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Published: November 2nd 2006
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Parnell Road
the flashy district of Parnell I am now on my second day here in Auckland. I made it from Phoenix to LAX airport no proble. I had had estimates of between 5.30 hours and 10 hours for the travel time. So I left at 7.30 which would give me plenty of time whatever.
The clocks had also changed in California (but not in Arizona) so that would give me an extra hour.
In the end I got to the car hire drop-off after lunchtime and got to the airport with loads of time in hand. But if I'd been caught in bad traffic in LA it could have taken much longer. LA was not nice from the road. It is criss-crossed by loads of huge motorways and is so smoggy. You can't see any of the surrounding hills because of the smog. It started getting smoggy about 80-100 miles from the airport.
Sat around a bit and had a couple of drinks with an American guy (Steve) who was coming to Auckland.
Slept like a baby on the plane and arrived in the morning. We had all missed Halloween as the 31st October did not exist for us because we crossed the
international date line.
On the bus chatted Steve and another American (Jospeh) who both decided to stay at the hostel I'm at. All did our own thing and met in the eveing for a few beers and the killer pool competition in the bar.
On my second day in Auckland I started serious sightseeing and had a great introduction from a walking tour. We got all the history of Auckland and it development. The parks and university campus are well set and the main street (Queen Street, which the hostel is just off of) is bustling. I had New Zealand green lipped mussels for lunch which were huge.
Since then I have wandered the streets and seeing the sights. I walked all the way from the harbour on one side of the city to the harbour on the other; Coast to Coast! I stopped for a small curry in a shopping mall for lunch, it was nowhere near as good as you would get in Britain.
Also went to Waiheke island for a day. I went with Steve who I met at LAX and his friend Nadine who Steve had come to visit. It was
a rather late start as we had gone out the night before. We started in the -5 degree bar where everything is made of ice. The cocktails were pretty nice and it was indeed very cold in there. A conplete novelty but fun all the same; we all forgot cameras so no photographic evidence. From there we went to an Irish bar that was dead when we arrived at 12 but got steadily busier untill we left in the morning.
Consequently we got ferry at 12 midday to the island. We caught the bus the other end and went to a beautiful beach. For lunch it was local island oysters with a couple of bottles of local plonk (the island is known for it's many vineyards). It was a great setting right on the beach and the oysters were deliceous.
We stopped on the way back at a fancy vineyard for some tasting of various vintages and although the wine was considrably more expensive than that which we had had for lunch, I think the conclusion was that it wasn't as good. Anyway the setting was great and we could all pretend that we were wine buffs.
View from Mount Eden
The volcanic cones in Auckland are all terraced as there were Mauri forts in pre-european times We stopped again for another bottle of wine at a bar and after leaving the door to catch the bus we saw it wizz by. The next bus and ferry was in two hours time. After trying the local taxis (we had 15 minutes to get to the ferry) we were advised to hitch a ride. Sure enough, after a few minutes a lady stopped and picked us up and dropped us right at the ferry. She was very nice and remarked on hopw coherent we were given the wine we had been drinking. But that is typical of New Zealand where everyone seems to be so nice.
That evening I introduced Steve to rugby league with Great Britain beating Australia - yeah!
With Steve and Nadine off on their trip I was on my own and needed to buckle down and find a lift. So I phoned another Steve and agreed top meet in the evening. Went to the Museum where I saw a Mauri song and dance performance with the Haka as the climax. The Mauris and pacific islanders in Auckland are big old boys, but most seem like gentle giants! The displays were interestig and
I would love to find out more about the various Pacific Islands and their cultures.
I met Steve in the evening and we are all set to go down to south Island in a week or so time. Therefore I booked transport to the Bay of Islands to the north of Auckland and then to Napier on the east coast of north island. I'm off on the coach after lunch
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sock inspector
non-member comment
socks
I have been made aware of some socks (witnessed in the north island of NZ) that have been pulled up to level that is unacceptable in western society, how do you plead?