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Published: October 26th 2007
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Auckland by Night
A shot from the top of our hostel in downtown Auckland with the Skytower as the focus. Before I left Canada I tried talking to as many people as I could who had done some traveling in the countires I was hoping to visit and, without a doubt, the one country that kept coming up as a must visit destination was New Zealand. This was no real surprise as I have been hearing great things about New Zealand for ages and so I was excited to leave Fiji and head out to Auckland for the better part of 5 weeks.
The flight from Nadi to Auckland was only about 3 hours and I would have to say that it was the most pleasurable experience that I have ever had on a flight. We flew with Air New Zealand and they treated us to a great flight. Plenty of room in the chairs, lots of free little handouts and the best part was the food, which was delicious, believe it or not. We landed in Auckland and at about noon and, with very little trouble, figured out which bus could take us to our hostel. Unfortunately the airport is quite a ways out of the dowtown core so the bus ride was a hefty $15 but it was
Nice Little Square
Out for a walk around on our first night in Auckland and found this nice little area. the cheapest way to get there. We stayed at a hostel Called Albert Park Backpackers because it was cheap and seemed pretty nice in the pictures that we could find on the net (yes famous last words I know). It actually did turn out to be a pretty nice spot with two significant exceptions: 1: Elke and I booked ourselves into a 7 person dorm because of the attractive price tag, however, with that many people in a room it is pretty much a given that you are going to meet some strange people. Our two roommates took the cake. One was an elderly lady who was probably in her late 60's to early 70's and seemed to be quite nice and shy, however, the cart that she was using to carry around all of her stuff was producing a rather peculier musty smell that was not very pleasant. The other roommate was probably abour our age and was from Auckland but was living at the hostel till he could get a place for himself. He was fairly nice but in a very odd, slighty annoying kind of way; definetly one of those people who would keep talking long after
Palm Tree....
In downtown Auckland? the conversation has run its natural course of vague small talk that you usually engage in with strangers after finding very little common ground on any topic. The topper had to be when Tim was excitedly showing us a new massage soap bar that he had just picked up from Lush and insisted on putting some on Elke's neck and giving her a quick massage while I was quietly laughing to myself on my bunk. Unfortunately, Elke turned the tables on me and insisted that I had to try it and kept overriding my objections. Result? Me standing in my hostel room enduring the most awkward massage ever that was made even worse when he scratched me with his long nails...gross...and to make matters worse, Elke took a picture of the whole thing, which was just great obviously.
Anyway, obviously quite a weird little hostel to stay at obviously so we didn't really spend too much time there and explored Auckland as much as possible. We visited Kelly Tarlton's aquarium and antartic experience, which was fairly entertaining, and got to see penguins, exotic fish. stingrays and sharks. The shark tank was probably the most interesting part as we were
At Kelly Tarlton's
Riding through the penguin exhibit which actually resembelled a really slow roller coaster with lots of penguins to watch...so not really like a roller coaster at all then. on a track underneath the tank and were able to look up at the 8 foot sharks swimming above us. The whole experience would have been much better if it wasn't so expensive. It cost about $30, which isn't too bad I guess, but I just don't think we got our money's worth.
We also explored several of the parks around Auckland and I was particularily impressed with Eden Park which was about 20 minutes out of the downtown core. It was well worth the trip out there as we were able to hike around in a park with truly beautiful gardens and an old completely inactive volcano as it's centre piece. Really beautiful green area with the view from the top of the volcano being spectacular, along with a sun dial that pointed to various cities around the world and told you how far away you are from them. Looking down into the crater of the dead volcano was also really interesting as it was about 100 feet deep with sides that descended quite steeply and was actually stratified (in circles going around the inverted cone) like you would see in some rock formations. Very cool.
Auckland
Kelly Tarlton's
A diver cleaning the tank at Kelly Tarlton's. was a combination of beautiful parks and a super clean city along with a weird hostel and very odd roommates. Overall a good time and well worth the visit.
Hoe everyone is dong well.
Conor
P.S. more pics to come whenever I can.
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