Now I know I haven’t traveled to many countries [yet], but let me say that New Zealand was such a beautiful country to visit; it’s so green, lush, and just breath-taking! If you ever get the chance to travel, I highly suggest going to New Zealand! It really is much more amazing in person and the beauty can’t compare to anything I’ve seen so far.
While in NZ, Davis and I did a ton of walking, driving, and sightseeing. And by walking, I mean walking 3-10 miles a day up and down some serious hills! I didn’t know that NZ would be so hilly. So, I suggest when you plan on going to NZ, definitely take some comfy tennis shoes that you can walk in! In the first couple of days of our trip, we spent the night in Auckland, the largest city located in NZ. There, we spent our days getting lost in the city. It definitely is a really cool city with great shops and a lot of restaurants! You can only imagine how hard it was for us picking a place to eat.
After Auckland, Davis and I got our free rental car from a company called Transfercar. Basically, the car is “free” because you get to drive their rental car from one city to another (all we had to pay for was gas and insurance coverage). In NZ, the natives drive on the opposite side of the road so, driving took a lot more thought; we (mostly Davis because he drove the entire road trip) had to make sure we were following traffic correctly. So, our main goal was to drive our rental car from Auckland to Christchurch, but we decided to do a more scenic route and visit more cities. Along the way, we stopped in several places: Matamata (where The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings were filmed…in case you didn’t know;), Rotorua, Hastings, Plimmerton, Wellington, etc (see picture below of our road trip).
For each city we visited, we only stayed a night or two. It got pretty exhausting after a while because we both got sick. That part of our trip wasn’t so fun because we spent almost all our sick days sleeping. Luckily, we were able to kick our sickness to the curb just after a couple of days! Davis and I continued to explore as much as New Zealand as we could. Before heading to Dunedin, our last destination, we stopped in Omaru, New Zealand. Louise, a NZ local from Christchruch, told us that you can view a colony of penguins. I’ve never seen a penguin in person before so when Davis and I heard this, we were so excited and thought that this is something we have to see. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the colony because they had already left for the day but were told to go to Moeraki, NZ to see some yellow eyed penguins. In case you’re wondering, these penguins aren’t caged or kept in a zoo; they live freely. We both thought it was cute to see a “Penguins Crossing” sign.
As for the most part of our trip, we really spent 80% of our trip driving and traveling. Some of you may ask, “well, why did you do that?” Again, the amount of time we were gone for, we wanted to make the most of our trip because we aren’t sure when we can come back again. The scenery drastically changed from the north island to the south island. The north island is mostly rural and farm land (exception of Auckland) whereas we found the south island to be mountainous and coastal. If you’ve been to California, it has the same similarity as driving from Southern Cal to Northern Cal; two parts of California that are very different.
After Dunedin, we spent our last day in our rental car and dropped it off in it’s location in Christchurch. For those wondering, it took us about a week to drive and visit all these places. From Christchurch, we took a bus all the way to Picton, where we would catch our last ferry ride of the trip back to Wellington. To our dismay, it was the worst last ferry ride. The waves were really acting up; a storm may have been approaching. The waves were getting bigger and constantly crashed into our ferry. It was a bit scary and not to mention Davis and I were both getting seasick so we tried to sleep it off.
We finally made it back to Wellington where we stayed a night at a really cool but somewhat creepy hostel called ‘Tombstone.’ I’m sure you can guess why; the hostel was next to a burial site so that freaked me out a bit. Overall, it was nice and the owners were extremely friendly and made us feel welcomed. In the morning, one of the owners made cheddar scones for all the backpackers. They were so good! It was nice to have something homemade after eating out every day. To end our trip, Davis and I took a train ride back to Auckland. It was about a 10 hour train ride. I normally sleep whenever I travel (time goes by much faster!), but I don’t think I slept very much on the train;. it was on and off. We spent most of our time gaming (Plants vs. Zombies, yeah!) and snacking on some goodies we picked up from the grocery store.
When we finally returned to Auckland, we stopped to get dinner and walked back to our hostel. All I can say is that the 3 weeks we spent in NZ is unforgettable! If I were to pick one favorite thing about our trip… I can’t. Why you might ask? 1. I simply cannot choose just one thing and 2. Because it was all so great. I was so fortunate to travel to such an amazing country with my favorite person. I’d definitely do it again in a heartbeat!
If you want to read a much more detailed diary of mine and Davis’ trip, click here (it was our NZ travel blog).
Last but not least, I’ll leave you guys with some pictures…
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