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Published: March 18th 2010
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Day 22 - Thurs 25th Feb
We lost this completely by crossing the international date line. If we had travelled the other way round the world then we would have had the same day twice!
Day 23 - Fri 26th Feb
We arrived in Auckland airport at around 9am, but didn't manage to get out of the airport till gone 10.45am, as first we had to queue for Immigration and then we had to queue to declare what we were bringing into the country and as we had hiking boots that had been used in Canada, we had to queue again to get these looked at to ensure we weren't bringing any soil matter into NZ that would effect their wildlife or produce. All good in theory, but a bore when you just want to get through the airport.
So we finally escaped the airport, after the official dude gave our boots a very quick glance, scrapping some mud off Jake's and waving us on, and caught the shuttle bus directly to our hostel. Good news is that the weather is nice and warm, but bad news was that we were sweating and smelly from the journey
and carrying our bags around! So our first hostel experience on this trip started and it was fine. Unfortunately we made a bit of a faux pas when chosing which room we wanted and ended up with a musty dusty room with no fridge, but hey, we won't make that mistake again!
We quickly showered (in the shared bathroom!) and headed out for a stroll around the city. We made it down to the waterfront and had our first Kiwi meal of........nachos!! There was an absolutely gigantic ship docked at the wharf unloading new cars, but it was surrounded by an electric fence so we couldn't get a good shot of it. We walked up the main street, window shopping because we can't afford to buy anything, and then sat in a park just off the centre soaking up some rays. It is so weird to go from wearing jeans, long sleeved tops, jackets, scarves and wishing we had to gloves, to sitting in a park wearing shorts and t-shirts and being too hot. There was a bit of breeze which of course hid the fact that we were getting sun burnt on our very first day!
We
headed to the supermarket for some groceries and were very pleased to find that food prices here are a lot more reasonable than Canada - yay we can afford to eat!! We cooked some dinner back at the hostel and chatted to some other backpackers and then went to bed early, glad that we had managed to last the day without feeling too jet lagged. The only thing that kept waking me up was the crazy lady who lived next door calling very loudly to her cats!!
Day 24 - Sat 27th Feb
We woke up early, may be because we were jet lagged or may be because we had gone to bed early! We knew that Amy's Aunt and step-Uncle (C&C) were staying in a nearby hotel, but as we have still not been able to unlock Jake's phone we couldn't call them without figuring out a phone box or phone card, so we decided to just pitch up and see if they were there. Suprisingly, the concierge gave us their room number, no security here! and so we went and knocked on their door. As it was around half nine, and believing them to be early
birds, we fully expected them to be out exploring, but no, they were both still in bed, so our arrival was a bit of a suprise (a nice one we are told!)
We had a quick catch up over a cuppa and then once they were ready we headed for a small farmers market that we saw advertised the previous day. There were not very many stalls, but we still managed to find a good croissant, coffee and then supplies for lunch, some bread and cheese. The plan was to head to Devonport, which is across the harbour, so we jumped on a ferry and 10mins later we had arrived.
We chilled out in the shade, by the beach and caught up some more and ate our market goodies. We had a little paddle in the sea, that was very shallow, but lovely and warm and watched crazy people paragliding off the nearby cliff.
We had a wander in Devonport's high street which was very quaint and then caught the ferry back to Auckland. The 4 of us headed back to C&C's hotel as were being given a bag of left overs bits as they were leaving
the next day and also borrowed a plug adaptor as the so called universal one we had brought with us didn't have the NZ plug type on it, as they have weird slanty 3 pin plugs here. On the way back we had passed another market where Jake managed to get a crazy cowboy type straw hat for the bargain price of $5.
We spent the evening back at the hostel much the same as the previous night.
Day 25 - Sun 28th Feb
Jake checked his emails first thing and discovered that an earthquake had hit Chile and most countries in the Pacific had a Tsunami warning. So we scoured the news online and luckily discovered that NZ would not be badly effected if at all, being a fair distance away.
We had arranged to meet C&C for a picnic in Auckland Domain today so after picking up some supplies from the supermarket made our way across town to get there. Auckland is quite hilly so we were getting a little bit exhausted and it didn't help that someone hadn't read the map properly and took us the long way round. But one good thing
that came out of the detour was that we discovered that a Chinese lantern festival was taking place and the last day was today meaning there would be some fireworks later.
We made it to the domain a bit late as we were meeting at the musuem which was of course at the top of the hill! We had a lovely time sitting on the grass, playing musical chairs to stay under the shade of the trees and we also got to meet Amy's second cousin who currently lives in Auckland. We had a wander through the park, saw some interesting plants and flowers in a big greenhouse and then had an ice cream before saying our goodbyes.
We headed out later in the evening to see the Chinese lantern festival, which was really good as it got dark as all the lanterns where lit up with amusing scenes. They also had music and dancing and at the end of the evening some great fireworks.
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