Auckland Harbour Bridge, seen from Northcote Point

Though not as famous as its cousin in Sydney, Auckland Harbour Bridge is nevertheless an interesting structure as it spans Waitemata Harbour. There aren’t any walk or bike lanes, though plans are underfoot. Meanwhile, there’s a bridge climb offered, and, of course, a bungee jump. We’re in New Zealand, after all.

When we lived in Devonport, we took the ferry across to Auckland at least once a week. The 10-minute jaunt from the crowds of the big city (well, big for New Zealand anyway) to our peaceful, quaint village was always a pleasure. After longer road trips, crossing Auckland Harbour Bridge was sweet as well. It meant we were almost home. My then 1.5-year-old always spotted the Skytower from the bridge and would invariably squeal with glee at the sight of her favourite place.

Have you crossed Auckland Harbour Bridge? Or visited the Skytower?

More travel photos from summery Thailand and elsewhere at Travel Photo Thursday.

Sunday scenes from down under: Auckland Harbour Bridge is a post from Sophie's World

A: Age of first international trip: At 11, I went to New Orleans with my mum and brother to visit our aunt. It was a long, arduous journey, involving 4 planes and 5 airports each way. We had heaps of fun though. And unlimited sodas.

B: Best (foreign) beer: I’m hardly a beer connoisseur, not even that keen, actually. Maybe I had too many, too strong German beers on my first parent-free holiday at 15. Sick for days. I prefer light beers, like Corona, with a bit of lime in it.

C: Cuisine (favourite): Arabic (fondly remembering a summer in Jordan more than 20 years ago).

D: Destinations, favourite, least favourite and why: So many faves: London, Australia and our once temporary home in New Zealand are just a few. Heaps of beauty spots at home in Norway, too. And the Middle East continues to fascinate me.

Our backyard in Takapuna, NZ

I don’t really have any least favourites: But if someone held a gun to my head, forcing me to choose, I might say I can probably live happily even if I never saw Belarus again. I was in Minsk in 1994. It was a short business trip, just a few days, with very little time to explore the city, let alone the country. And yet…

E: Event experienced abroad that made you say “wow”: Frau Greber’s cooking. When I was 15, I spent a summer in Bregenz. Even though much of that summer was spent experimenting with too strong German beer (see above), I still remember my Austrian host mother’s cooking. As far as I’m concerned, she’s the best cook in the world. She could make a gourmet meal of anything. And she made a cherry yogurt I still dream about now and then.

F: Favourite mode of transportation: My cool, quick little Citroën, boats and trains. (Considering the somewhat tedious train journey I take every day, I’m surprising myself). And boats? I dream of taking the Royal Mail ship to St Helena, a 31-day journey from Britain. Now, to get the kids to come along.

G: Greatest feeling while travelling: Being completely free to let the day – and fate – be my guide.

H: Hottest place travelled to: June 1992, Cairo, 45 C. Still remember. So does my oldest daughter, then 4.

I: Incredible service experienced and where: Aggie Grey’s in Apia, Samoa, one of my favourite hotels.

Aggie Grey’s

J: Journey that took the longest: Oslo to Auckland always seems to take a while.

K: Keepsake from travels: I’ve lugged around ridiculously heavy souvenirs too many times to count. But I do like that Malawi chair. And the huge wall hanging from Jaipur. And the curtains from Windhoek. Even the bird cage from Lucca.

L: Let-down sight, why and where: None. Not a place’s fault if I have faulty expectations.

M: Moment where you fell in love with travel: Bente, a school mate, always travelled everywhere and brought home the most exotic souvenirs. Exotic through the eyes of a kid during the 70s, at least. I was madly envious – and spent many happy hours playing with her plastic Venetian gondola and munching on tangerines from Costa del Sol with leaves still on them…

N: Nicest hotel you’ve stayed in: One that springs to mind is the Polana in Maputo, Mozambique.

O: Obsession—what are you obsessed with taking pictures of while traveling?: Everything: animals, people, buildings, parks, trees, sculptures, landscapes, details…

P: Passport stamps, how many and from where? Over the years, there’s been a gazillion stamps from more than 100 countries. When I first began travelling, we were given passport stamps even in Europe. Not anymore, sadly.

Q: Quirkiest attraction you’ve visited and where: The dead monks in Kiev’s Persch-Lavra, maybe…

R: Recommended sight, event or experience: Any memorial or museum to human cruelty is worth seeing, to solidify our stand against it, for when it next occurs and we’re given an opportunity to make a difference.

S: Splurge; something you have no problem forking over money for while traveling: Transportation. Also, sometimes I can spend an indecent amount of money on a hotel room, if it’s quirky or interesting enough. I’m so staying at the Pera Palace next time in Istanbul.

T: Touristy thing done:

Nuff said.

U: Unforgettable travel memory: Hmm…, probably riding a camel through the Great Rann of Kucth in the Indian province of Gujarat, more or less scotch-guarded by camel pee, with no toilets and no showers for days, sleeping in hay in a shed and waking up next to newborn lambs on Christmas Day.

