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Published: January 31st 2011
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Wednesday 17th November 2010 Lost to International Date Line – Rubbish!
Thursday 18th November 2010 (Auckland) Joanne hadn’t slept a wink on what we had hoped would be a smooth night flight with a seamless transition into a new time zone (although Video on Demand didn’t help!), so at 5am the top of our wish list was a hostel that would allow an early check in for a quick cat nap and refreshing shower before starting our day. Base (ACB) were less than useless – we even offered to pay for the previous night but the receptionist stated the cash tills were closed. We checked out Quality Backpackers over the road, and even though the double room was barely larger than the bed and it was a bit pricey, they did let us check in immediately so we were sold.
After a couple of hours in bed we got up as to not ruin our body clocks too much and went to Auckland museum. The museum was really interesting, with lots of information about the Maori people and their Polynesian routes, before we knew it almost 3 hours had passed and it was kicking out time.
We wandered around the city, getting a grasp of where everything was and checked out DSLR Cameras in JB Hi Fi as Joanne has been getting itchy feet watching other travellers with their fancy cameras. We wanted to check out the internet and local competition to ensure it was a good deal so we headed over the road for a hot chocolate and some free wi-fi (which, as we later discovered is ever so rare in Australasia). We thought about hitting the town, but were turned away for not having our passports so just bought pizza & had a well deserved early night.
Friday 19th November 2010 (Auckland) An early start to get some shopping out the way took us to all the camera shops in a 20 mile radius, well, at least 4 up the main road, but shopping has a way of zapping time. After confirming that Joanne really was getting the deal of the century we went back to JB Hi Fi to pick up her new Nikon 3100 and managed to also scoop a discount on a desperately needed external hard drive. By the time we picked up some breakie and headed back
to the hotel to put the camera on charge we were too late for Rangitoto ferry so we took alternative to Devonport where we explored the old city defences with gun tunnels and spring loaded cannons that sunk, as if into nowhere after being fired so that the enemy wouldn’t know where the fire was coming from and couldn’t effectively retaliate. There was also a short DVD about the tunnels which wouldn’t start properly, but we eventually got it going.
Dinner & drinks were at the Princes Wharf followed by an excursion to the Ice Bar where we shared a cocktail in a glass made out of Ice and froze our bottoms off.
Saturday 20th November 2010 (Auckland – Whitianga) McDonald’s breakfast hidden away at the back of the Kiwi Bus (just to stink it out & make ourselves popular), we met our driver Dillon and made our way to our first stop mount Eden (or Etna for Joanne who was obviously confused!). Dillon spoke to cute little Chinese boy who was sitting in a Dalai Lama pose outside the bus and made us all laugh.
Getting out of Auckland through the traffic was the bad
part of our journey out of the way, and then it was into winding roads and beautiful country lanes. Stopping at Cathedral Cove, we took a stroll down a long path to the beach where we met some people off the bus and had a swim through the choppy waves.
Our Hostel for the night was in Whitianga with homemade spaghetti bolognese, drinks & killer pool. We played darts with Kara who had stayed here the previous night waiting for Mercedes and chatted to a lot of people from the bus which was nice.
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Mark
non-member comment
Macdonalds Breakfast!!!!!
surely not what triathletes eat!!