There and back again - Auckland

We did a lot in New Zealand in a short amount of time, so I'll write entries in chunks.

[Enjoying a cup of noodles on our Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong]
[Neat live camera feature to see our plane from above]
On February 24th we landed in Auckland in the morning after quite a long haul of plane flights and layovers (Bergen - Oslo - London - Hong Kong - Auckland). Between London and Auckland we had a total of 22hrs of flight time, probably round it up to 25 hours with the layover. We landed just before 8AM and were picked up by my old flatmates, Dominic and Beau, whom I lived with when I was living down there. They hadn't changed a bit, and chatting with them made it feel like I had never left. It was hard to believe that I hadn't seen them in nearly 6 years.

We had breakfast at Mission Bay, a local beach that we frequented and got caught up. Marius and I felt very pale and were eager to get a shower and a nap. We got to our hostel (YHA Auckland City) and dropped off our bags, freshened up, and took a walk around Auckland to keep us awake and get used to the time shift.

[Beau and Dominic]
[Beautiful weather in Auckland]
That night a bunch of our friends met us at the bar for some drinks and catching up. It was so nice to see how many people turned up just to say hi even though we haven't been in touch much. And Scylla (my old flatmate) brought me a cupcake for my birthday!
[Former classmates from uni: Shane, Emma and Callum]

Saturday, Marius and I stumbled around town and the university campus. Everything made us so nostalgic! In the afternoon we decided to take the ferry to Waiheke for some beach time and dinner. Since we went at 3pm, we beat the usual weekend crowd.

Sunday was more preparing for our hike in Abel Tasman, as well as a beach day to meet up with friends at Takapuna Beach.

[Relaxing at Waiheke]
[Dinner at Onetangi beach]

[The clocktower]

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