Orkland...

...Excuse me, Auckland of course. But there can be confusion, after all, the orcs would have felt very comfortable against the gray backdrop of Auckland. Peter Jackson could have considered this cute little town (which a third of the New Zealand population calls home) as a filming location for all the orc and Mordor scenes. And we must not forget the great metaphor behind it all, the destruction of nature (or J.R.R. Tolkien's hometown of the Shire) by the influences of industrialization (or Sauron, or Saruman, or orcs). This also applies to this concrete gray industrial city located in the middle of greenery. Okay, STOP!

For those who don't know what's going on here: Don't worry! You didn't click on the wrong page and you are not on any other blog that happens to be called 'Easy-Peasy-Kiwi-Squeezy' and uses a dubious secret language. No, no, you are in the right place. And that was not a secret language, it was all references to the world-famous best-selling trilogy 'The Lord of the Rings', conceived and written by the great J.R.R. Tolkien. Phew, explaining all of that now would take too long. The important thing is: Sauron, Saruman, and the orcs are the bad guys (google the creatures and you'll know what I mean) and Peter Jackson is the guy who filmed all the fun (in New Zealand!). And if you're wondering right now, 'Why on earth did I have to read all of that', then I can only say:...yes, well...I'm really sorry. (However, Richard swears that he really saw orcs here, at least two-thirds of his Lego collection, on a nearby island called 'Rangitoto', but more on that later...)

ANYWAY...

Our last few days here in Auckland have been very eventful. Full of ups and downs. By now we have settled into our hostel quite well, and more importantly, we have figured out how to get free Wi-Fi! The hostel is within Wi-Fi range of a nearby café that we visited recently. HAHA! (Unfortunately, we're not the only ones who figured this out, so the good Wi-Fi spot is usually occupied now.)

Another important traveling experience: 12-bed dorms are not recommended. It's really hard to make contact, and to this day I'm not exactly sure who is sleeping in our room (also because the occupants keep changing). For the ones we do know, at least we can greet them in the hallway...So no more 12-bed dorms (unless it's an absolute emergency, of course, you can't always choose).

That's why on Tuesday evening we immediately went to get a membership card for the 'Youth Hostel Accommodation' (again on the wise advice of our New Zealand gurus), a nationwide hostel chain. Now we pay less for an 8-bed dorm than we did for the 12-bed dorm before! While we were at it, we also booked two hostels.

Now would probably be a good time to reveal our further travel plans. First, we will travel north over the weekend, to Paihia and the 'Bay of Islands' (let me just say one thing: WHALE-WATCHING!!!). There we will meet Richard and Anton. On Monday, we will already be back in Auckland for our bank appointment. And then we will continue to Hamilton (also an important filming location for 'The Lord of the Rings'). We are currently applying for a WWOOFING placement there (WWOOFING is work on organic farms in exchange for room and board). After all, money doesn't grow on trees in New Zealand either (and there's a lot growing on trees here). It's not that easy, as quite a few WWOOFING hosts are fully booked. But we won't give up! Just today we wrote to a family who has a forge and a ceramic workshop for garden decoration (please keep your fingers crossed that it works out!).

In the past few days, we have seen some really beautiful parts of Auckland, such as the coziest, most schlumpy, and most beautiful bookstore in the world! Lots of unique cafés and boutiques and a great game store for Richard (he's sitting next to me right now reading 'novels' about a Star Wars board game that he discovered there and that I will probably never play with him...oops, sorry Richi...).

Yesterday we took the ferry and crossed over to a nearby volcanic island - Rangitoto (see above). An island that is almost completely untouched by humans, there are only two or three small houses along the beach. After a one-hour hike, during which we worked up quite a sweat (incredible how warm it was there while the cold wind was blowing outside), we could enjoy the stunning view of Auckland and the surrounding island landscape. We also crawled through dark volcanic caves (caution was definitely required - one wrong step and it could have ended badly!) and Richard saved my life by shooting down a few orcs who were attacking me from behind! Such audacity! Afterward, we were pretty exhausted...

After a visit to the 'Art Gallery' (and many Maori portraits), we are - as so often - in the Auckland library, mooching the good Wi-Fi (of course, only to write a new blog post for you, what else did you think?).

Let's see what awaits us in the next few days...

Until then...we miss you!

Richard and Maggi, November 3, 2016, Auckland 4:28 PM