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Published: April 27th 2006
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This is the view from our hotel window
The big blue tower is the Sky Tower. It looks much nicer at night than through the day, and because there has been so much rain (thus lots of moisture in the air) there has been an eerie blue haze around the tower once the lights go on in the evening. 'Oh the rain falls hard, on a humdrum town, this town has dragged you down...' Actually Auckland isn't that bad, but the weather has been a bit rotten during our stay and heavy rain always makes a place seem fairly grimbo. Here, come to think of it, this is the second blog in a row in which we've borrowed words of wisdom from a Smiths song. Good lord, isn't Morrissey simply wonderful. I could quote him all day - especially lyrics from the the Queen is Dead album. Cemetry Gates is particularly good. Hilarious actually. But we didn't come here to talk about the Smiths did we? That's right, it's a travelbog you're here to read so we'd best get on with it.
Now then, this is probably the longest break we have had between blogs since we started out last year. The reason for this is nothing other than the fact that we have been feeling pretty lazy recently. Also, we've been staying with our family in Hamilton and they've been spoiling us rotten. Strictly speaking, this blog should actually be about what we've been up to while in Hamilton, however we are having to mix things up a
Alan and his wiggy
It's called wiggy coz that's how whisky is pronounced when you've had too much of it. bit because we are in Auckland at the moment and we've taken all our photos and dumped them onto DVD and forgotten to bring them with us, so we haven't got the pictures to go with the words. Therefore, this blog's about Auckland. We'll do the Hamilton blog over the next couple of days. Probably.
We arrived here in Auckland about 4 days ago, and it really has been pretty grizzly, weather wise. This has hampered us a little in that we haven't spent so much time outdoors, although it's is almost winter here, so we can't really complain. Beryl is having a bit of a holiday hereself this week as we travelled here on the bus and booked into a nice hotel. We found when we were in Wellington that parking in the city is a nightmare and Beryl is too tall to fit into Multistoreys so we reckoned it wouldn't be such a good idea to bring her. In addition to this, the campervan parks are normally situated outside the city, and it can be a pallaver to get home at night if we want to go out and have a few drinks.
Shaz thinks that
Another wiggy.
And we have no idea why we thought it was a good idea to pose with a photo on the knees. Auckand is similar to Liverpool. Alan mentioned something about it being like Motherwell, but he was maybe just having a bit of a mad moment when he said it, and it was probably induced by the miserableness of the weather. We've really just stuck to the city centre so that we could dash into a shop or cafe if the rain comes on, so we can't really say what Devonport is like or any of the suburbs for that matter. However, the business and shopping district is bustling, there are lots of modern office blocks and hotels, and a sprinking of older Victorian blocks interspersed between. As yet, we haven't come across anything that makes Auckland particularly stand out for us - we feel like we could be in almost any western English speaking city.
Our time has been spent browsing art galleries, doing a bit of shopping, having nice coffees, watching the world go by. We've also been to a comedy club, seen 'Kinky Boots' at the cinema (it's a brilliant film) and enjoyed a couple of good nights out. The area that we've enjoyed hanging out in is at the bottom end of Queen Street near the
Shaz in the comedy bar after the show
We ended up sitting for about an hour in the bar afterwards, taking daft posey photos and making our own laughs. Red light looks pretty though, does it not?! quays, consisting of a few narrow streets around a pedestrian walkway called Vulcan Lane. There are a few good European bars and cafes round here, including a good tapas place, a Belgian Beer bar, lots of Japanese sushi houses and a champaneria. Vintage stores abound and there is a fantastic indoor shopping mall called Little High Street which has THE best second hand clothing and furniture that we've seen for a long time. Have to tell you - the comedy show we went to last night was absolutely awful. We thought it was good value at 10 dollars for ten comedians, but honestly it was like watching paint dry. There was only one bloke who made us laugh - he was pretending to be a medium and had people up on stage reading their palms and interpreting home-made dodgy tarot cards. The venue itself was nifty though. All red and orange low lighting, and leather sofas. We had good fun after the show sitting in the lounge taking daft photos and telling our own jokes.
The hotel we are in (The Duxton) is boutique-esque and has a little kitchen attached. It's very nice and is quite centrally located for
the main drag. We had a brill experience yesterday morning as we were getting ready to go out. We had the TV on and couldn't believe our luck when the very first episode of the 'Six Million Dollar Man' came on. We took our jackets back off and sat and watched with big grins on our faces. Good ole Steve Austin - what a guy! He was saving this wee boy from being blown up in an overturned bus, and he got his arm caught and all the wires came out. Tsk. Don't you just hate it when that happens!
Tomorrow morning we are heading back to Hamilton and after that we have a trip planned to Rotorua to see those geysers and mud baths etc. It's a bank holiday in the UK this weekend, so we hope you all have a great time and enjoy the couple of extra days off work that are so welcome before summer kicks in.
Until the next time then...... smell ya later,
Shaz & Al. xx
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Gaz
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Fruits of the forest
My oracular powers (google) tell me that a chinotto is not, in fact, a facial feature from a Simpsons character (arf), but in fact: "a small bitter citrus fruit from the chinotto, or "myrtle-leaved orange" tree (Citrus aurantium var. myrtifolia). The tree grows to a height of 3m and can be found in Liguria, Tuscany, Sicily and Calabria regions of Italy. The chinotto is an essential flavor component of most italian bitter amari digestifs, and of the popular Campari liqueur." Campari and soda. How sophisticated. Mind Leonard Rossiter used to advertise it in the 70's? "A soft drink by the same name (Chinotto) is produced from the juice from the chinotto fruit and herb extracts. It appearance is similar to that of Coca-Cola. It is said to taste similar to naturally flavoured cola or Campari, with a distinctive bitterness. Chinotto soda dates back to the 1950s, and is produced locally in Italy by different small producers. It is predominantly consumed in Italy and Malta, but recently San Pellegrino, the carbonated water company, has started mass production and export in collaboration with Nestlé, with the brand name "Chinò"." So, its liquid Chinos! there you go- Al, btw, good to see that you have returned to the righteous path, my son, and are bearded up again. Too much flesh on the chin- well, you can have too much of a good thing, eh?