Two weeks in the Waitakere Ranges

Sorry it’s been so long since our first post…turns out there are far too many distractions which have kept us away from the computer! Basing ourselves just outside of Auckland has proven a great start to our trip. We’ve spent the last two weeks in an excellent Airbnb on the edge of the Waitakere Ranges (just west of Auckland). Our hosts (Frances, Richard, Hillary and Elsa) were incredibly welcoming and made us feel right at home – thank you so much, we’ll catch up with you soon (but not too soon!). Their local knowledge, tips and must-sees meant we definitely made the most of our time in this sometimes overlooked region.

In between van searching (promise we will show you our new home soon), persuading a bank to give us an account and sorting our phones we managed to squeeze in some great day trips in the Auckland region, here’s our highlights…

Waitakere Ranges, bush walks
We did several tramps (NZ lingo for hikes) in the bush which was a very alien landscape for us – it all seemed very Jurassic park! The birdsong and trees were like nothing we had experienced before. Seeing the mighty Kaori up close towering above the forest canopy made the sweaty humid tramps totally worth it. We visited both Fairy Falls and Kitekite falls which were both spectacular but deceptively cold for swimming.

West Coast beaches

The wild coastline and black sand beaches were a real revelation and are a fantastic contrast to the inland bush. We visited Piha and went to the Piha beach café for top notch coffee and beer overlooking Lion Rock. The sea cave at Bethells beach (Ta Henga) was cool to see and the gannet colonies at Muriwai were amazing once your nose was numb to the smell!

North Shore

We were kindly invited to dinner with Nick’s maths teacher’s South African friends in the North Shore area (tenuous link but one we are glad exists, thanks Mrs A!). Thank you Claire, Greg and Lorraine for making us feel so welcome and giving us lots of advice for our travels. We look forward to seeing you all again.

It was a gorgeous evening to take a stroll along Takapuna beach with amazing views out to Rangitoto (an extinct volcano). We also had an excellent ice cream from Movenpick on the beach.

Central Auckland

We spent a morning in the CBD which had a great selection of outdoors shops, super coffee and an excellent bookshop where we got our Lord of the Rings location guide –ohhhh yeah! Nick managed to also pick probably the only barber in NZ also from Devon. The Sky Tower is pretty impressive and the city centre was a nice size to explore in a morning.

Of course we have been fishing…we took a couple of day trips south of Auckland and

Nick caught his first NZ trout. Watch out for the first fishing blog post coming on a rainy van day soon!

So far so good, we have learnt many things:

• trolleys are trundlers
• kiwis are exceptionally friendly people
• everyone here is called bro
• the flashing lights you see in your rear view mirror isn’t the locals saying hello
• neither of us have a clue how to pronounce any of the places!

We will put up another post once we have hit the road.

Thanks for reading, Nick and Sylvie