The kettle's been boiling for a while now, and I'm sitting at the small table by the window in the flat, watching the steam curl up and disappear. It's day five, and the city is starting to feel less like a place I'm visiting and more like a place I'm living in. The cardboard boxes are mostly unpacked, the walls are bare, and there's a particular quiet that settles in the late afternoon when the light goes grey and the streets empty out. Today, I wanted to do something that wasn't practical. No paperwork, no bank accounts, no SIM cards. Just the city, on its own terms, in the middle of winter.
I walked down to Ponsonby Road this morning, past the closed-up shops and the ones just opening their shutters, the smell of coffee starting to leak out onto the pavement. The cafe I ended up at was Maeve Coffee Roasters, a tiny place with a long counter and a serious-looking machine. I ordered a flat white, and the barista asked if I wanted it here or to go. Here, I said, and I took a seat by the window. The coffee was about six dollars, which feels like a lot until you sit with it for twenty minutes and watch the street wake up. There's a rhythm here that's different from the one I left behind. People don't rush. They stand at the counter and talk about the weather, about the All Blacks, about their kids. The barista knew the regular's order before she said it. I sat there and thought about how you build a life in a place, one small ritual at a time.
After the coffee, I wandered up to the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, which is in the middle of the city, a big stone building that manages to feel both grand and welcoming. It was a Tuesday, so it was quiet, just a few other people moving slowly through the rooms. I spent a long time in the Māori and Pacific galleries, looking at the taonga, the carved wooden panels and the woven cloaks, the intricate patterns that tell stories older than the building itself. There's a weight to those objects, a sense that they've been cared for by many hands over many generations. I thought about my own whānau back home, and how we pass things down, not always objects, but stories, ways of doing things. Standing there, I felt a strange kind of connection, not to the past exactly, but to the idea of continuity, of being part of something that stretches on.
The gallery's free for locals, which is something I've been slowly learning about this place: so much of it is about knowing where to go. The museum, the Domain, the Wintergardens, they're all free, and on a cold day they're full of people who've come to be warm and to look at beautiful things. I wandered out of the gallery and across the road to the Auckland Domain, the big park that sits in the crater of an old volcano. The grass was wet and the paths were slick with fallen leaves, but there were people out walking, dogs on leads, a couple of joggers in bright jackets. The air had that sharp, clean smell of winter, the kind that makes you want to pull your coat tighter and walk faster.
I walked up to the Auckland War Memorial Museum, which sits on the hill at the top of the Domain. It's a grand building, columns and domes, and it looks out over the city and the harbour beyond. I didn't go inside today, just stood on the steps for a while, looking at the view. The Sky Tower poked up through the haze, and the water in the harbour was a flat, steely grey. I thought about the first people who stood on this hill, looking out over the same water, and how long the view has been the same, even as the city around it has changed. It's a humbling thought, to be a newcomer in a place with so much history.
I took the bus back to the flat, the number 22 that runs along Ponsonby Road. The fare was about three dollars, and I tapped on with my AT HOP card, which I'm getting used to now. The bus was almost empty, just an old man with a walking frame and a woman with a stroller. I sat by the window and watched the streets go by, the little corner dairies, the takeaway shops, the houses with their iron roofs and painted weatherboards. There's a particular kind of beauty in this city, a quiet, unassuming one. It doesn't shout. It just is.
Back at the flat, I made some lunch, a simple sandwich and a cup of tea, and sat at the table with my notebook. I've been keeping a list of things I want to remember, small details that would otherwise slip away. The way the light comes through the curtains in the morning, the sound of the neighbour's dog barking at the mailman, the taste of the bread from the bakery on the corner. These are the things that make a place real, that turn it from a postcard into a home. I wrote down the rent, too, so I wouldn't forget: about two thousand and eighty dollars a month for this one-bedroom flat, which is more than I was paying back home, but the exchange rate works out to about fourteen hundred US dollars, and it's a decent place, close to everything.
In the late afternoon, I walked down to the harbour, to the Viaduct Harbour and Wynyard Quarter. The wind was up, and the water was choppy, the boats tugging at their moorings. There were a few restaurants open, but it was too early for dinner, so I just walked along the water's edge, past the fish market where they were selling fresh snapper and oysters. I stopped at a little place and bought a bag of hot chips, about five dollars for a decent portion, and ate them standing by the water, watching the gulls wheel and cry overhead. The salt on my fingers and the cold air on my face, it felt like the kind of moment you can't plan, the kind that just happens when you're living somewhere.
For dinner, I went to a place called Onslow, which is on the other side of the harbour, a bit fancier than I'd normally do on a Tuesday. It's a white-tablecloth kind of place, and the food is good, seasonal, local. I had a plate of fish, I think it was snapper, with some greens and a glass of white wine. It set me back about eighty dollars, which is more than I'd usually spend on a solo dinner, but I figured it was worth it, once, to sit somewhere nice and feel like a person who's settled in, not just passing through. The room was warm and full of low talk, the clink of glasses, the soft hiss of the coffee machine. I sat at the bar and watched the chefs work, the calm focus of it, the way they moved around each other without colliding.
Walking home after dinner, the streets were quiet, the shops shut, the lights on in the upstairs windows. I passed the Crowne Plaza, all lit up, and the Herald Theatre, where there's a comedy show on this week, something about cavemen, apparently. I thought about all the things I haven't done yet, the harbour islands, the west coast beaches, the vineyards on Waiheke. There's a whole world out there, and I've only just begun to scratch the surface. But I'm trying to take it slow, to let the city reveal itself in its own time. That's the thing about moving somewhere new, you can't rush it. You have to let it in, bit by bit.
I'm back at the flat now, sitting at the table by the window. The kettle's just boiled, and I'm making a cup of tea. Outside, the street is dark, and the rain has started to fall, a soft, persistent patter against the glass. I can hear the cars hissing past on the wet road, and the occasional siren in the distance. There's a tenderness to this moment, a quietness that feels like a gift. Five days in, and I'm beginning to understand what it means to live in Aotearoa, not just to visit it. It means learning the small things: the bus timetable, the best day to go to the market, the way the light changes in the afternoon. It means finding your local, your corner shop, your coffee order. It means being OK with the quiet, with the rain, with the long winter evenings. And it means trusting that, in time, the place will become a part of you, just as you become a part of it.
Tomorrow, I'll start thinking about the road trip south, about the plans and the maps and the bookings. But tonight, I'm here, in this flat, in this city, and that's enough. Kia ora.