This entry is co-written with Kane…

As we landed in Auckland Airport on our first day, we started off with a difficult decision to make, which is… the Internet Data Plan for our phones.

5GB, 10GB, unlimited GB? Well, cheapskate use Wi-Fi should also be OK. Settled!

Then, we checked-in to our Hertz car rental. We decided on Hertz again as we had a good experience with Hertz when we were road trippin’ in Melbourne.

Upon retrieving our pre-booked car and learning how to kick-start the hybrid car, we departed straight to our Airbnb in the city of Auckland.

For our first Airbnb of the trip, we stayed in a three-story house with our host. Our bedrooms were on the ground floor, and we shared the living room and kitchen on the 2nd floor.

It was a standard Airbnb, and we stayed over for a night as we will head off to our next destination in the following morning. We decided that Auckland will just be a quick stop as we planned to travel both the North and South Islands within 2 weeks.

After getting some rest, we headed out to Better Burger for our FIRST meal in New Zealand. We were terribly hungry, so we had to satisfy our cravings and growling tummies!

Perhaps you may say that we had GOOD burgers there, as the BETTER burgers are ahead of us in the next 14 days of our adventure. Hence make sure to stay tune!

We then headed to our first tourist attraction, Muriwai Beach, which was about an hour drive from Auckland.

It was forecasted to rain, but we were greeted with a windy and clear blue sky. Walking barefoot on this black-sand surf beach was very calming, as the light sand glaze between our toes. The sunset over the sea was an amazing view as well.

You also get to see the colony of gannets and their nest on the rocks in orderly manner. A good example of social distancing of 1 to 2 feet. Heh.

The beach view was serenaded with waves, sounds of gannets, and camera shutters snapping away. Our cameras, actually.

By the end of the day, we went to our first Lockdown Countdown for groceries shopping. However, we cooked instant noodles instead, served with orange juice from Countdown.

Being ourselves, we then retreated to our phones for our nightly dose of social media updates. ;)

That’s it for Day 1. Stay tuned for next day!

WATCH: Day 1 Vlog of the New Zealand Road Trip

WATCH: 2-week New Zealand Cinematic Travel Montage