Sky Tower and Reunions

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Day 96 & 97
10th-11th December

Yeah this jet lag malarkey sucks; I woke up at the brilliant time of 3.30am!! I tried to go back to sleep but it wasn’t really happening so I got up and went to the internet cafe in the hostel for a bit. I had a hair appointment at 10am which I was really looking forward to. 3 months in South America had bleached my hair an attractive shade of orange and I had a grand total of 3 inches of roots...fit. It needed to be sorted and my lovely husband had given me the ok to get it done, seeing how much it was bothering me. Ellory went off to buy a new top and trainers as our clothes were looking distinctly the worse for wear after working at LSV. I had my hair dyed and all the dead ends cut off (yay!) and the highlight for me, they straightened my hair! It had been a long time and I was very surprised at myself how much I’d missed the option of being able to have straight hair! So with straight and shiny locks, I met Ellory after his little shopping spree and we went off to the Sky Tower.

The Sky Tower, is pretty much what it sounds like, it’s the highest building in New Zealand and has amazing views over the city. We bought the Total Tower tickets which would allow us to go onto the Main Observation Level, the Sky lounge and the Sky deck right at the top of the building. It was a clear day and the views were amazing! We had a snack and a drink in the lounge and wandered around looking at the view. There are glass panels on the floor on the main level which look all the way down to the ground. Ellory and I bravely lay down on them and looked down to the ground far below. Even though it was perfectly safe it was still a bit scary! We also watched all the people doing the sky jump which is exactly what it sounds like; you jump off the top of the sky tower! Not for me, but it was fun to watch.

We then made plans to meet up with Ben who we’d worked with at LSV for a couple of drinks. Ben had left the refuge a couple of days after us, and had stopped in NZ on his way home to Oz. We arranged to meet up at 10pm and Ellory and I went to have a little nap as the jet lag was off the scale. We set the alarm for 9pm, but somehow managed to sleep through that and wake up at 9.45pm!! Fortunately we were only meeting in the hostel so we didn’t have far to go but it was a bit of a rush to get ready! It was cool to see Ben again and talk monkeys. We ended up getting extremely drunk despite all 3 of us fighting the change in time zones and left the pub at around 3.30am to get a late night Burger King, yummy!!

The next day was our final day in the hostel, it was nearly time for us to leave Auckland and to start seeing some of New Zealand and after some thought we’d decided to do it in style and hire a campervan so we’d be able to go wherever we wanted. We’d done our research, and decided to go with a company called Escape. Not only were their rates ok for peak season, their vans all had unique artwork all over them. We’d seen some of them driving around Auckland and they looked wicked! So after our hangovers had subsided we went for a walk to go and speak to them. It took a little while to sort out, as we wanted to drop the van off in Christchurch on the South Island, but eventually we had a van, called Lady Luck, booked for 12 days from the 12th December to the 23rd. Sweet As! They also had a deal on and we got 7 of those days for $495 which was pretty cool.

That evening we were lucky enough to be able to meet up with an ex-Ascent Media friend, Simon. Him, his wife Linda and his children had moved to Auckland a few years ago and when they found out we were there they invited us over for a BBQ! It was great to see him again and we had a lovely evening with great food, quite a bit of wine and lots of chat. It was the first familiar face we’d seen in 3 months and we’d underestimated how much that can impact you! Simon very kindly drove us back to the hostel as well which was great. We went straight to bed when we got back, hoping that we could finally shake the jet lag!

Love Liz xxxx

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