Our time in Australia had come to an end and it was time to head to New Zealand. We had been getting pretty excited in the last few weeks about New Zealand. Maybe because we would have a car, maybe because we were doing a lot of the same activities in Australia (coastal walks, lighthouses, botanical gardens etc.) or maybe because Australia was sapping money from us. From the blogs I’m sure you can see that we aren’t be extravagant. We aren’t eating out hardly at all. We definitely aren’t doing all the tours or activities we could be doing, so we were ready for a change.

We had booked into a motel near to Avalon airport for the night as we would have to get up at about 3am to drive to the airport, return our rental car and catch our flight. Everything was going as planned until we got to the check in desk. We walked up to the desk and I went to put my backpack on the conveyor belt for checked bags and the lady behind the counter said ‘Don’t bother’. Uh oh! She told us that the flight had been cancelled and that we had been sent an email notification about it. I didn’t have any Australian data anymore and I hadn’t had wifi throughout the night so we didn’t know this. Actually, on later inspection anyway, the email wasn’t sent until about 10 minutes after we went to the check in desk. She told us that there were 6 seats left on a flight from the other Melbourne airport at 8.05am. We had quite a long layover in Sydney before our Auckland flight so thought that would work and they were going to drive us all over to the other airport at 6am.

We received $8 each of free food vouchers and had some coffees and muffins and waited patiently. By 6.30am we were getting a bit panicky so Simon went up to the desk to ask when we would be leaving (it’s about an hour drive). The bus pulled up shortly afterwards. We made it to Tullamarine airport at about 7.25am, had 2 bags to check and had to go through security. Uh oh again! We did a bit of running and made it to the gate with plenty of time as the flight was a little late. A flight has never been cancelled for either of us before so it was a little nerve racking, but Jetstar did sort us out and we did make our connection in Sydney for Auckland. The only thing that annoys me still about this whole experience was the reason they gave for the flight being cancelled. Now… I booked these flights about 8 months ago and even if someone was sick then you would have thought that would have been enough time to have backups in place.

There was a HUGE tailwind on both our flights, the first was meant to take 1h25 and only took 55 minutes and the second was meant to take 3h25 and only took 2h15. We were flying at 1000km/h most of the time. Super fast!

We landed in Auckland and used the sky bus service to take us into the city centre. We booked it online while we were waiting for our baggage and saved a bit of money compared to going to the desk once through security. New Zealand are super strict on what comes into their country and we had to tell them that our hiking boots had been in the Grampions National Park a few days before, but it wasn’t a problem and they let us through. Simon bought 2 bottles of Captain Morgans Spiced Rum in duty free to keep him going during our time in the Campercar. By about 5:30pm we were at our hostel and ready to go get some shopping! I have grown to enjoy looking around foreign supermarkets. Not because the food is different but because I like to look at the prices. New Zealand is pretty similar to Australia for many foods, but meat, fruit, veg, and cheese doesn’t seem to be as expensive, which is great. Also, in Australia something may have cost $10, in New Zealand it might also cost $10, but the exchange rate is far nearer to $2 to £1 than in Australia, so more value for money. YAY!! We went back to the hostel, ate and relaxed. We’d been up since 3am and even though it was only a 2 hour time difference we were feeling a little jet lagged.

The next day we woke up quite late and decided to go for a wander. Our hostel was very close to all of the piers so we headed out along the cost, along Queens Street to buy some warmer clothes and ended up having a late Sunday Roast in Danny Doolans, an Irish Pub. We hadn’t had a roast for about 2 months and I had been really craving it. This pub was offering a roast and a pint of cider for $20, which, when the pints are usually $10 over here, was a bargain. It was great too!! After this we decided to go and have a closer look at the sky tower. We hadn’t really planned to go up the sky tower, but decided that we would to get some good views and to actually ‘do’ something.

The sky tower is a relatively new building. It’s the tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere and provides panoramic views across Auckland. We really enjoyed our time up the sky tower, ending up staying for nearly 3 hours to watch the sunset. We also managed to skype home a few people and enjoyed a coffee in the cafe. Have a look at some of the views we had during our time up the sky tower. After the sky tower it was pretty late so we headed back to the hostel to cook some food and watch some more Californication (it’s our new thing).

