Finally time to hit the road. In last second we changed our plan going north and instead started heading south. But before we left Auckland, we had to pickup our new camera.
We started the day with trip to Waitakere Ranges, which is national park near Auckland and Aucklanders use it as weekend destination. It is pretty nice, full of nature with some landmarks there. First we found was the Fairy Falls. And that was our first „trek“ in New Zealand as well, because they are about 40 minutes away from parking place. Took our photo and video equipment and started our first trip.
The path was pretty easy with a lot of steps at the end and the waterfalls – nice and cold around, which was perfect in this hot day.
We got safely back to our car and moved to another destination – Karekare beach, where should be some old train tunnel. It was mark on the map, quite far away. Doesn’t matter, we want to see it, but after about an hour, we decided to turn around and return to our car, as time went quite quickly.
Had a lunch (more like afternoon snack) and quick move to Auckland. In wasn’t that quick as it may sound, as the roads here are really windy and when we got to Auckland we stopped in traffic jam. They closed the whole highway on the way to the city and we had to find another way. But we found and managed to get to the shop before closing. They had the camera, just missing the extra battery, Tomas ordered. But promised to send it via post to any address we would like, which sounds like good service.
After that was the time to do some shopping. We found the nearest shopping mall, which had just want drawback – there was a gate to the parking, which limit the height of cars entering to 2,2m. And we are higher. So we didn’t care to much about it and just went in, with some dangling sounds. Did our shopping, had a lunch and it was time to move – we had to go in the opposite direction, it was the only way out for us. Managed it without anyone honk on us and drove as quick as possible to the Coromandel Peninsula.
We went over the Harbour Bridge, where they just moved the lanes for morning – awesome machine, which took the barrier in front and shift it by one line. On the way we also catched petrol station just before closing and happily fill up our tank (I was really scared as the light shine for a long time). Just before Coromandel we found place to sleep on some fishermen’s site and it was the end of the day, at about 11pm.