15 things no one told me about living in Auckland

Auckland. Or as my dad calls it, “Dorkland”.

I knew it was a big place, but I never knew how behemoth it truly was until I moved here five months ago.

Having grown up in the King Country township of Te Kuiti, where there’s only one round-about and people riding horses around town still exist, I knew I was in for a shock.

My only previous experience of the big smoke was when I based myself in Hamilton for seven years before I moved to Tauranga for my first job in journalism last year.

But my time in these two regional cities couldn’t prepare me, and no one ever told me, what the bittersweet taste of Auckland big-city-life is like. These are my 15 things no one told me about living in Auckland.

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