After a long 13-hour flight we arrive in Auckland and it’s just 4 in the morning! Seeing all the warnings posted before the security check we are a bit worried they will not allow our Peruvian alpaca baby fur carpet into the country (why…WHY did we buy it?? we just had that feeling of lying down on an alpaca carpet at some point in our lives…), but everything is fine and we are ready to go. The first thing that hits me is the quality of the toilet. Funny to say, but I really got so used to questionable bathrooms, random presence of water and bring-your-own-paper, that having a clean bowl in front of me almost made me uneasy 😀 But you get accustomed to that very easily! Since we are not allowed to check in at the hotel before 2pm we are off to a pre-sunset walk down at the waterfront, and as soon as the bars are open we sit for a cappuccino. The city is really a beautiful mixture of classy apartment buildings, old British-style churches and peaceful parks around a busy center. Busy, predominantly Asian people walking around. At times I thought I was in Tokyo rather than Auckland! One out of three street eateries are sushi places! But everything fits until you reach the “El Sombrero, Mexican food” and it’s run buy Chinese people! Funny!

During the first day we also manage to visit the National Museum, which has a rich and detailed collection of Maori history before and after the arrival of the English people. Being so tired from the long day of walking around we don’t even manage to have dinner, but go straight to sleep to recover from the jet lag. We wake up to a fabulous Auckland, sunny and charming, visit the Art gallery and  the cake shop, an amazing (Chinese) bakery (see food pictures), with the most attractive pieces of pastry and bread I’ve ever seen (or am I just starved?). During the afternoon it gets a bit cloudy, but nonetheless we are reaching the best side of town: the far water front, with the fish market and all sorts of charming boats and coffee places.

Days are passing quickly and smoothly and it’s time to make a short visit to the north before starting our trip towards the South island. We take a bus to the charming little village of Paihia. We get there in the middle of a heavily rainy day, but find comfort in a warm bowl of soup and hope for a better day after. Turns out the second day isn’t much better, but we still get to take the little ferry to the village of Russel for their “world famous seafood chowder”. Well, I never heard about it before, but it was for sure a fantastic dish!

Good bye to the North of New Zealand, next stop Hamilton!