Advertisement
Published: January 9th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Joe vs Brat
a happy happy boy... Landing in New Zealand, after so many months of planning and anticipation, after SO many hours of traveling, was a flood of excitement and disbelief! Once we got all of our bags and got through customs, with minor difficulty only (we only sent up a couple of red flags apparently), our next task was to find a cab... and a place to put all of our stuff for the night.
Having NO idea WHAT to expect, we found ourselves in a great-big city, on a cloudy day. With the help of the first of many friendly Kiwi's on our side (our Indian cabby) we found the backpackers district, and a reasonably priced hostel: Queen Street Backpackers. Once we'd dropped our bags in our sweet little room on the corner, we set out to explore this new city, despite our exhaustion. We followed our instincts down to the water where we found a little pub with good happy hour specials. A cold class of Chardonnay and a view of the harbor calmed our nerves and helped us to begin to soak in where we had just landed.
We found dinner at a produce stand in a corner store, along with
an international phone card to make the all important 'we're here and we're fine' call to the moms. Half a world away and a day and a half time difference from home, it was nice to know that they are just a call away.
The sun was low, but still up when we made our way back to our room on the third story of our hostel. Joe cut an avocado and a tomato on the window sill, we squeezed fresh lemon juice on them and shared the freshest dinner we could immagine, which tasted great after days of airplane food! Our heads hit the pillows before the sun was down, and before we filled our cups with a second glass of wine. Before we fell asleep we made a 'to do' list and stuck it on the wall of our room:
GET A CAR
GET A JOB
GET A BANK ACCOUNT
**GET A LIFE!**
We had a busy day ahead of us, and MAN did we need the sleep!
The next day we headed to a place we had found out about at our hostel called the Backpackers Car Market. We were determined and optimistic, and we
by the ferry dock
cruisin' around Auckland found ourselves a deal. Everything we had heard about buying cars off retiring backpackers in Auckland was true, what we hadn't heard was that there exists in New Zealand a high season and a low season for such a phenomenon, and we just so happened to arrive in the middle of the low season, rendering car prices quite a bit higher. After a test drive and a trip to the mechanics we bought the car non-the-less. The entire process took a grand total of three full days before we were able to drive away in it, and by then we were absolutely ITCHING to get out of the city!
On Wednesday, our second day of waiting for our car to be released from the mechanic (radiator something or another) we decided to jump on a bus and go to the beach for the day. Man it was nice to see something of New Zealand OTHER than downtown Auckland! Mission Bay was BEAUTIFUL! Despite the advise of the kiwi behind the desk, we didn't think that sunscreen would be necessary since we only planned on really lying in the sun for about an hour; after which we walked along the
street and found a place to drink some local wine.
We retuned to the city relaxed, happy, and burnt!
Walking along the water in Auckland, we splurged and split a small helping of some New Zealand green lip muscles, and shared a table with a great Dutch couple on the last day of their honeymoon. We decided to stop into a cool-looking pub for a pint before we went home and ended up meeting the friendliest kiwi couple, maybe in New Zealand! After some great conversation they insisted on buying us dinner... what a treat, since ramen was on the menu for the night back at the hostel. We must have spent a couple of hours with Craig and Sarah that night and we had a blast! After talking about traveling and wine, they offered to take us with them on a mini tasting tour of the Kumeu region, just north of Auckland. If we were still around on Friday, they said, they would love to have us!
The next day was spent on the notorious 'K' Street, waiting around for the mechanic once again, and dying to get in our car and drive! 5:30 pm found us,
Christmas in NZed
This one's for Mom/Martha! finaly, in our '89 Mazda Capella station wagon cruising down Highway 1 out of Auckland, with a car full of groceries and belongings, looking for a campsite! We couldn't help but notice that both of our levels of happiness rose tremendously once we were out of the city! Our adventure felt like it had really, finally begun!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.06s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 16; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0248s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Vincent Pienaar
non-member comment
Great journey!
Hope you guys have a lot of fun!