We landed into Auckland to a different New Zealand than the one we left mid-pandemic in December 2021. It was surreal to be surrounded by Kiwi accents, there was a distinct lack of face masks and it felt like we had gone back in time, but in the best possible way.
We’d struck the jackpot with our remote flat-hunting, and were able to move in right away to our new villa in Eden Terrace with Kim, Krystal and Bagheera (the cat!). Luke had to leap immediately into his new job with FIFA, and it was quite the adjustment of time zones, attire and daily schedule.
Jelley didn’t have an imminent job to start, and made the most of the extra time to fly down to Christchurch and surprise family & friends. Somehow, we had managed to keep it completely under wraps that we were even considering coming back to New Zealand before Christmas, and we’d only let our friend Caitlin in on the secret so she could pick Jelley up from their airport. Jelley’s parents were relatively chilled about the whole thing, and mostly just wondered where Luke was. Surprising our other friends was a little more dramatic, and it was so nice to be home again catching up with familiar faces after so long abroad!
Back in Auckland, Luke managed a surprise of his own as he finally cut his hair for the first time in 18 months. His colleagues were convinced he was a ‘new starter’, although he’d been in the office for a month by then.
We were determined to treat our time in Auckland as a new adventure, as neither of us had lived there before and we were somewhat intrigued by what New Zealand’s largest city had to offer. For various reasons, we decided not to buy a car while we were there, with our flat strategically located just a 45 minute walk to work in the CBD. This had its pros and cons, and generally worked out well, but meant we had to be a little more creative to get out and explore on the weekends.
Shortly after arriving, we took the Intercity bus up to Whangārei for Easter Weekend, to catch up with our friend Chelsea and meet her new husband Harry in their newly purchased home. Not often crossing paths on our different international journeys, it had been around 6 years since we last saw Chelsea, and a lot of life had changed since then. Although no longer 18 and partying our way through Costa Rica as exchange students, we still have plenty in common, with our friendship founded and maintained on our sense of adventure. We had a lot of fun exploring the North with Chelsea & Harry - surfing, walking, visiting her parents in the Bay of Islands and playing Bananagrams.
There certainly weren’t as many hiking opportunities on our doorstep as we had become accustomed to in Patagonia, but we walked up Mt Eden near daily, and managed to get out and discover new walking tracks across Auckland’s extensive regional park network with new friends Kate & Shilp, along with a weekend on Waiheke Island, walking the North Shore coastline, and a couple of day trips with the Auckland Tramping Club.
We felt lucky to have a handful of really good friends based in Auckland, many of whom we had lived with elsewhere in various stages of our 20s, and this helped to establish our home base, and valued this opportunity to reconnect with them. Josh & Wish were always up for a coffee or dinner out, Brad keenly exchanged travel tips as he prepared for his own big adventure, and although Nicole now lived a longer commute from the city, we loved catching up when we had the chance (and even inadvertently introduced her to the love of her life along the way!).
Finalising a job start date was a long and sometimes arduous journey for Jelley, and the delays led her to return to Christchurch for an extra month. It was much more enjoyable spending quality time at home surrounded by community than feeling somewhat isolated at times on the job search in a new city. It was a catch-22 at times, knowing to make a real go of Auckland we needed to stick it out up there, but with Luke taking a work trip over to Sydney it was the right timing to return home and enjoy the crisp Christchurch air.
New Zealand is now home to 10 ‘Great Walks’, and we are lucky to have walked on 6 of these together. They are extremely popular, with hut tickets selling out almost immediately when bookings open in June for the year ahead. One newest addition to the collection that Luke had biked but Jelley had never visited was the Paparoa Track on the West Coast of the South Island. Although it was May and not the optimal hiking season, this track was at a low enough altitude where snow doesn’t settle, and it was worth investigating whether there was any chance of getting out during Jelley’s time in the South Island.
By extremely lucky timing with both a favourable weather-window and 2 bunk bed spaces opening up in the booking system, Jelley & her Dad managed to secure a last minute booking, and Mum volunteered to drive us to the trailhead, then spend the weekend relaxing in Punakaiki before returning to pick us up on the other end.
It was an incredible journey - such a well-maintained track, beautiful huts and wonderful company along the way. The West Coast is notorious for being extremely wet, and we made it ¾ days without a single drop. The sunsets were stunning, views across the Paparoa Ranges gorgeous, and it was wonderful to create new memories with Dad as we spent this quality time together and shared our love of walking in nature.
Luke flew straight back from Sydney into Christchurch, and finally had the opportunity to see family & friends. We made the most of being at home and held an unofficial engagement party, which was an awesome way to see a lot of special people together, and celebrate our engagement from the year prior in Turkey. We felt very loved by the turnout, and it was a reminder of how important Christchurch and the people who live there are to us.
Upon returning to Auckland, Jelley received the long awaited news of a start date, and started to prepare to work again. By the time this had happened, we were already needing to start planning our departure from Auckland at the end of August. It was a strange feeling, as we were just starting to feel at home.
We continued exploring new corners of Auckland and its surrounds - Jelley tagged along to Luke’s work trip to Hamilton (and felt grateful not to have agreed to commute there for a potential job!). We reconnected with Chelsea & Harry on the Matakana Coast and Luke even got to visit New Zealand's first ever Costco (huge highlight!).
