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  • Day 33

    Day 33/72: A day in Auckland

    November 29, 2018 in New Zealand ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    After the events of the night before, we managed to get into the hostel and sleep at about 0400! Blimey we were tired, and ended up crashing until about midday! We decided to head out for some lunch, which was more of a breakfast anyway, lots of eggs and bacon.

    After breakfast, we headed to one of the cities parks to sit and plan some of what we were going to do in NZ. This was a great idea as the park was lovely and felt/smelled very British. We sat in the sun and moved quickly to the shade as it was a very hot day. We planned our 10 or so days in the North Island, before planning where we were going to stay over Christmas and NY. Everywhere around Queenstown was booked, and after ringing around, we got some advice. The site receptionist said "right, I can hear you're not from here so let me tell you how the Christmas thing works. Through the year we limit our site to 100 guests. Over Christmas and NY, ie the NZ summer holidays, we have over 5000 Kiwi's decend on our site alone, and spend it there with their friends and families. If I can give you any advice, get out of the most popular areas, you'll be swamped by people if you try and stay in these places, and tbh most of them will be booked up months in advance" (she was right). "If I were you, book somewhere quiet with fantastic scenery inbetween the coast and the city, so you can still move around, but enjoy Christmas at the same time!" Strong words, but we took heed and hopefully it'll pay off!

    Feeling much better after having some structure to the next couple of weeks, we headed down the main street looking in shops and generally taking in the city. We wandered down to the harbour and had a look at what day trips Auckland had to offer. We were enticed by the whale watching safari, something we were both really keen to do, so booked that for the following day (writing this in retrospect, it was sadly cancelled due to weather conditions, but not to worry, we have something planned for later in the trip!). We then headed back to the hostel, a strange place where the reception and pool/table tennis area is occupied by loads of people, not just hostel guests. We had a few games of pool, then trash talk turned to bowling so we went up the road and had a game. Interestingly enough in NZ, the barriers can only be raised for under 12's no matter how hard you protest, which put Izzi at a great disadvantage.

    After the bowling, we headed for dinner and came across a very small pizza place, tucked away in a corner. They served brilliant pizzas though, and we enjoyed an extra cheesy margarita and a carbonara pizza, they were lovely. We then headed back to the hostel and played another couple of games of pool to finish off the day.
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