The day after surfing, I found myself on a plane headed south and east. I arrived at the Auckland airport and began waiting for the bus into town. A few minutes later, Billy and Jen walked out of the airport, and we decided to split a cab. They had picked out a hostel already, so off we went.
Negotiating travel in New Zealand proved to be difficult for me. Billy and Jen had decided to fly south and rent a car one way back, but had more time to spend in NZ than I did. Unfortunately, joining them would make it difficult for me to catch my flight out of Auckland.
I like to get the chance to walk around a city, to get the lay of the land. I certainly did that in Auckland. In one day I walked roughly 40km; that’s about 25 miles. Auckland reminds me a lot of Seattle, only it feels about 1/10th the size of Portland, Oregon. Oh, did I mention that it was raining again?
There is so much to see and do in New Zealand, that there is just no conceivable way to do it any sort of justice in two weeks. Although there isn’t that much land to cover, (compared to Australia) the landscape changes with every 15 minutes of travel, in addition the travel options for a solo traveler with limited time are, well… limited. Consequently, I felt a bit of pressure to figure out my itinerary, and every moment I spent trying to figure it out, limited my options further.
After spending way too much time trying to devise an economical way to get around, I decided to just hop on a plane to Queenstown, and work my way back north via bus.
1 response so far ↓
ginacoggio // January 14, 2007 at 7:27 pm |
I just came back from NZ yesterday. If you get a chance, after seeing the South Island, go over to East Cape on the North. Take the Pacific Coast Highway, if you can, and see Whanarua Bay and Waihi Beach. Those, along with New Plymouth (for Mount Taranaki), were my favorite places. But you’ve only got two weeks…you’re right: so much to see!!!