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Published: March 3rd 2011
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Hello all - so did my conkers make it with me into New Zealand? When I filled in the form on the plane I discovered that I needed to tick just about every "yes" box on the form so I knew I'd be in for a grilling. The sweets and the medication got through OK but when I said I had been walking in the Austalian bush and had been near wild animals and spent some time on a cattle farm I knew it wasn't going to be plain sailing. He asked what "seeds" I had and I said conkers - he asked if they had holes in them and I said, "no, they're just whole conkers", praying that I wouldn't be forced to explain why I had them. Anyway I was sent to the queue for the bag searches and was asked to remove my walking shoes and my conkers. Thankfully my shoes were clean and I was allowed to take them with me. She inspected my conkers for some time and then told me that they weren't alllowed in and off to the quaratine bin they went. I wasn't even able to thank them for protecting me for 6
weeks from those deadly Australian spiders.
Anyway I got the airport shuttle into Auckland and it's a lovely town. Imagine my surprise when I got upgraged to an Executive room. Not quite sure what extras I got but I'm always pleased to get a complimentary bathrobe, slippers and loofah! For some reason I wasn't quite with it on my first day so wasted it a bit by wandering aimlessly round town - but Auckland is a nice place to wander round aimlessly. I went back to the hotel in the early afternoon and did the whole swimming, jacuzzi, sauna thing. But clearly I wasn't with it because I messed up the combination to my locker and had to trek out to reception blind as a bat (my glasses were in the locker) with my swimming cossie on and a towel wrapped round me and sheepishly explain that I didn't know what the combination code was. The lady was lovely and reassured me it happened all the time! I did the bus tour the next day so I could cram in as much as possible. Went to Mission Bay, Mount Eden, the Auckland Museum and most importantly drove past Eden
Auckland to Wellington by train
Some of these may be blurry - I was on a train and it was moving quite fast! Park - home of the All Blacks! I was walking round the harbour in the pouring rain later that afternoon and was in a shop when I noticed all the staff were watching the TV. I stopped to see what was going on and that's when I heard about the Christchurch earthquake. I feel like I've talked too much about natural disasters in this blog so I won't say much more but my heart goes out to everyone impacted by the quake - the city is destroyed and they are still trying to recover bodies over a week after the event. The following day I needed to get up early to get a train at 7.30am that would take me all the way down to Wellington. The airlines could learn a lot about comfortable travel from these people - plenty of leg room and space to spread out - which are important things when your journey is going to take 12 hours. Words can't do justice to the stunning scenery I saw on this journey - you'll have to wait for the photos but NZ is a beautiful country. A beautiful but uneventful journey - no funny stories to tell!
I can't tell you much about Wellington either because I spent less than 12 hours there and I spent some of that trying to get hold of my travel agent to find out what was happening to my trip towards Christchurch. I already knew that the train I was supposed to get down the South Island had been cancelled so had no idea what I was going to do when I got off the ferry at Picton!
And so my very short time on the North Island had come to an end and I liked what I saw. It's a lovely place and once again the people are extremely friendly. While I didn't find my millionaire at the harbour (bright blue rain mac and being soaked to the skin - not a good look!) I can confirm that NZ men are very handsome!!!!! Next update from the South Island, bye for now.....
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