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Published: February 20th 2009
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The first experience on NZ soil was an unmitigated disaster. What started out as a leisurely mid-morning flight from Sydney to Auckland was delayed beyond all comprehension and eventually landed at about 10.00 pm in the driving rain in Auckland. We’d experienced a mere 3 brief showers in the three months in Australia, so the cold and wet didn’t brighten the mood. The situation was compounded by our failure to book a hostel. We’d decided to wing it, given our anticipated earlier arrival and the first couple of phone calls proved the magnitude of the mistake. The general story was no room at the inn except for the odd dorm bed, even in the factory hostels in the city centre. We spent our first night on NZ soil in what can only be described as the former janitors’ store cupboard, which was situated on the roof of a high rise backpackers overlooking Albert Park. If a vivid imagination were employed, penthouse apartment could come to mind and to be fair the view in the morning was quite spectacular. On balance, the recommendation for the experience would be a sound negative. We moved in the morning.
Auckland didn’t really make a
Russell
The ultimate New Zealand car registration good impression on that second day - despite a move upward in the accommodation stakes. The weather continued to be mixed - usually all four seasons in an hour. It took a day to recover from the shock of the previous day's experience, but the mood improved somewhat with the discovery of 2 for 1 Speights Golden in a bar at the top of Queen Street.
We decided to leave town and bought a bus ticket for Northland. Paihia in the Bay of Islands was more to our liking and there was a vast improvement in the temperature to please Miranda, who was all set at this point to depart back to Australia. The increase in the mercury brought about our first encounter with the scourge of NZ wildlife - the sandfly - it was a case of once bitten.........
There was an excursion on foot to where the Waitangi Treaty was signed, which was on the edge of town. We then took a ferry across to the former whaling port of Russell, which had great views out into the Bay of Islands at the top of the long climb away from the harbour. We knew we’d arrived
Cape Reinga
...only 12,000 miles home then! in NZ, when a rather battered Ford Escort sported the registration plate - 1 SHEEP. You couldn’t make that one up! Paihia otherwise offered a limited source of entertainment, but was the sort of place you could wile away a few relaxing days. At this point in our NZ experience, we hadn’t learned to slow down our pace of life.
We took a tour to Cape Reinga at the very northern tip of the North Island. It's billed as the most northerly point of NZ in the same way as the Cape of Good Hope gets the glory in South Africa, but the real northerly point is a few miles away. We headed up through the fruit growing town of Keri-Keri, where the land is sub divided by huge wind break hedges to protect the fruit and the vines. The wind was a bit lively at Cape Reinga, where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. The signs by the lighthouse marks the respective distance to various points of the globe, as the two seas battle for supremacy. The return route is back down 90 mile beach. It's not actually 90 miles long, but that would spoil a good
90 Mile Beach
...well it's not actually 90 miles, but that's what it's called name. The beach is a bit like the east coast of Fraser Island, without the people and hordes of backpackers. The route on to the beach involves driving down a stream with a sand bed, which although clearly suited to 4 x4 vehicles only was still being attempted by a variety of rental cars all of which clearly were not to be returned in pristine condition.
After our sojourn in the Bay of Islands and beyond, we returned to Auckland in a better frame of mind to tackle the city. We had relocated to a hostel in Parnell, that was in a house once owned by the Queen of Tonga and with a bit of imagination was adjacent to one of the Finn brothers Auckland residences. It was our introduction to the world of BBH hostels and after some of the poor residences on offer in Australia and New Zealand, was a very welcome positive introduction. Parnell was a more upmarket base than the city centre, which suffers like most from a degree of the undesirable element, with handy links to everywhere with the city loop bus. The weather was better, but it ws still a bit baltic compared
to Australia and you know all is not well on the temperature front when the hostel room comes complete with hot water bottle. We'd arranged to meet up with a couple of Kiwis and Auckland residents we'd met on Fraser Island - you picture the scene...give us a call when you land in Auckland...so we did. There were promises of lamb for Sunday lunch and we figured it would be a good way to get a better insight into the real NZ lifestyle. We were whisked out to the nortern suburbs near Albany, where the lamb really was served up and the Kiwi hospitality was turned on. It was a nice house too on a 1/2 acre "block", although we were stunned to find that nice houses don't come with central heating in this part of the world - they can maybe get away with this just around Auckland, but why would anybody think this was a good plan in Dunedin. We were treated to a trip out to the black volcanic beaches on the west coast and back via the Coopers Creek winery, before being deposited back in central Auckland just as the Subaru cruising (or using the correct
term ... racing) was just about to commence down the length of Queen Street. The following dawned and we discovered that we'd left Miranda's boots in our host's car. This involved a ferry mission to Birkenhead to a meeting point to retrieve them, where we discovered an excellent coffee shop - a one time Auckland Coffee Shop of the Year and funnily enough given the name of the district, lots of houses with burglar alarms.
We spent some time perusing the Louis Vuitton Americas Cup village and sent a video e-mail courtesy of one of the sponsors. One of the unsuccessful yachts was Prada, who unfortunately had a rather competively priced shop next to their team HQ. A quick calculation on the exchange rate followed by squeals of delight, resulted in the acquisition of a gilet - well it is cold being the justification to overcome the we are meant to be backpacking protests! We bought an Auckland Pass for $8 the next day and headed across to Devonport, before perching on top of Mount Victoria to watch the yacht racing out in the Gulf. The Pass also allowed us to circumnavigate the city to get our bearings of
90 Mile Beach
...taking a break from the Dune Rider such areas as Newmarket and cafe society in Posonby. The heavens opend the next day, which allowed the non-Prada wearing member of the group to spend all day in the excellent library section of the Auckland Museum reading and researching out of war books.
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