And so there I was, staring at the welcome sign for Auckland. I’m not sure what happened to the last six months, it all seems such a blur, already a distant memory. A time where I learnt so much about myself, the world and so much more.

Now my mindset needs to change. I no longer need to have the next stage of my travel constantly lingering in the back of my mind. I’m here to settle somewhere, find a job, be a part of life here.

This isn’t to happen immediately however, there are definitely some sights to see in New Zealand before finding a long term location!

My arrival into Auckland was at 12:30am on Sunday morning. I then had six hours to wait until the train to my hostel. By the time I arrived in town it was around 2:30am, leaving me with four hours to kill. I spent two of these sat at the back of McDonald’s, musing how I had travelled halfway around the world only to be met with the same scenes I could see in Leeds on a Saturday night.

The next two I spent huddled in a doorway outside the train station, successfully getting around thirty minutes dosing time and lots of numb limbs.

I finally rolled up at my hostel at around 7:30am the next morning. A slow walk from the train station allowing me to enjoy beautiful country smells and distant rolling green hills, determining without a doubt I had made the right choice staying out of the city.

It turns out I planned my arrival perfectly, just in time for free breakfast! This included freshly made bread, guacamole and fruit salad, among other tasty morsals. During this time I began talking to some of the other guests, slowly realising this was different from any hostel I had seen before.

Breakfast time at the hostel

It was actually a house turned hostel, with some bedrooms inside and other people staying on the large surrounding grounds in tents and huts. There was a real community vibe to the place, encouraged by a shared dinner every evening as well as the equal distribution of clean up tasks afterwards (drawn out of a bag for fairness). There were also some chickens kept at the hostel, more as pets it seemed, rather than for any major food purposes. Fruit and vegetables were grown and then taken to be sold on a weekly basis by some travellers working in exchange for accommodation.

Hostel and some of the garden

On my second day I took a trip back into Auckland centre with a girl called Libby in search of a new raincoat, which I was definitely going to need sooner rather than later. During this time I was also able to explore the centre a little, much preferring this to the night time viewing, but not finding anything overly unique or attractive.

Our journey back led to a discovery of an interesting little town one stop before Sunnyvale. This was a quaint little place with second hand bookshops, a Salvation Army shop (which was full of backpacker priced goods) as well as an array of fruit, veg and random shops. It seemed to be quite content stuck in a simpler age of shopping and with prices to match.

That evening I spoke to a guy in the hostel who I knew was trying to work out his next move, propositioning a road trip to the Northland over the following week. I suggested hiring a car, but it turned out he had a campervan and was in the market for a travel buddy. And so our road trip plan was formed. I would be beginning my time in New Zealand living on the road, out of a camper. A traveller’s dream!