Blogs from Auckland, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 348

A very early start for the long drive North, estimates vary between an unlikely 8 hours and a conservative 12 for the drive from Wellington to Auckland, I always like to shoot down the middle so we plan for 10 hours. In order to get to our hostel at Auckland Airport for 8pm, and the latest check-in time, we must get the 05:30 ferry from Picton, this means arriving at the terminal for 04:30 which in turn involves getting up before 4am. Now I've been caught banging on the door of the Penny Black at four in the morning looking for a pint on my way home, I've even watched Davy and Jolo eat dodgy looking pies in the Dirty Windies at 4am during the World Cup in Japan but for the life of me I ... read more

After missing the 1st of Feb (it didn't exist for us because we crossed the international dateline backwards) we landed in Auckland on the 2nd of Feb. This article will probably be added to shortly as we write about our adventures so far in NZ. Suffice it so say that we have bought a little van and now have it kitted out with everything from a queen-sized mattress to a chest of drawers. In our little home-on-wheels we have travelled about around the Northland region (the area north of Auckland) and seen some wonderful scenery in the generally great NZ weather. To get your tastebuds tingling here's a picture of "Blackie" our '89 Toyota Hiace 2.4D..... To commence the NZ story, we spent several days getting over the jetlag and investigating the many ways it is ... read more

We're staying in the trendy bit of Auckland now, Parnell, in some Buddhist house, we didn't know it was a Buddhist house when we booked it but it's kinda cool, well I think it's alright but Fiona thinks it's full of beasties, come to mention it I have been scratching a lot.... Parnell is really nice, it's loads of big houses and trendy shops and that, it has a real cafe culture and there's loads of bars and restaurantes that open out with seating on the street, my kinda town, remindes us of the Shore in Edinburgh on a sunny day. It's only a 10 minute bus ride to the centre of town, Queen Street, where we were staying last week but it seems a million miles away, it's good to have a different perspective on ... read more

We got into our hostel at 2pm today then promptly went to sleep, we never slept much on the plane so had been up for about 30 hours, a few hours later we are up at them and out to explore Auckland city. Already we love Auckland, it's an amzing city, it's twice the size of London with just over one million people, it's really spread out but the centre is quite small, small enough to walk everywhere, we're down at the Harbour side of Queen Street. It's really like Edinburgh, loads of greenery, plenty familiar shops and loads of English accents. We set about exploring the centre, the Sky Tower, the Harbour Bridge, Albert Park and down the Waterfront. Now Fiona said that we would save money here and it is really cheap, well the ... read more

The long-awaited summer has finally arrived in Auckland, and people have stopped blaming us for bringing the rain with us! The past week has been absolutely gorgeous, and I’ve been looking out of the window of my 14th floor office wishing I was outside and praying that the fine weather would last to the weekend. Graeme has managed to get outside and enjoy some of the weather on site visits with work - wearing his regulation sun hat and sunscreen (provided by his work) of course. We even had our dinner on our balcony last night - it was a wee bit breezy and we nearly lost our take-away pizza on one occasion, but we managed… This morning we got up early with big plans for the day, and would you believe it - not a ... read more