New Zealand - Auckland

A smooth trip brought us to New Zealand's largest city - Auckland. Even though for New Zealand standards it is a metropolis, it is not so in reality. Which may be proven by the fact that we managed to walk in five hours from one side of town (where it hits the Tasman Sea) to the other (where it hits the Pacific Ocean). Along the way covering large areas of nature.

What this walk also showed, something we did not know before, is that Auckland is built in an area full of old volcanoes, 47 or so in total. Our walk took us over two and gave us views of the remaining 45. Something that came as quite a surprise, but a nice one.

For the rest, Auckland has some nice sites - the Sky Tower (a bit like Toronto's CN Tower, but then less tall), The harbour front (a bit like Sydney, but then less beautiful) and Cornwall Park (a bit like New York's Central Park, but then less sprawling). As this list may show - a nice city, but not spectacular.

What is there, though, is a thorough Polynsian and Asian influence - Auckland is the largest polynesian city in the world (about 30% of its inhabitants!), while walking through Auckland makes you feel like you're in downtown Tokyo. To illustrate this, having a coffee in a Starbuck's (old habits....) we were the only caucasian people, while the other 40 customers were all Japanese. Unexpected, but meaning that an enormous variety of Asian food is on offer, which can only be good!

And that means the end of New Zealand, a country we both have fallen in love with. In the balance, the South Island was slightly more inspiring than the North, also because of the weather conditions, but we have assembled a serious list of 'things to do'. So, borrowing from a well-known actor, it is safe to say: 'WE´LL BE BACK!'