So far, I have seen more cows than sheep. Just to get that out of the way.

A few other clichés have proven true, though. New Zealand–or what we’ve seen of it–is beautiful, no one likes Australians, and the people are almost disgustingly friendly.

Cathedral Cove Walkway

We’ve done quite a bit of driving on InterCity coaches already, and that part of the tour has been absolutely painless and actually pretty comfortable. The landscapes are so green they probably rival Ireland’s countryside, and the hills are dotted with farm animals. On a food-and-bathroom break yesterday, I even got to pet a couple of lambs!

Cathedral Cove

Sleeping turns out to be the other side of the coin on this trip. The hostels we’ve stayed at up to this point have all been clean and otherwise okay, but the Wellington YHA that we’re in right now is only the second that has proper heating. We have spent more time shivering under blankets than we have actually sleeping, so that hasn’t been fun. But we’re already reorganising our plans a bit to adapt.

Auckland

Other than that, our first week (and part of me can’t believe we’ve already been here a week) has been very slow, not least of all because we’re still terribly jetlagged. The boyfriend says he read somewhere that it takes a day for every hour of time difference you have to overcome, so we have about three more days to go, and maybe then we’ll finally be able to stay up longer than 8.30pm.

Huka Falls

The two most impressive sights we have managed to see are Cathedral Cove on the Coromandel Peninsula (which in itself was a highlight, as was the busride there!) and Huka Falls near Taupo. I have been taking photos with both my trusted Nikon and my new Lumia, but thanks to the aforementioned jetlag, I haven’t even had enough awake-time to backup my DSLR photos, let alone process or export them. With how much we still have planned, I also don’t really see that happening before we get back home, so for now, you’re only getting photos from my phone.

Wellington

This has been Week One of our Big Fat Adventure (which has turned out pretty big and fat after all, not so much ‘slightly smaller, slightly thinner’ as I previously thought). Tomorrow, we’re hopping over to the South Island (and by ‘hopping’, I most likely mean trying not to get ill on the ferry) and starting the next leg of the adventure. I hope it won’t take me another week to get the next post up, but either way, see you soon!