Updates from the Road: New Zealand – Week 1

Our First Campground in New Zealand

We landed in New Zealand on Sunday! We’re checking another item off of our bucket list by driving around New Zealand in a campervan. Originally we were just going to have it for 5 weeks, but after chatting with some new friends in Fiji last week (Hi Amanda & Gary!), we decided that we needed more time in New Zealand. So we’ve extended our campervan rental to 8 weeks, and then we’ll spend the holidays in New Zealand as well.

It was a big weather change for us this week, as it was 20-30 degrees cooler (in Fahrenheit) than Fiji and rained for the first several days we were here. But we didn’t let that stop us and spent the earlier part of this week wandering around in Auckland, visiting bookstores, and plotting out a bit of our road trip plan.

Some highlights from this week:

• The Macbook is fixed!! Woohoo!! And it was an easy fix…just needed an Aussie plug, rather than being run through the converter.
• We had the best time at Beqa Lagoon Resort. We met so many great people and it was really hard to leave on Saturday morning. We would definitely recommend it to anyone. For the all inclusive lap of luxury, it was definitely not expensive.
• We picked up our Campervan and here she is! Her name is Spacenet and she is the swiss army knife of campervans. We are still getting settled in and figuring it all out, but we’ll post a video tour later on.
• Yesterday and today, we are camping in Takapuna, on the North Shore of Auckland close to the Apple store. Our holiday park is right on the shore and the view from our campsite is amazing:
• We visited the Icebreaker Outlet store today, kind of like our own little version of Mecca, since there isn’t a store anywhere close to us in the states. Icebreaker makes amazing merino wool clothing and most of our wardrobe is made by them. Merino is good for hot and cold climates and they are also durable. When you only have a few shirts, it’s nice to have them work no matter what the weather is like,  not fall apart after a few washings, and not smell if you wear them more than once between washings.
• We arrived in Auckland on Sunday, just in time to watch the World Triathlon Grand Finals. The city was packed full of serious triathletes from around the world. Weather conditions were less than ideal on Sunday (rain & wind), but we walked down to the harbor where the finish line was and watched & cheered as the triathletes came in.
• Found our new favorite burger place: Burger Fuel. All their burgers are made with New Zealand 100% Grass Fed Beef
• Tomorrow we head North. Not sure where we will end up tomorrow night, but most likely close to some Kauri trees in the Waipoua Forest.
• And for those of you who are always wondering how we manage to find internet access on the road, we are happy to present to you the internet caravan at our Holiday park: