Sooooo after countless flights, many hours lamenting the state of Rio’s duty free, and watching the same episode of Two and Half men five times we arrived in Auckland. I don’t know why the good people of Auckland airport don’t just greet tourists off the plane in full bio-hazard suits, such is their level of paranoia.Thus we found ourselves at five in the morning, running through our inventory of crazy stuff we’d bought in South America (this includes but is not limited too, a giant beaded maraca type instrument, a plinky plonky instrument made from coconut shell, 5 paintings and a 40,000 pairs of havaiana flip-flops (they were cheap)) with a sympathetic airport worker.
Eventually we escaped, into the back of a taxi and a short while afterwards we were tucked up in a giant double bed in our Auckland guesthouse whilst our bodies tried to work out what time of day/year it was.
A few hours later and after a restorative shower we hit the streets. Auckland is not the prettiest place in the world, but its people were friendly (and didn’t babble at us in rapid fire Portuguese), and it all felt very familiar and safe.
I’d been reliably informed by my sister-who loves a good fry up, that Vulcan lane was the place to go for a post-flight breakfast. How right she was. We found a great little cafe, and after some eggs, sausages, bubble and squeak and a gallon of tea it was time to begin exploring.
After an hour spent buying stuff in Nz’s equivalent to Smiths (they were having a 50% of all books sale…), and Rich going into every opticians in town (his glasses had an unfortunate rendez-vous with the sea in Rio…) we finally got to Auckland’s main landmark, the Sky Tower. Although expensive we got to see the city from every angle and even watched crazy blokes throwing themselves off the side of it (attached to bungys-they weren’t suicidal). It was most enjoyable. Comically when we were at the very top, the lifts broke and we had to walk part of the way back down with the duty manager, this seemed to be her 9/11 and despite the fact that all we needed to do was walk down about 3 flights of stairs, she continually reassured us that all was ok, and remained in radio contact with the staff on the ground throughout. Phew.
Later on that day we headed over to Ponsonby, a funky little Auckland suburb. It had some very cool shops and bars but we resisted buying anything, fearing our ‘I’m not paying that, I’ll give you half’ technique might fall on deaf ears. That night we headed off to a little Asian food court we’d spied and indulged in that great British favourite. A big, fat curry. Heaven.
The next day we resolved to achieve more than just expanding our newly trim(mer) waistlines. First stop the Auckland museum. We started by watching a Maori cultural performance (it sounds tacky, but it wasn’t, and where else were we just going to stumble on some dancing Maoris?), it involved a bit of history, a bit of song and a bit of dance-including my fave, the Haka, it was fab. Afterwards we beefed up loads on early NZ history in the Maori gallery and saw some interesting displays on NZ wildlife.
We then headed over on the ferry to another gorgeous Auckland suburb-Devonport. It was really pretty, we climbed up (a very small) extinct volcano to get 360 degree views of the city, and then just pottered before heading home via another Asian food court for more curry (Thai for me-healthier).
The next day was going to be a big one. We were picking up our home for the next 3 weeks, a little silver camper van called Noah. After many wrong turns and much dealing with moronic camper van outlet employees we finally picked up the bad boy. Sleek, silver and alarmingly ‘compact’, Noah had arrived. He had a bed (of sorts-there were clearly going to be many sharp words exchanged about who was taking up all the space), a fridge (of sorts), a little sink, and 4 surprisingly well stocked kitchen cupboards. We were embarking on our first road trip. Next stop the Bay of Islands.
Tags: Auckland, New Zealand
