Hello Auckland New Zealand !
- Fon Shibuya Papaya
- Nov 25, 2016
- 5 min read
Recently I joined along with Kotaro (my hubby) and his brother on their business trip to New Zealand ! I only joined for the first half of the trip (Auckland and Wellington) as the second half (South island) consisted of daily airport travels and daily city hops (no thanks !).
This was my first time in New Zealand so I was pretty excited to breathe in fresh air and run around in the green fields with the sheep (like the movie "The Sound of Music" maybe ? Hehe ) ♥ I've been living in concrete jungles most of my life and to be able to escape to a place surrounded by tons of nature is just paradise for me !
When I got to Auckland it was just what I expected - clear blue skies, green fields, as for the sheep - they came later on in my trip. My first impression was that it kind of reminded me of Vancouver (where I grew up when I was a kid) - it was a city with buildings and shops but still was surrounded by lots of nature (mountains, fields, trees, birds). The people were stylish, friendly, and easygoing. The actual New Zealanders population is not that high (NZ approximately 4.6mil., Auckland approximately 1.3mil...compared to Tokyo's population - approx. 13mil...Whoa ! ) , I could see that many residents in Auckland were actually foreigners ( Many Europeans and Asians ). What also interested me was being introduced to Maori culture and how Maori speakers and English speakers are intertwined harmoniously in everyday life. I just love that I could just get a taste of many bits of different cultures in one place !
This trip I visited Auckland and Wellington BUT unfortunately I was able to stay in Wellington for only a night (due to hubby and bro's work schedule). Meaning most of my trip was spent in Auckland - which was awesome ! Here are some of the places that we visited in AK :
This museum is known to be one of the most important war memorials in the country. It's known to focus on New Zealand's history and natural history exhibitions. I'm not just saying only about traditional history because when I was there there was an exhibition on New Zealand's history of musicians ! How cool is that ? It was totally down our alley as my hubby & bro are in the music industry and I'm a music geek ....I actually learned that "Lorde" was from New Zealand from here ( yes sorry to know so late! ). Overall the building itself was beautiful and I absorbed alot of NZ history from this museum.
I'm from the tropical country of Thailand, so I love beaches. I was able to visit a couple of beaches such as Mission Bay. This place is said to be one of the popular resorts. It's also known for the good eats there. I stopped by to get fish and chips (Fish Pot Cafe's fish n chips are bomb!) to eat by the sea..with some new friends - seagulls. If you wanna chill drop by.
It wasn't much sunny when I visited this place but I did enjoy it. It took around an hour from the central city to get there by car (35 kilometers from central city). I arrived at Karekare Beach and to my surprise the sand was black ! I'd never seen black sand that was so soft and full of shiny minerals (like gold/silver) before. It was ...cold....but the beach was so beautiful in its unique way ! I learned that this beach is not only popular because of its black sand but also popular because the Oscar winning movie "The Piano"was filmed here. So I did what any other tourist would do - after visiting Karekare Beach, I quickly went back to recall the trailer of the movie on Youtube.
I can say going to this island was the highlight of my trip because I was able to do some wine tasting and ziplining! Yay ♥ Waiheke Island is the second largest island around the Gulf of Hauraki and only around 40 mins away by ferry (21.5km) from Auckland downtown.
The ferry trip itself was breezy and relaxing. The ferries usually come by every half n hour so our rides to and from Waiheke were not too crowded. The island is quite small so you are able to walk to and from some places, but of course renting a scooter/car will always keep you from getting leg sores. Here we were able to visit the beach in Oneroa and Winery Cable Bay Vineyard on foot. After getting a little buzzed from the wonderful wine and the vineyards surroundings, we went (by car) zip lining at Eco Zip Adventures. It was awesome ! 3 zip lining experiences and around a half an hour hike with the experts up and down the hills, learning about the natural surroundings. I do recommend you to visit this island since we all had an awesome time!
Here's a clip of our Waiheke trip (FYI this is from hubby's youtube channel @knowwhatitisfilms) ♥
This place made part of my dream come true. I'll tell you why in a bit.
It takes around 15 mins from central Auckland to here by car (approximately 8.2km). One Tree Hill is the largest volcanic cone that still remains and is popular for its high viewpoint to see the city view. According to Auckland Council, it was the center of Maori occupation during the 18th century and associated with Auckland's influential figures
such as Sir George Grey and Sir John Logan Campbell who is buried on the summit. To top it off, the most interesting thing of all about this place is that ...... there are heaps of fluffy SHEEP everywhere ! Yay ♥ Sheep are literally walking around and eating grass freely everywhere. I mentioned earlier my dream was to run in the fields with sheep - well it finally came true ha! Visit if you would like to fulfill your sheep dreams like me or if you like U2 ... oh did I mention that they wrote about this place in their song "One Tree Hill" (details here) ?
All in all I fell in love with Auckland and will definitely visit again (big thanks to Tom, our friend and personal guide) . Next time I will surely visit the South Island as they say it is even more beautiful :)
Ok - this was a loooonnngg ass blog (compared to my other blogs) and if you were able to read it all cheers to you and much love ♥
If you thought I was done writing about Auckland ... well you are wrong there's MORE (please bear with me) !! Stay tuned for my favorite place to get my morning bites in AK in my next blog :)
Your favorite Papaya in Shibuya,
Comments