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Published: October 14th 2010
After a mammoth 13 hour flight from Chile on Sunday night (which actually went quite quickly as it was through the night so we slept a lot) we arrived in chilly Auckland, New Zealand, on Tuesday morning, losing a day of our lives due to the time difference! We got a shuttle bus from the airport to the apartments/hotel we had booked, as taxis were ridiculously expensive, but as it was only 5am we couldn’t check in, so we left our bags and went to have a look round Auckland in the dark. Luckily we were based really near the Auckland sky tower, which is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere, so we popped in to have a look as it was the only place open at that time due to its casino and hotel. We decided to go back later in the day and go to the top of the tower as we had heard the views over the city from there are great.
After wondering around the dark streets, past all the closed shops and cafes, and down to the harbour (freezing), we found a Mc Donalds and had some breakfast as it was the only place open
where we could eat at that time in the morning, we then went back to the hotel around 8am and our room was ready.
It was actually a small apartment with a kitchen, lounge area and separate bedroom which was really nice, so we did some of our own washing and rested before heading back out, to the city, to see it in the light.
It was a really cool city, despite everything we had heard, and it looked very different in the daytime. We walked back to the sky tower and got tickets to go to the top (passing as students and getting a cheaper rate!) where the views over the city were amazing. You could see everything from the harbour to the Auckland bridge to the rugby ground on the other side of the city. As we were up there someone did a bungee type jump from the top! Scott was debating doing this as well but he said he’d rather wait and see what other locations he could jump from (Vic thinks he was a bit scared!).
After that we found an Asian food court, which had about 10 different Asian food counters (Chinese, Indian,
Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean etc) where we had a really cheap lunch (Scott had an Indian feast for £4.50 and Vic had Japanese steamed dumplings and soup for £3). Auckland has the biggest Asian/Polynesian community of the whole of New Zealand and we noticed that there were more Chinese and Thai restaurants in the city (good for us), than we had seen anywhere else, including home!
So far NZ seems quite expensive for food (compared to South America anyway) but you can find cheap eats if you want to. After finishing our food we went down to the harbour to see it in the light, and it was really nice, full of cool restaurants and bars which we decided to head to that night, and the harbour is also where ferries go to the small islands around Auckland from.
We then walked up Queen Street (main shopping street) and saw the theatre and town hall, before deciding to find a NZ Lonely Planet guide, which stupidly we thought we wouldn’t need, but then realised we definitely would, especially when we had the campervan. So we trawled round the various hostels in the area and second hand book shops looking
for it with no luck, before coming across one of the biggest hostels in Auckland, Base ACB. This place is massive and they had loads of copies of the LP for sale, new and old, so we got a fairly recent one for less than £7, pretty good when new they are over £20! Happy with our find we headed back to the apartment to warm up (although the sun was out it was still chilly) and shower before getting ready to go out that evening.
That evening it was pouring with rain and really cold so we wrapped up warm and ventured outside. We really fancied a Mexican for dinner and we had seen a couple during the day so headed back to where we had seen the nearest one, but it was closing! It was only 9.30pm, but we noticed that people eat much earlier here than in South America, something we will have to get used to. So we headed to the other Mexican we had seen in the harbour that day, but that was also closed! By this point we were hungry, jet lagged, wet and cold and ready to call it a night and
go to bed, but then we remembered a deal we had seen at a restaurant in the sky tower that day (a pizza and 2 glasses of wine for about £10) so we went back there and luckily they were still serving. After warming up and eating we felt a lot better so went back to the Base hostel as they had a good bar there, for a few drinks and had a really fun evening; the bar was pretty busy and the atmosphere was good so we stayed there having drinks and people watching for quite a while. We found out that the next night there was a huge Metallica concert in the city, which would explain all the grungers and rockers in the bar- they were loving the rock music and whenever the music changed to pop, house or r&b the dance floor emptied. One guy had the most ridiculous hair style we have ever seen, ever!!! He had quite a big round head, the sides were really bushy and the top middle bit was shaved almost bald, it was awful and we spent quite a while chuckling about that, especially when he proceeded to the dance floor
with his air guitar and started going crazy when a Metallica song was played, jumping around and rolling on the floor!
We really liked Auckland but we had seen what we could and so the next day we couldn’t wait to pick up our campervan. We went to the Escape offices to collect it around 11am and after signing the agreement and being shown how everything worked in it, we were off! The design of our van is one of the best we have seen and we have named him ‘Eric the Rocket’! Scott drove it back to the apartment to put our bags in it, we quickly had some lunch (Malaysian) and stocked up on a few items from the Japanese grocery store, then we were on the road heading north to the Bay of Islands and the town of Paihia, about 4 hours north of Auckland.
The van is pretty spacious in the back and has its own little kitchenette, crockery, cutlery and a cool box, all sounds pretty standard but it was so exciting and novel to us! It also has a table and seats which all fold down to make up the bed.
We stopped on route to do a food shop and get some petrol, and this is where our first mishap happened. Some of the petrol stations out here are self service so Scott took off the petrol cap and put it on the roof of the van, then put the card in the machine to pay but it wouldn’t work. We had seen another petrol station not far away so he jumped back in the van and we headed to that one at around 40mph. Vic was in the back of the van at this point sorting out the food when she saw something fly off the roof onto the road...she wasn’t sure what it was, but then knowing Scott she tentatively asked ‘Scott...you did screw the petrol cap back on didn’t you?’ Cue sharp braking, hazard lights on and Scott leaping out of the van, running down the road to find the petrol cap while traffic piled up behind us! It was really funny especially as the van is so colourful it is not inconspicuous at all and everyone was looking at us like we were crazy! Good start...
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susan
non-member comment
Tease!!!
How could you stop there?? Love the campervan! All sounds very tame compared to South America. Waiting for next installment. Hurry up.................. Love you!