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Published: February 8th 2009
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4th February 2009 - ARRIVAL IN GOD"S COUNTRY!!!
Only been as excited as I was stepping of the plane once or twice in my life before...I am in New Zealand!! Woooooooo!!!
Once off the plane we got some New Zealand dollars out the bank and then bought a ticket for the airbus to take us to the hostel. When I say Airbus I mean normal bus that travelled from the airport....no special wings to make it a flying bus.....just your standard road bus!! It journey took around half hour. To say we were driving into a city (Auckland) it was very small. Not very built up and pretty hilly. We arrived at the hostel (YHA City) and checked in at around 5pm. The hostel was nice...finally!!! It had a big kitchen and eating area, a tv room with sofas, internet, single beds...no bunks, spacious rooms with plug sockets...the works!!! I felt like I was at the plaza after the last few hostels we had stayed in!!
We had a lot to plan but first and foremost we were hungry and so we went to get some food for tea. Not the easiest task. We thought there would be a
supermarket nearby but no. There were loads of corner shops, most of them were Asian shops with Asian food in. We did manage to get some cereal for morning and some pasta for the night with tuna and a tomato sauce. Not exactly the food of royalty but as we are normal folk we could not complain!! We got the hob on pretty much straight away and cooked our tea. It was pretty tasty and gave us the brain power we needed for the evening ahead. Time to plan!!
We got the big map out on the table in the communal area and spread the guidebooks around it.......55 days, 2 islands, endless activities and choices!! We sat for ages going through what there was to do in each place and marking on the map the places we definitely wanted to visit. There were many but we thought we could get round them all. We had to stop for a brew break half way through but got it done eventually. We then discussed a plan of action for tomorrow......we needed to find a pushbike shop to find out which parts of our route were bikeable and book some kind of
transport to get around the rest of the country whether it be by car or bus or tour. The cheapest way forward!!! On top of that we needed a hairdressers.....desperately!!!
At around 10.30 we were flagging and knew tomorrow would be a big day for sorting stuff out so we headed to bed. I read about one chapter of my book (against my rules I know) and then fell to sleep straight away!!! Loved New Zealand already!!!
5th February 2009 - DAY OF PLANNING AND TREKING AROUND THE CITY OF HILLS!!!!
We woke up this morning at around 9am. Perfect...lets hope the 3 hour time difference between here and Oz means that i will wake up at reasonable hours from now on!! Once up I showered, got dressed, had breakfast and prepared for the days events. We set off walking into town...oh my word...Auckland is so hilly!!! We were hoping to stumble across some travel shops like in Australia. All we wanted was a Tribal Travel or something similar to give us some ideas about how we could go about hiring a bike for some of the trip and what the cheapest and best method of transport would
be for the remainder.
It wasn't as easy as it sounded.....no travel shops!! Lots of flight centres, loads of takeaways, a few Starbucks and McDonalds but no travel shops!! We carried on searching and eventually found an information centre in the train station. It wasn't an information centre in the real sense as the people working there did try and sell you tours but they weren't a travel shop either as they had no links with the companies to get discounts etc. They were more like booking agents. The guy did help a little and gave us some ideas about busing it around the country and a few options regarding which companies would be best to use. He couldn't tell us much about which parts were best to bike though but he did refer us to a bike shop who may have been able to help!!
The bike shop didn't help. They advised that the top of NZ was the best to bike but said they only hired out city bikes. They did give us the address for another bike shop right at the other end of town though. Great...more trekking!!
Along the way we stopped to
watch a street show. There were lots of shows on throughout the week apparently as it was Buskers Week in Auckland. We dropped on 'Bendy Em' who was in fact pretty good. She got a few guys from the audience to help and finished by squeezing herself into a 16 inch squared glass box!! Not natural at all but a nice or should I say cringeworthy break from organising!!!
We trekked up the massive hills to the other bike shop......I am so going to get calves like Fatima Whitbred at this rate!! Not good for the old cramp either!! Once at the bike shop we were told that the South island is actually the best one to bike. We were then advised that they were only a bike pick up and drop off point and we would have to phone they company 'Natural High' to discuss anything else. Great...all that walking around to learn that we could have just stayed at the hostel and phoned!!!
We were both pretty stressed about in now and so once at the hostel we had 5 minutes quiet time before phoning the company (Natural High) to discuss our plans with them. The
lady on the phone was really nice and gave us some good options. We decided in the end to bake the second part of our trip from Christchurch around the South island.....not easy by any standards especially in the country of hills!! All we had to do now was sort the first part out and then email the bike company with dates we wanted the bikes from. The biking was going to be a challenge that was for sure...I just hoped I could meet it!!
We then had to decide how to travel around.....car or bus. We decided that if we could get a car cheap enough that would be our preferred method and so we set about phoning numerous car companies to get quotes. We did get a decent one but could only pick the car up from the 10th/11th. We wanted it on the 6th or earlier so that we weren't wasting time or hanging around in Auckland for too long! We weren't sure what to do!!! And neither of us had found a hairdressers to have our hair cut either!!
In the end we walked back along the same streets into town for the 100th time that day and went to another information centre. We made further phone calls and walked the streets some more before eventually going ahead and booking the car to pick up on 10th Feb and drop off on 27th Feb in Christchurch. Phew...that’s that sorted!! The final problem lay with what we were going to do until 10th Feb. We wanted to go north to Cape Reinga and the Bay of Islands but it was a bank holiday weekend to celebrate the signing of the Waitangi treaty and so accommodation was not readily available. A tour was our only option but as it was past 7pm and we were both tired of organising we decided to leave it until the following day and go back to the hostel to chill out!!
At the hostel we cooked another pasta dinner and then retired to our room to chill out and read. It had been a tough day of organising but at least we now had a plan and it would be full steam ahead to explore New Zealand!!
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