New Zealand consists of two large islands, the North and South Island, and many smaller islands. The capital, Auckland, is on the North Island, and most of the national parks  are on the South Island, although the North Island has a few national parks too.

From what I understand, New Zealand was formed several million years ago from volcanoes that created landmass here in the middle of the ocean. When the plates drifted apart, some of the landmasses got caught on the volcanic rock here and began forming what is now New Zealand. Beneath New Zealand, the tectonic plates are constantly moving, which is why there are  many small earthquakes that you rarely feel.

Government of New Zealand does a lot to ensure that flora and fauna here continues to thrive. They try to create a safe haven for birds, you often find instructions on how not to pollute the water, and they try to keep all kinds of invasive species out of the country. Fungi, animals, and insects because these could disrupt the natural balance here.

Auckland

After a few exhausting days of planning, the time has finally come - We’re off to the New Zealand. Altogether, the journey takes 24 hours: from Berlin to Doha (6 hours) and from Doha to Auckland (16 hours). We arrive fairly late and drove straight to our accommodation.

After a long sleep, we headed to the city center. There, we took a city walking tour with Darcy. He explained a lot  about the city’s history, the history of New Zealand, and many of the subtleties of New Zealand’s symbols, street art and gestures that aren’t obvious at first glance.

For example this street art here, it has more intricacies than visible on the first sight. The outer leafs are the 🌿 Silver Fern of New Zealand, wishing a well travel to everyone who see's it. The big bird looking like a dinosaur is the (now extict) Moa of New Zealand, some species would grow up to 3.5 meter tall. On it's back is the Kiwi, and in the background you have some volcanos. On the top is one of New Zealands local dishes, the Meat Pie. And lastly on the bottom you can find a pun against the accent of New Zealanders, "Noo Zillun", supposably how they pronounce their country.

This heart is representing the unity of New Zealand and Japan as far as I recall. It has country specific flowers and animals painted into the halves.

This art is a representation of the women's suffrage in New Zealand, New Zealand is the first country where women got the right to vote.

We also visited the Auckland Art Gallery, it's free and taught us some things about the history of the Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand. The Art Gallery also gives free opportunities for children to explore their artistic proclivities.

The City Park has a plethora of tree's from various nations, many partners of New Zealand would donate a common tree from their country and it would be planted in this park. Oak from Germany, Redwood Tree from California, and many more.

In the city, there’s a large selection of restaurants with cuisines from all over the world. It’s almost a shame we didn't have more time in Auckland to try more of them.

It was New Year’s Eve, but we were so exhausted from the flight that we went straight to bed at 7 p.m. and only to wake up briefly when the fireworks started.

The next day, we headed  back to the airport — off to the South Island.

Christchurch

After we arrived in Christchurch, we picked up our car that would accompany us until we reach Picton in 19 days and go back to the north island with a ferry. Why would we not start on the north island when we arrived there in the fiest place? Good question, we did not get any tickets for Hobbiton in the first ten days, so we shifted our itinerary to start on the south island instead.

Christchurch has a riverside market which we visited and the local museum, which was again free of charge.

In the riverside market you will find lot of food stalls selling cuisines from different countries.

An old tram, which was evading us really, is meant to drive on these rails.

We went to the Christchurch Zoo, which features a wide variety of birds and some other animals. The most important here would be the Kiwi, it's a quite rare sight in the nature and it's the national bird of New Zealand, so we definitely wanted to see it. Unfortunately no picture were allowed, so you have to visit New Zealand yourself for that experience.

For these two birds my reflexes were a bit too slow unfortunately.

This guy was so kind to pose for me, I really like this picture.

Another day, we went out of the city, the day was cloudy, but don't worry, you can feel the UV in New Zealand through the clouds as well. ⛅️

The nature surrounding Christchurch is kind of scarce, more sheep than trees truly.

We also took a gondola ride here. 🚡

We also got introduced to the locals here, sheep 🐑.

That concludes our first few days in New Zealand, now that we have a car we will go deeper into the country and start our roundtrip.