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Published: August 27th 2007
Kia Ora from New Zealand, the second leg of our epic trip.
Our route around New Zealand At the last minute we reluctantly decided not to make the journey north of Auckland, missing out on Bay of Islands, Ninety Mile Beach and all...after our Wetsunday's experience in Oz, can you blame us?! Instead we'd take in Coromandel (a wise move) and spend longer at Taupo to take in the Tongariro crossing.
Auckland - the volcanic city We picked up our little Diahatsu from Auckland airport and drove into Auckland,which was a little more challenging than we thought without a desent map.However, we made it into the city centre and after a few wrong turns and several minutes later managed to find our accommodation for the next couple of nights, Auckland City YHA. I had booked the YHA from Oz, as they usually proved to be a solid, dependable place and it meant I didn't have to read up on where to stay. However, in this case it was a bad move. This YHA was not nearly as good as the ones we had stayed at in Oz. I don't know why it has a four star rating.
Our room was incredibly basic, which I don't have a problem with. However it didn't have air-conditioning or a fan and the room was absolutely boiling. We couldn't have the window open during the night because we were on a busy road so steep that everyone had to really rev up the hill, so we ended up being hotter during the night than during the day. Second thing, not enough toilets and showers, 2 showers and 2 toilets per gender per floor, no where near enough. And lastly, all the doors needed oiling, everytime someone went in and out of their room, the door would creak very loudly (those earplugs came in handy yet again). So now I've finished moaning about the accommodation, let me move on to Auckland.
We didn't have long in Auckland, just one day, so we had to decide what we really wanted to do. We could have gone up the skytower for yet another view of another city or we could have done a bungy jump but we decided that as Auckland was famous for its volcanic origins, we would go to Rangitoto and climb to the summit of this extinct volcano. Our trip
was only for half the day, so in the morning we caught a bus that went round the city and surburbs, so that at least we got to see most of Auckland, including Parnell and Ponsonby. The bus does a circuit and only cost us a couple of dollars each. It was less cramped than the free tourist bus and did a longer circuit.
The weather was superb, something we hadn't been expecting after watching the forecast for days beforehand while we were in Oz. The trip from Auckland harbour to Rangitoto by boat was smooth (so Jason wasn't sick but did manage to lose his hat when it blew off his head). We headed up the path, straight to the summit. It was like walking on a different planet, all the old lava flow around us. We were surrounded by black rocks. After about an hour we reached the summit and got some spectacular views and photos of Auckland and all the other surrounding islands. We then walked round the crater so that we could witness even more views. It was a really good half day excursion and didn't cost a lot. We also got a brief look
Tower & Town Hall
Best I could do without a tripod!at Devonport, which the ferry went via.
Later that evening we drove to Parnell for dinner. We went to Oh Calcutta and had a really nice Indian meal. Would recommend it if you like Indian food. All in all, an interesting city which we soon learnt was a lot more volcanic than we first realised. It probably deserved more of our time than it got, but we weren't here for the cities but for the great outdoors.
Before starting our road trip south to Coromandel we drove up to Mt. Eden (another extinct volcano inside city limits - one of many). The views from up here are superb. As well as seeing the city and harbour, you can see many more extinct volcano cones punctuating the landscape like huge molehills.
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