Continuation of the 25 kilometer hike across Auckland. This part will be two of Auckland's most popular tourist hotspots: Mount Eden and One Tree Hill. Mount Eden is the crater of a once erupting volcano. It was a long time ago, about 28,000 years ago. And One Tree Hill is where the Maori lived before the Europeans arrived. The original tree was cut down back in 1870 by some white asshole. Later, John Campbell tried to re-grow the tree, but to grow the same tree of the species [totara] failed. Eventually two pine trees took root at the summit, but these too were cut down once again by the Maori in 1960 for being a foreign, non-sacred tree. Now there is an obelisk to John Kembel at the summit, and the mountain is popularly known as None Tree Hill 🙂

Auckland is New Zealand's largest city and it is more like our, European, idea of cities than any other. For those who are not afraid to walk a lot through the city there is a route through the most important tourist places of Auckland - Mount Eden, Auckland Domain, Memorial Museum, One Tree Hill. The route is 16km long, but I got over 20. I left at 9am and got back to the hotel by bus at 6pm.

October 11th, I had to test the efficiency of New Zealand's transportation systems. From Christchurch to Picton by bus, then from Picton to Wellington by ferry, and from Wellington to Auckland by plane. I had bought the tickets in advance, but if someone was delayed by just an hour, the whole plan would fall apart... I didn't want that to happen. The morning turned out to be wonderful. I woke up at 6:00, had breakfast, and was at the bus stop by 6:45, where I still had to go through a simple registration for the flight and exchange my electronic ticket for a regular one. When I entered the office, I saw two women, one of whom was a pure-blooded Maori. I handed her the papers, and she suddenly asked me in perfect Russian, 'Shevchenko?' I didn't even have time to react, and she added, 'Russian?' I was completely amazed 🙂. Then she continued in English, saying that her husband is Russian 🙂. At that moment, the second woman in the office woke up and exclaimed, 'YOU HAVE A RUSSIAN HUSBAND O_O?!' In general, the morning turned out to be positive for everyone 🙂.

Like any other city in New Zealand, Christchurch has a botanical garden and a local history museum. I don't like museums, so there won't be many pictures from there, but the botanical garden is there mmmmmm...

Christchurch is the oldest city in New Zealand. It officially received the status of a city in 1856. The town has preserved buildings from those times, many century-old trees, species unknown to me, growing for hundreds of years. In 2010 and 2011 Christchurch was hit hard by earthquakes and most of the historic buildings were destroyed. Now the city is just beginning to climb out of this disaster. It is noteworthy that one of the first buildings rebuilt after the earthquakes was the Art Gallery building.

After being in the hills of Picton for almost 5 hours, I was already strongly wishing I could sit for longer. And such pleasure was provided to me by a transportation company with the interesting name of Nakedbus. The name is so "borderline foul" that one US hosting provider abruptly banned me by IP just for trying to write that word on a New Zealand forum 🙂

So, uh. ahead of me was to enjoy the views of New Zealand from the windows of a naked bus for 6 hours. I can tolerate such long sit-ups easily enough, so I wasn't even worried. In fact, it turned out that on the way the views were so enchanting that I forgot to realize that it was practically pointless to take photos from the bus window, and shot the whole way without stopping. In 6 hours about 180 frames were accumulated, of which 30 and a penny were more or less suitable for publication.

The next day thoroughly fueled by muesli and toast with jam at the Sequoia Backpackers hostel I rolled out the sun, dispersed the clouds and went to photograph Picton again. I had four hours before the bus to Chöch. Picton is home to a very large hub of hiking trails, they all start here. I googled a trail to Waikawa Bay from which you can turn back to Picton at about the halfway point.

The first rain during my stay in Wellington was on the day I sailed to Picton, before which it had been sunny and rain-free all week. The process of boarding the ferry is similar to that of an airplane, only the luggage is not screened, and so everything is like the big iron birds - check-in, waiting in another hall and passing through the teletrap. The most exciting thing for me was that I was going traveling alone, and, as it turned out, with virtually no knowledge of English. Sure I could buy food and knew what to yell once I was overboard, but 99% of what was said to me I didn't understand a damn thing 🙁

Scraped through my coffers and picked up more Wellington photos of all sorts. There are some evening ones, there is Cuba Street, airplanes, another panorama with Welliwood’s stone marshmallows, flowers and sea creepers… stay tuned. We're going to warm up in Picton next.

Makara Beach is located 20 kilometers from Wellington. It is one of the windiest places in New Zealand. The coastal cliffs rise over 100 meters above the sea, giving a good view of the Tasman Sea. This point is very convenient for building defensive structures, which were erected there during World War II. There are no cannons there now, only concrete fortifications remain. The 6km walking route passes through a wind farm, but we didn't get there due to lack of preparation… Simply put, without food and water it is better not to go there on foot, despite «only 6 kilometers»