Less than one hour on the bus brings us to Taupo. This is the main starting point to explore the Tongariro National park and in particular to hike the Alpine crossing between the volcanoes there. It all looks nice and pleasant in the guide book, but the weather is putting us off: low clouds, chilly temperatures and rain forecast. We have been smart enough to put this activity on “the next time” list and just enjoy the view of the lake and the windy shores. Better proceed to the east coast and Hawke’s bay, which is famous for its wineries and fancy architectures. So we arrive in Napier in the early evening and check-in at “central backpackers”.
A pleasant ride on the bus is bringing us to Hamilton, few km south of Auckland. Hamilton is a relatively small university town grown along the river, and it turned out to be a very charming place to stay for a couple of days.
The city center is full of dining places and out for the evening meal we caught a good deal for roasted lamb: buy 2 pay 1. We figured it was so cheap we couldn’t miss it, but we got carried away by the wine list and the dessert menu and the dessert wines and so and so forth…ended up spending about three times more than we should have. But it was all excellent! After investigating our possibilities for a day excursion we find that the Hobbiton movie set is close enough for a visit.
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!