V: Visas, how many and for where? I’m lucky – Norwegian citizens can get around most of the world hassle-free and without visas. But I do have a few, several US student visas among them. My favourite is the Chinese visa I was given to go to Fujian to get my youngest daughter.

W: Wine, best glass of wine while traveling and where? Visciola, under the trees in Giovanni Giusti’s vineyard in Marche.

X: eXcellent view and from where?: Seeing the misty and mysterious Faroes appear before me from the deck of M/S Norrøna was pure magic. I can just imagine how the Vikings must have felt, when first setting eyes on those ancient isles.

Iguazu Falls are a close second. I hung back after closing hours and had a few minutes all to myself before I was spotted and very politely told to leave. Imagine just coming upon such a sight (and sound), completely unaware it was there, as the first visitors must have been, thousands of years ago.

Y: Years spent traveling?: Decades!

Z: Zealous sports fans and where: The annual cross country races at Oslo’s Holmenkollen, especially the 50 km. Norwegians are absolutely mad about cross country skiing, doing and watching.

Passing the baton to you,

• Jeremy of Living the Dream
• Mariana of Travel Thirst
• Monique of Mo Travels
• Thomas of Top Backpacking Destinations
• Laurence of Finding the Universe

The travel ABC of Sophie’s World is a post from Sophie's World

After I had my youngest daughter, I used the opportunity afforded by Norwegian family law (46 weeks parental leave with full pay) to travel somewhere and stay a while. And so we ended up living in New Zealand for half a year. One early January day in 2003, we left minus 25° C and arrived in Auckland at the height of summer; a wonderful beginning to our little adventure.

Inspired by New Zealand

Now, where to stay? My oldest daughter, Alex, and I had spent a week in Auckland a few years earlier and liked the big city. However, with a baby, I preferred somewhere smaller and more quiet. Leafing through an old Lonely Planet guide to New Zealand, I noticed a village called Devonport, just 10 minutes from Auckland by boat! It seemed perfect. Too good to be true, I wondered… Not at all! I’ll always have a soft spot for LP for pointing it out. Devonport turned out to be a charming and lively little village with everything we needed for everyday life and very cool city views across the Hauraki Gulf. And the short ferry ride to Auckland was a treat in itself. Sometimes we’d hop on just for the ride back and forth.

Alex, then 14, was to be a Year 11 student at Takapuna Grammar School.

Takapuna Grammar School

The baby and I would just hang out and play all day. Other than that, no advance planning; I hadn’t even found somewhere for us to live. But these things have a way of sorting themselves out. And they did – although it was a little more difficult than I had anticipated.

Renting a home in New Zealand – the process

Renting a house or a flat/apartment in New Zealand is a bit different from Norway and the USA. Here’s the gist:

1. You look in the paper (more likely on the web these days) and see if there’s a property you like. The street will be listed, but not the house number, so now you
2. call the estate agent, who then after a little conversation gives you the house number.
3. You then go and have a look at the house from the outside – and if you like it, it’s
4. back to the estate agent to make an appointment to see it from the inside.
5. After you’ve seen it, and you like what you see, it’s back to the estate agent to sort out the details

Oh, and rent is calculated pr week, not month.

Ii was a bit difficult finding somewhere to live, as we arrived right before the America’s Cup. New Zealanders are keen and excellent sailors. Having won the America’s Cup two consecutive years, they were now confident of another win, despite the fact that the captain, Russell Coutts, and half the winning NZ team had abandoned ship, so to speak, to join the competitor Alinghi (from the great seafaring nation Switzerland). Understandably, the locals were a bit miffed. But I digress.

Darling Devonport

Devonport turned out to be right in the middle of the race course and the village was full of temporary residents (including billionaire sheiks) who paid heaps for accommodations. But after a lot of searching, I found a house that recently had been sold and due to be cut up and shipped to its new owners 2 months later. Problem solved. At least for a time.

This was our back yard – and the undisturbed view through the floor-to-ceiling windows in our sitting room:

Not very good quality photo, I’m afraid – scanned and all. But you get the idea. The friendly little mutt belonged to the neighbour and was a bonus.

Between volcanic Rangitoto Island and our sitting room, the sail boats would pass.

And the occasional cruise ship.

After the two months, we rented a little studio in a large, lovely garden for the rest of our stay. But that’s another story. If I’m ever to become a digital nomad, Devonport will be my first port of call.

Auckland Central

How to rent a home in New Zealand is a post from Sophie's World

In Vienna, you may have seen the creative and colourful Hundertwasser House. You know, the one with no straight lines, where trees are incorporated into the house. Even the floors are wavy. As Hundertwasser said: “an uneven floor is a melody to the feet”.

But did you know the famous, ahead-of-his-time eco-friendly Austrian architect lived in New Zealand for 25 years? Before he died in 2000, he left this public toilet as a parting gift to his adopted home town Kawakawa on the North Island.

Featuring a glass-bottled wall, mosaic tiles, copper work, cobblestone floors (uneven, of course), the Hundertwasser toilet is a good reason to make a stop in Kawakawa on your way to the Bay of Islands.

Bay of Islands

Friedensreich Hundertwasser and his Toilet is a post from Sophie's World