So, that worked!

Let us see, I have been traveling for some time already now.

The basic plan: To make a long trip on the occasion of reaching a certain age. Final plan before departure was one week in Thailand, and four weeks in New Zealand.

First a lazy week at my brother’s home in the province of Nakhon Sawan. When it comes to switching between time zones, I was exactly halfways - 6 hrs (i.e. time in Sweden 06:00 am is 12:00 noon in Thailand, and 06:00 pm in NZ). Lots of good eating and drinking and, well, eating and drinking. Travel to and from the eating & drinking places on the back seat of a motorbike, or in the back seat of a small truck.

The night before departure to Auckland I spent in Bangkok. Apart from … eating & drinking … a visit to Pantip Plaza. The result, the computer on which I am currently typing away - an excellent notebook from Acer, with everything essential, even Mobile Broadband option, in addition to WiFi, but I have not got myself a 3G Sim card yet. The keyboard is fortunately in English also, not in Thai only. Swedish is possible, but that makes all the punctuation marks, symbols, and diaeresis characters hard to locate on the keyboard. Hence mostly English.

The flight to Auckland was effortless, despite more than 11 hrs in the air. I had an empty seat next to me, and a very nice fellow traveller, a native Kiwi, on the same row.

Arriving in New Zealand brought a couple of experiences worth noting;

    At the immigration counter, the fellow reviewing my passport and arrival card in detail asked me the most grumpy and curious questions; Why are you here? Where are you staying? Where are you going? How do you intend to travel? (The reply, ‘-Mainly by bus.’, seemed to provoke a little surprised grunt…)
    Declaring what you bring with you into the country is important. For me, it meant I got my hiking boots cleaned - or at least disinfected.

Other than that, no hassle.

I had booked a B&B in advance, and the room rate, as well as the taxi fare to the place from the airport, made it clear: This is not going to be a budget vacation - but once in a century, why not?

As it is essential to combat the urge to sleep as soon as you get installed in the room, I started climbing the close by extinct volcano of Mt Eden, which is also the name of the neighbourhood. At a 196 m the climb is not that strenuous, and the view makes the effort well worth while. Auckland is built on top of some 50 old volcanoes. Some day there will be an eruption, but so far not since I landed :-)

Weather is cool, approaching higher temperatures, but still not summer hot. Pleasant, aside from the initial overcast skies and occasional light rain shower.

Initial contacts with the natives very positive, and discovering Auckland on foot the second day was a pleasant beginning. Some preparations for the whole trip were necessary. Information gathering, of course, but most important is transportation. I got myself a flexipass for the InterCity bus lines. This means I have now up to 60 hrs of bus travel anywhere in the country on their network, which I can book at my leisure on the internet.

Tomorrow, this will take me to Waitomo, and the famous caves there!

First tour was yesterday to the wonderful island of Waiheke, for a tour of the vineyards, what else?

I’ll write more on my findings on dining, wine, vineyards, beer, sights, and walking tours. There is plenty to write about!

For managing my photos, I am now well equipped with cameras, picture storage space, and a computer, so maybe even some photos will reach the blog.

Time to get the bags packed for tomorrow. Next report from Waitomo!