The next day we decided to take another free walking tour. These have become our go to activity in the cities that we visit and they really do help you get orientated and provide you with some history and insider info on the place. In hindsight we wished we would have been able to get up earlier and go the day before, but we had been too tired for that.

We met our walking tour guide, Louise, at Queens Wharf where most of the ferries leave to go out to the outer islands and harbour trips. You could tell that she loved living in Auckland and really wanted to share her knowledge with us all. The start of our tour was next to an old railway building and she told us about how James Cook navigated around NZ in 1769, one year before he arrived on the East Coast of Australia. Next to the railway building there was a relatively new building, which looked like a cloud. She asked us why that was and I told there that New Zealand is often called the Land of the Long White Cloud (thanks Mum). We started walking through the CBD which Louise told us was currently getting a bit of a renovation and a metro station. We had noticed the day before that there was a lot of building work going on. Apparently 50,000 people are moving into Auckland every year from around the World, making it the 4th most multicultural city. Auckland already is home to around 1/3 of the New Zealand population (around 1.5 million in Auckland) so there is a lot of work to be done to keep on top of the immigration.

We walked down a lane way which had a red light running down it and saw a cafe that had been converted from an old cinema. This lane way used to be the main spot for sailors when they visited or arrived after a long journey, to get their fill of entertainment. It was lovely to see that the cafe had kept a lot of the quirky features of the old cinema. The floor was still slanted and you could see where the old cinema screen used to be. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to go back and have a coffee there, but it’s definitely one to visit in the future.

After the CBD we were shown sights such as Suffragette square, which is also getting a face lift. We didn’t realise that Kiwi women were the first women in the World to get the vote. This square is a memorial to that. We saw the National Art Gallery and learnt more about the arrival of the British settlers to New Zealand, and the signing of the treaty that allowed the British to govern NZ, but allowed the Maori people to maintain their culture and rights as well. We couldn’t believe how different this story was compared to the indigenous people of Australia who were treated so badly. The Maori culture in NZ is so prominent and you can see Maori people everywhere you look. In our whole 8 weeks in Australia we only saw a handful of aboriginal people out and about. Simon and I were talking about why this is and we think it may have something to do with the Maori people settling on NZ from the Pacific Islands. We think that maybe because they had officially ‘settled’ there before the British that was seen as a reason to give them rights. Whereas the Australian indigenous people had been living in Australia for tens of thousands of years, the British maybe didn’t see them as advanced? This is all speculation and it is an area we would like to learn more about during our time here. The picture below shows the maori people meeting the new governor.

We walked through Albert Park (named after Prince Albert) and through the University complex where we saw the old Government building. Simon was asked to go up to speakers corner and explain what they were. He did a good job! Louise told us about University fees here which are around £3000 a year, far more manageable than our £9000+ fees. She also told us that recently New Zealand had held a referendum (does anyone not want a referendum at the moment?). This referendum was to decide if their national flag was to be changed or not. Apparently 60% said to keep the flag the way it is, so that’s whats going to happen.

We stopped in Emily Place, which happened to be right next to our hostel, and saw the site of the first church in Auckland. When settlers arrived here the first thing that they wanted to see was a church so it was built on the highest point, allowing ships to see it when they arrived. Now, the area has a monument to the church, with a typo on it, and is full of Pohutukawa trees. These trees are really impressive and it is illegal to cut them down or even to trim back a branch. As you’ll see from the photo this means that they have overgrown the park and you can hardly walk around there anymore.

Our last stop was walking through the area of Britomart. This area is pretty high end and is built on the original edge of the city. This area has now been reclaimed and the water level is further away than previously, but they have a fountain to show where the boundary used to be. We walked through the Britomart train station and then headed back to Queens Wharf to end our tour. Auckland isn’t a city that is full of huge amounts of history or massively impressive buildings, but we learnt a lot about its history and heard lots of interesting stories.

The rest of the afternoon we camped out in McDonalds to use their free wifi and book lots of tours for our time in the North Island. I still needed to buy leggings so we went to do that and then we sat on the pier and read our books for a while, enjoying the views back over to Devonport and the Harbour Bridge.

We had really enjoyed our time in Auckland. It had been an excellent start to our time in New Zealand and showed us what everyone had told us before. The people here are SOOOO friendly. You really can see why so many people are moving into the area and to New Zealand in general. The next morning we picked up our Campercar (called Maverick) and started our 6 week road trip around the North and South Islands. More stories to follow.