We also went on a ‘blind date’, meeting another couple who had recently moved to NZ from the UK, and introduced virtually by our good friends Lou & Jono whom we had spent so much time with back in Worthing. Eilidh & Mike were kindred souls - we bonded over board games and shared our love of hiking and travel together. It was crazy to find a couple we had so much in common with, and we were a little sad we hadn’t met earlier in our time in the city. We made up for lost time by exploring regional parks together in the weekends - highlights included seeing a wild Takahe (rare NZ bird) at Tāwharanui Peninsula, kayaking down the Puhoi River together and watching sunsets at Mission Bay. Hopefully we will cross paths again later in life. We left feeling inspired to consider backpacking through Africa.
Another huge highlight of our time in Auckland was a wholesome visit from Luke's good friend Jackson. He had tacked on a trip to New Zealand on his way to Australia and we got to do a NZ bucketlist activity - The World Famous Hobbiton Movieset! It was a real treat to get to this tourist hotspot and we were stoked to host/share NZ with one of Luke’s closest friends.
It was a novelty to both be in New Zealand for Jelley’s birthday, and for us to spend it together for just the second time in our 7 years. Jelley’s brother Geoff also stopped over from Singapore (our first time seeing him in 4 years!), and we shared a great dinner with our Auckland community of friends.
We were excited for the FIFA Women's World Cup to kickoff. We felt proud of NZ to co-host the largest women’s sporting event in the world during a time of huge positive changes for women’s sport. Plus, it was a novelty for A Kiwi and A Cali to be working for the same company for the first time and enjoyed walking to work together as ‘dear colleagues’. As always, we met some really interesting people from all over the world during our time working, and made many new lifelong friends. We also reconnected with several former workmates from previous games we participated in.
Come tournament time, Luke and Jelley rarely saw each other as we both worked long hours that didn't overlap. Luke would finish work at 4am to accommodate matches held in Perth, while Jelley was on the early starts and would often be waking up at 4.30am. We were like ships passing in the night - even though we were lucky enough to finally be working on the same event in the same city again (Qatar doesn’t count..), we still didn’t get to spend many waking hours together. We did get to watch a game together, where the USA didn’t quite live up to their high expectations, and also went to the Fan Festival a few times to watch some games (first time they’ve had this for a Women’s World Cup!).
As quickly as we had settled in Auckland, it was time to leave again. We were incredibly
grateful for our time in Eden Terrace. We made some great memories with our flatmates like shared dinners with the monthly "cinemates" group, Bachelorette sweepstakes, trips to Piha, driving Bagheera through the McDs drive-thru and so much more.
We were itching to get on the road again and are now acutely aware of the fact we are the minority among our peer groups without a mortgage, kids or a dog. Coincidentally, one of Jelley’s former workmates from House of Travel in Christchurch was heading on holiday to Europe, and the timing was perfectly aligned with the end of our Auckland contracts and our next travel plans. They were parents to 2 gorgeous dogs, Ted & Ruby, and we arranged to house/dog-sit for them while they were away. It was a popular time for the team to take annual leave, and with plenty of work on, Jelley ended up working for HOT again! It wasn’t quite time for micro-retirement yet, and it was great to be connected with old colleagues again and save a little more pocket money for the road.
It was really nice to have a home base and change of pace as we adjusted to being dog parents. Luke had long held a strong view that we were ‘cat people’, but after our time with Ted & Ruby, it has become clear we may well be dog people, as they completely stole our hearts. Time flew by while we were here, Jelley was kept very busy with work and we were making the most of walking the dogs on our favourite trails in the hills and local beaches.
We had a couple of special visitors while we were in Christchurch, the first being Steve from the USA. We had met Steve in Patagonia, and over the course of a 4 day hike together, Luke had convinced him to apply for the 12 month working holiday visa in New Zealand before he turned 31. It was such great timing that his arrival into NZ coincided with our time at home, and we loved hosting him and introducing him to various kiwi-isms like fish & chips on the beach. Steve shared his love of disc golf and slack-lining with us and our friends, and we bid him farewell as he continued his journey to his new home - tour guiding on Franz Josef Glacier. The perfect role for a glaciologist!
One place we hadn’t managed to fit into our time back in New Zealand was Woodville, where Jelley’s Grandma & extended family are based. Turns out living in the same island still didn’t make it a very easy place to get to , and with our dog-sitting duties we couldn’t head up before we left. Luckily, Grandma was happy to come down for a week so we still had a chance to spend time with her, as the last time we had been together was 1 year ago back in Egypt!! We had a lot of fun together, and it was great to have this time catching up with Grandma, and creating new memories with our nephew at the same time.
The days were finally getting longer, and it felt tough to be leaving now the weather was finally getting good and trees were blossoming (did we mention that it rained every day for 5 months in Auckland?!). We were thankful not to be heading into the upcoming Northern Hemisphere winter, and we had the humidity and warmth of Singapore to look forward to. While our last days in Christchurch were a bit of a rush trying to pack up our lives again, saying farewell to family & friends and getting organised, we somehow made it on the plane for our one-way ticket to Asia. First up was a week with Jelley’s brother & sister-in-law in Singapore, before heading on to Nepal to tackle the mountains in the perfect trekking season.
Until then,
- A Kiwi and A Cali
p.s. don't forget to write your name if you leave a comment! :)
I love the photo of Dot with Steve! Have fun you two - try not to get any injuries please and ta. Anne xxxx
pleased to see that 2015 shirt I found in a bar getting life !!! take care team x
It was so great to see you! Can't wait to read about your adventures in Nepal. - Leonie 😊
Not the hair! The man bun was fitting!
love it guys. Keep up the world travels. -Gannon