitting in the mud and having warm or rather hot water around us... and it was hot, like being in a bathtub with wrinkled hands (Thomas even took some great selfies with his finger in the picture 🤣😝😘)...

After what felt like an eternity, we finally made our way to our first campsite (for free) because I had already read that it would be quite crowded and limited.. as expected, we are now standing with about 20 other campers instead of 6.

But well - the car is parked - Thomas cooked dinner and the wine is in front of us... what more could we want ☺️

By the way - the green frog that is our home for the next few weeks is named Jason ..... because of Chaser (the camper version of Jucy, Thomas named him) so it's easy to remember, and I will also get used to not thinking of Freddy VS Jason when I sleep in it.