New Zealand - Auckland – The beautiful volcano wrapped city and the point when I realised I’ve been in hot countries for way too long because it felt like an arctic blast when I stepped off the plane to a spine chilling temperature of 20 deg


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Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Auckland » Central
March 30th 2012
Published: April 11th 2012
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New Zealand - Auckland – The beautiful volcano wrapped city and the point when I realised I’ve been in hot countries for way too long because it felt like an arctic blast when I stepped off the plane to a spine chilling temperature of 20 degrees.

After a long travel day from Australia I touched down in Auckland and stepped off the plane and thought it was winter, the wind and temperature change really hit me but it was fantastic to feel fresh cool air again after so long, it had already put me in a great mood.

I made my way into town on the local bus and decided to take the two kilometre walk to my hostel just so I could take in the beautiful views across the harbour and surrounding areas. My hostel was a bit out of town in a really nice area called Parnell, the views back across the city from the top of are Parnell made the walk well worth it.

I guess it’s fair to say Auckland is very much like many other cities but it’s considerably smaller in population than most that I have been to throughout my travels, with a population of about 1.4million people it’s the most populated city in New Zealand but it’s still fairly quiet and relaxed but apparently not in the eyes of the locals. I only spent a couple of days here and opted to explore on foot and also took the time to sort out how and when I would be travelling around the rest of the country. I’m here for five weeks and will hopefully see most of the North and South Islands. I‘ve decided to use a bus company called Stray to make my way around the country and the tour starts in two days’ time when I will be heading up to Cape Reinga at the very Northern tip of the country.

Whilst here in Auckland I planned to meet up with Sammi and her friend Dre who were visiting New Zealand for a friend’s wedding. It was going to be so good to see them again and hang out for the evening. After meeting up we headed straight to the Sky Tower which instantly brought back memories of my Sky Walk (some might say Sky crawl) in Macau and Sammi’s Bungee jump but thankfully this time it was far more civilised with a drink in the Sky Bar before heading out to for a very nice Japanese meal, thank you so much Sammi for treating me it was very kind of you and awesome to see you in the third country of my travels!

Auckland seemed a very relaxed city and Parnell was so friendly, even just sitting outside the hostel the locals would come over and have a chat with you and were really interested in where you were from and what you were doing, by this point I had come to the conclusion I was going to enjoy my time here and I certainly did. I didn’t really do anything ground breaking or adrenaline fuelled but it was such a nice change from the East coast of Oz and made me feel like I had rediscovered my travelling mojo which I have to confess was somewhat awol for the past four weeks.

With my motivation back to normal I said goodbye to Sammi and Dre and got up early the next morning for the first leg of my tour around the North Island. I would be heading up to Cage Reinga and stopping of at the Bay of Islands on the way. I couldn’t wait to get out there and take in some of the sublime scenery and hopefully do a few treks to work off some of the man-made travel cushion I have developed around my midriff that several of you have so kindly commented on!!

As I’m sure some of you will notice from the photos I have finally had my hair cut!! You would hope I would have learnt a lesson from my experience in Kuala Lumpur when it was cut by a trainee, but no the lure of a free hair cut was to great and I went for the trainee free-bee and the outcome was not great. Lets hope next time I decide to actually pay for a haircut and it might look a little less like a military cut. Next stop the Bay of Island, let the wheels on the bus start rolling.


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