Holiday Inn Auckland to Tairua private car — Lukas's special occasion

The last bag was still on the trolley when he appeared at the lobby door, looking a little lost. He’d given me the name ‘Lukas M’ and described himself as ‘tallish, with a scarf’. Spot on. He clutched a small, rather elegant leather satchel, and a neatly folded silk scarf was indeed draped around his neck, a muted paisley pattern that looked expensive. It was March 10th, a Tuesday, and the air still carried a hint of summer, even as the sun dipped lower in the sky approaching 4 PM.

He’d scheduled the trip from the Holiday Inn near the airport. Not their main terminal one, but the one a bit further out, usually used by people staying pre-flight or post-flight. He was heading to Tairua, on the Coromandel Peninsula. A wedding, he’d said. Not his own, but a close friend’s. He’d been in Auckland for a few days, visiting an aunt he hadn’t seen in years, but the main event was the wedding on the coast.

We set off south from the city, and even at that hour, the traffic was beginning to thicken around Manukau. Lukas seemed content to watch the urban sprawl give way to farmland. He pointed out a few things to me, mentioning he’d been trying to orient himself with the North Island on the various maps he’d picked up in the city. He came from a small town near Lucerne, he explained, and this sort of open space and rolling countryside was familiar to him, though he admitted the sheer scale of a place like New Zealand was something else.

We stopped at a little roadside cafe near Ngatea for a quick, bracing coffee. The towns down the state highway were familiar stomping grounds: Pokeno, Maramarua, the usual points. Ngatea, being a gateway to the Coromandel, always has a certain charm, even if only for a brief pause. Lukas bought a small kiwiana souvenir, a little wooden kiwi, which he carefully placed in his satchel. He spoke about the couple getting married, a Swiss woman who’d moved to Tairua a few years back and met her Kiwi partner. He was a builder, apparently. It seemed like a world away from the banking and finance he worked in himself, back in Zurich.

As we turned off the main highway towards the Coromandel, the road began to narrow and wind, especially after Thames. The light was starting to fade properly now, painting the sky in hues of orange and purple. Sheep grazed on steep hillsides, and down in the valleys, the first scattered lights of farms appeared. Lukas leaned back, his eyes scanning the darkening landscape. He’d mentioned that his aunt had lived in a similar rural setting many years ago, before moving into the city. He seemed to be piecing together his impressions of New Zealand, not just as a tourist destination, but as a place where people built lives, often quite far from the centres he knew.

The pace of the drive slowed through the winding roads. The air grew cooler, carrying the scent of damp earth and sea salt. He told me a bit about weddings in Switzerland – grander affairs, he implied, less about the relaxed, outdoor vibe he expected here. He was looking forward to seeing how the two cultures mixed for this occasion, especially for his friend who, despite living in New Zealand for years, still held onto many of her Swiss traditions.

We arrived in Tairua as dusk settled completely. The houses here were clustered near the water, many looking like they’d been there for decades, weathered by the sea air. I dropped him at the driveway of a charming, slightly ramshackle bach, where a few other cars were already parked. He thanked me, a polite nod and a handshake, then turned to greet someone who had come out onto the porch, silhouetted against a warm interior light. The air was still and quiet, the only sound the distant lapping of water. I watched him go, a lone figure carrying his satchel and his quiet observations into the evening, a small piece of Switzerland arriving on the Coromandel coast for a celebration.