Hitting the road

---

Off I headed amid emotion filled farewell scenes at the international gates - how I hate 'em.
Flight literally flew by. It took me most of the first half of the flight to wade through the sheer weight of inflight entertainment options on offer. It was an overwhelming task as any who have flown Qantas recently would know, but I pressed on bravely and diligently and finally stumbled across some classic episodes of The Office. First album of my travels was Dylan's Highway 61 Revisted - perhaps I will soon know how it feels to be without a home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.

First stop was Auckland - not a bad spot with a bit happening on a Saturday night. After check-in I headed up to my dorm (a first for me, but I'd better get used to it) and met my first fellow travellers. Jason the surfer from Santa Cruz and Mario the chef from Berlin (good fellas both) were fixing themselves some rollies when I walked in, and I noticed with interest that the tobacco appears to be much greener in NZ than the brown stuff we have in Australia.

After breaking the ice over an ice cold beer with the lads I headed out to have a look around town. I found Auckland a surprisingly pleasant city, and a very easy one to find one's way round. As it was only a one night stopover I could hardly get a decent feel for the place, but the scenery and setting was quite attractive. No point in going into detail about that though, cos as they say a picture is worth a thousand words and I'll be posting a few soon. A highlight of the night was bumping into a familar face from back home while getting a feed at Subway - none other than Big Merv Hughes. Got back and crashed, with some intermittent interruptions to my slumber as the lads came and went, culminating in a yarn from about 2-3AM over absinthe.... not something I was previously accustomed to.

Not much else to report this early on in the piece. Not even I expected that I'd be writing a travelblog post less than 24 hours after departure, but I guess time is on my side right now as I bide my time ahead of my flight to Chile this afternoon. Will be bracing for the culture shock during the flight - how I wish I could speak Spanish.....

---

Photos

Silly Kiwis
I'd be bitter too if I was from New Zealand