First day in Auckland

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We arrived in Auckland around 8:00 am today and got through customs fairly quickly. It was very exciting to finally be outside and breathing in fresh air, not to mention that we were finally at our destination, three days after we left. We caught the shuttle bus that was supposed to take us to our hostel but I guess we ended up taking the scenic route...Two different employees of the shuttle bus told us to get off at the first stop, so we did, and we ended up in a suburb of Auckland instead of actually in Auckland. It took us a long time to figure out where we were which I don't think we would have been able to do without the help of a nice lady who noticed we were from Canada and very lost. We ended up taking a bus into Auckland and then walking a few blocks to get to our hostel.

When we got to our hostel around 10:30 we found out we were too early to check in but we did manage to store our luggage there. So we set off to explore Auckland by foot and walked down Queen street to the harbour. Queen Street and the harbour are pretty cool places, there are a lot of shops and a lot of different things to do. We're using every last bit of our will power to not buy stuff since our bags are already exploding as it is and we don't want to be adding to our collection this early into our trip.

After we had lunch, we went on a cruise of the harbour. It was really nice, but really cold because of all the wind. We were freezing, especially Lindsay since she only had a tank top on (I at least had a zip up sweater but only because it was not going to fit into my other bag at the hostel) but we still enjoyed it (the free hot drink with the cruise came in handy). On our cruise we saw the skyline of downtown Auckland, including the sky tower which happens to be taller than the Eiffel tower. We also got to see someone bungy jump off of it which looked entirely too scary for our liking. But that's not the only bungy jumper we saw today, someone also jumped off the harbour bridge. On our cruise we also saw Rangitoto Island (made out of Volcanic activity) and Northead (which is across the harbour from downtown Auckland).

After our cruise we walked back to the hostel and checked in around 4:00pm. The first thing we did once we checked in was to shower. We had gone way too long without bathing on our journey over so it felt really good. We're staying in an 8 bed female dorm and we both have the top bunk. Our hostel seems nice but we haven't really explored it yet beyond the bathrooms, our bedroom, and the kitchen. I think that will be our mission for tonight.

Tomorrow, we plan on going on a hop on hop off tour of Auckland city which should take pretty much all day and Friday we think we might head to the beach. Then we will be on the road again on Saturday to our next stop, Mercury Bay.

The weather here is really nice. It's about 25C and there's a nice breeze. It's a good thing that it's not as warm here as it is in Australia so we can ease ourselves into the heat. It didn't take us long to get sunburnt though - I guess that's what happens when our sunscreen is locked into the storage room at the hostel. Anyways, the weather here sure beats the weather in Canada!

Our New Zealand invasion is off to a great start and I'm sure that it will only get better from here on in!

-Carole

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