Anyway after an eventful flight, where we turned to to Virgin Australia to be told that our flight didn't exist, finally found it (it was New Zealand Air, though this wasn't mentioned on any virgin Australia correspondence, ticket or otherwise), had to pay extra for our baggage and got to enjoy the in flight safety movie which was Men in Black themed with aliens and pugs, we touched down in Auckland.
Now what do you do when you arrive in a place with breathtaking views (and luckily great weather)? Go on a 6 hour hike of course! So having been picked up by a friend we headed up to the coromandel to start our insane challenge, though at the time we thought it was only going to be a short walk. Four and a half hours of trekking, climbing up steps and pulling ourselves up rocks later, we found ourselves at the top of the Pinnacles.
The view, as you can see was completely and utterly worth it. With clear blue skies providing a view stretching into the horizon, with the sea to our left and miles upon miles of hills to our right. Yep we were definitely in New Zealand! Yay!
Luckily it was only and hour and a half down and we decided to stop off for dinner in the quaint town of Thames. After filling up on carbs we ended up chatting to our friendly kiwi waiter.
"We went up to the pinnacles today" my mate stated proudly "took us 6 hours" (I would like to point out that the average time it takes is 8, so we felt accomplished to say the least).
"Ah yeah?" The kiwi replied "I usually run up it in about an hour and a half"...WHAT??!! Obviously this is something I need to get used to - I am clearly in a country of hyper active sporty people! Though if the All Blacks are anything to go by I suppose I should have expected this, who knows maybe I will come out of this trip with a goal to be a world class runner...though I grew up in Kenya so probably not...I can't wait to see what this country has to offer though. Bring it on!
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