North Island News

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Landed in Auckland at an ungodly hour on Sunday morning after twenty hours of travel from Vancouver. I had got lucky by landing a window seat on both legs of my trip down under. Alas the seat on the trip from LAX was beside one of the wall sections of a 747 - bollocks - no view for me. It was nighttime anyway I suppose. Sarah true to her word was there to pick me up, cupán tae in hand. We headed back to her shpot on the North Shore (ooh ahh) and I caught a few hours' kip to get myself up to speed with New Zuland time. Thanks to the wonder that is the International Date line, I ended up missing out entirely on Saturday 5th September, and was thrown 19 hours ahead of Vancouver time as a result.

Sunday saw Sarah and I first go to Foodtown for some supplies and then a trip north to Shakespear Beach (sic) which is part of a National Park that also includes some Army ground. While it's supposed to be just the start of spring for New Zealand, Auckland's more northerly latitude meant that it got pretty warm during the day, but cold at night. Shakespear Beach is a spot squarely aimed at families, and there were several games of cricket and tag rugby going on around us. We sat out on the beach for a while but the stiff breeze soon pushed us back behind the dunes to the relative warmth and safety of the picnic tables where we demolished some baps (careful now) of ham, cheese and salad. Later on we swung around

Sarah has really caught the fitness bug since moving to New Zealand, there's no more midweek drinking with her, in fact she didn't sup a beverage the entire time I was over there! We went over to Mission Bay in her trusty Toyota to check out the distance she'd have to run in the Auckland Fun Run which comes up in a few months, 10.5km of running. Speaking of running, EVERYONE in the place was running. Unbelievable. Even I got suckered in to do what turned out to be an 8km run with Sarah's flattie Clare. Clare you run far too fast but I made it, thanks be. I also spent a good bit of time with Clare's boyfriend Woods, a quality man. We threw a footy around, played both pool and Sega Rally, and had a thoroughly good time doing all of the above.

Monday came and I headed into the CBD (no such thing as downtown here, according to my colleague Brent) and checked out the Sky Tower. Some great views from up top but an expensive enough experience on the whole (NZ$25, $28 for the higher deck included). However since I am a skyscraper porn aficionado, I didn't mind and went straight up there. Then afterwards I had a mooch around St. Patrick's church, had lunch with Sarah's colleague Karen, and then back to Esmonde Road. Sarah's flattie Brian was off for the day and I managed to persuade him to go with me to One Tree Hill, which had been recommended as an excellent viewing point. And so it was! Brian and I had the pleasure of a 360 degree panorama of Auckland's location, and enjoyed some good man-on-man chat for a couple of hours. We had a quick chat with a South African guy who'd moved his family to the area a year and a half ago, and the various things he'd dealt with in making the transition. Afterwards, Brian and I enjoyed a well-deserved Big Mac - it tastes ever so slightly different in NZ than in Canada, but the Coke is to die for!

The day afterwards I headed out on a harbour cruise of Auckland bay, beautiful stuff. I got talking with the then deckhand for the day, Debbie, and had a good ould chat while whizzing around on the water. I'd highly recommend the harbour cruise, but don't go with Fullers (NZ$33) as they're beaten on price by the nearby competition (NZ$25, name escapes me). The real difference is that Fullers stops at Rangitoto Island, but both cruises come in at 90 minutes so the difference is minimal.

Good woman Sarah - got up at 5am on Wednesday morning to drop me to the airport. Bade farewell after an all-too brief sojourn in Auckland and now on to Melbourne!

(Photos soon!)

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