after checking out at the hostel and putting our stuff into lockers again, we headed back to "real groovy" to look at the awesome stuff they offer again. also the cafe had opened now, so we had our breakfast there with excellent coffee and delicious muffins. then we were strolling around auckland again, came by a museum which unfortunately was closed, went to the huge university campus and albert park where they have really awesome trees. getting internet here is actually not an easy task. it's quite expensive (about 2EUR per 15 minutes). so we stopped at a cafe that had a "free wi-fi" sign outside. at least we could check emails, and nina had a delicious bagel. then we had to rush back to the hostel as we were fetched from there to be brought to our car. yippieh, finally a place to store our luggage. so a guy drove us to some other region of auckland and a little while later we had our car. a shiny nissan sunny, fully insured. i took the risk of starting to drive. it really is hard to go on the left side in the beginning, especially when taking a turn. but i know that soon i will be used to it. so, until then, i should avoid getting involved in any accidents. when driving state highway 1, we decided to go to the botanical garden of auckland, since it was free of entrance. it covers a huge area and it really would take you loads of time to see everything, so we were just walking around, not seeking any particular plant. it's getting dark here pretty early, around 19:00 o'clock. so when we left the botanical garden, sun already started to set. we decided to spend the night in waipu, where they had a YHA hostel (which nina and i are still members, as we joined them in iceland, one year ago. but membership expires on 13th of september, but we can renew our membership then). at the hostel there was only us and one other guest, named tony. he was very friendly and gave us advice on what to do in the north, and what to see. quite helpful information for us. tony is on holiday right now, and his wife and kids are in germany, visiting relatives. funny thing is, his whole holiday trip, and also his wife and kid's trip is paid by some guy who spends his time in tony's house. what for? rugby of course. this guy spends all this money just to have an accommodation during the rugby world cup, that currently takes place in new zealand. lucky tony.