We arrived in Wellington at our friends place without any problems, besides evening traffic …
We could use some real laundromats again, which are always rare if you travel in a van.
After some discussion with Toby, Carina presented us a sightseeing plan for the next day: Start walking at their apartment in Haitaitai, through an awesome park with a beautiful lookout towards the city, then along the Waterfront and through the city towards the botanical gardens. After that we would walk through the city again, or grab a bus if preffered and stop at the „Chippery“, a really good Fish&Chips Restaurant.
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| Wellington |
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| Wellington |
So we did! It was a long day, with much to see and tired feet in the evening. And it was worth it! It’s indeed a beautiful city, with many green spots and nice beaches to spent the time at. We had some really good icecream and Katinka bougt an awesome pair of leggins for climbing in semi-cold conditions and looking great at the same time ;).
The next day we drove one hour to Turakirae Head, to check out the best local climbing spot. From the carpark it’s still an 5km hike, but its flat and you walk along the sea. It’s a lovely area but for hard climbing it was just way to warm. All Wellington people kept telling us how rough it can get here, we should always prepare and have a second layer of cloths with us at anytime, since the weather can change all over a sudden. But it never did. We had blue sky, with little to no wind and for the three days we spent in and around Wellington.
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| V7 in Turakirae Head |
As for the climbing, we did send the classic „Black Wall“, V6 but nothing harder then that. Anyways … we might be back at some other time in the future …
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| „Black Wall“, V6 – Turakirae Head |
After a delicious homebaked pizza we prepared our departure in the morning, run another last laundromat and left our friends behind to drive north. After two days of driving we would stop again at Mount Ngauruhoe, better known as Mount Doom where the ring of „Lord of the Rings“ finally gets destroyed. Its a great landscape with vulcanic stone there and we witnessed another awesome sunset while having dinner.
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| Mt Doom |
After a bath in the natural Hotspring around Taupo we continued to the eastcoast and now just got to Auckland. We need to sell our van, since we only have five and a half days left in this country before heading on to Sydney, Australia.
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| Haku Falls – Hotsprings in Taupo |
We knew the travelers season is coming towards an end, but we did not expect so little interest in our van. Now we have hope for the best. We advertised our van at gumtree and craigslist – two online platforms for trading – and we posted aome printouts in backpacker hostels around the city. As a backup, there will be two car trading fairs this weekend, and if this will be without success, we might have to sell it for a little amount to any mechanic around …