Leaving Jack Behind

We decided in China to already book the first few nights in Auckland, so that we wouldn’t have to start searching for a place when we’d arrive. This basically meant that we got out of the airplane, hopped on the Airport Express bus (which conveniently runs 24hrs a day) and got out in a neighbourhood called Mount Eden. We had to walk through the streets for about 10 minutes until we got to our hostel, but we weren’t complaining – this neighbourhood was sooo beautiful! It was all very clean, green all around and it was so amazingly quiet (especially compared to China ). Right there and then we decided we could totally live here. Such a shame this place is so far away..

The hostel we’d booked was called Pentlands Backpackers Hostel, located in Pentland Avenue. It was situated in a large colonial house with several rooms and dorms, and a lovely garden. Since it wasn’t possible to check in right away (it was only 08:00 in the morning), we took over a couch in the common room and fell asleep instantly. A few hours later, I woke up and found Vinnie – the hostel manager – who gave us the key to our room, so we continued sleeping there..

The next few days we spent in and around the hostel – it was such a sweet place! We discovered that the supermarket wasn’t far from the hostel, and we soon found out to our (very) pleasant surprise, that meat in New Zealand is extremely affordable – meaning: normally, a good rump steak costs around 11 NZD a kilo. On offer the price could go down to around 7$. Good thing there was a barbecue in the garden of the hostel! (a gas bbq however, but still..)

We met some really nice people in the hostel, including two sweet German girls called Stephanie and Ann-Kathrin (not sure how to write it), who were traveling all over New Zealand for the last few months. They had their own van, which they now tried to sell because they were about to end their trip and go home to start their studies. This kinda got us thinking… We were totally planning to rent a small van or buying a bus pass of some kind to travel the country, but to buy our own van.. hmm.. maybe not such a bad idea. And the more Stanki (Steph + Anki = Stanki, not our invention – promise!) talked enthusiastically about the van, and the more we got confused by all the different bus passes and shocked by the prices of renting, the more we got interested in the whole ‘buying a van’ thing. It would be kind of sweet to have our own van, wouldn’t it now?

We did some calculating and discovered that buying a van from around 2500 NZD and NOT selling it in the end, would be approximately 2 to 3 times cheaper than renting a van. Taking into account that we’d might be actually able to even get some money back when selling the van, it seemed almost silly not to look into it. So we did! We decided to take Stanki’s van on a test ride up Mount Eden, and in the process watch the sun setting from the top of the mountain. The drive was fun but we soon realized that this van had some definite downsides – one of the most important one being the fact that the wheel was ridiculously hard to handle. Another disadvantage was the single bed in the back of the van, nice and cozy for sure, but not amazingly comfortable for sleeping for about 3 months. Oh well. It was our first “van testing” anyways.

The sunset was magnificent however, very beautiful. We could see all of Auckland, including another famous mountain in Auckland, called One Tree Hill. This hill is a volcanic peak, just like Mount Eden, however according to Stanki the “One Tree” was cut down several years ago, so it should actually be called “None Tree Hill” .

The next few days we spent doing some more research on buying a van. We met a sweet couple from Belgium/Switzerland called Geert and Anna. They also wanted to sell their van, but this van was unfortunately out of our budget. They did however give us tons of tips on traveling with a van and they showed us several good camping spots on our maps.

We really enjoyed these days at Pentlands. We might not have seen much of Auckland, but Mount Eden Village was such a cute neighborhood that we felt right at home. We gathered stories from other guest about traveling New Zealand and met a very nice American guy called Phil, who drew us a map of interesting places to visit in the States. How is that for planning ahead?! All in all we were having a great time at the hostel, but we did start to feel the itch of exploring the rest of this country. I guess enough amazing stories do that to a person..