Mount Eden

Wow.

Waiting for my final flight I met Ed. A Melbourne youngster like myself. He had spent 3 weeks in California running around exploring national parks. Ed gave me a few pointers on where to go in Melbourne and along Australia's north coast.

The flight wasn't nearly full so I had A block of three seats all to myself. So for almost 8 hours I lay across the seats slipping in and out of sleep which was convenient 😊

Upon arrival I breezed through customs and jumped on the next bus into the city. I met Jeff from New York (not the city). I think it was his first time out of the states and he seemed pretty excited about it. Shortly after I checked into my hostel Bamber House.

I pretty much just changed and dropped my bag off and Then I was gone. I took a bus into downtown and found the free walking tour I was looking for. It was about 3 hours and I learned a lot about Auckland and NZ as a whole. Including that Auckland is the land of 1000 lovers. I also met Tessa from London, and Jean a marketing dude who was from Brazil.

By the time the tour was over I headed back to the hostel for a well deserved snooze and slept three hours. When I awoke I met Loren Kelly and Allison. Three American girls who were studying kinesiology in Australia and just touring nz for a week. The hostel had a pizza hut night for five dollars. I met a bunch more people mainly from England in the hostel and we played dart games. It wasn't a late night as I was still exhausted from my flights.

The following day I pulled myself out of bed around 930. I was still a bit jet lagged but I knew if I didn't get up I'd miss out on my day. I showered up and found the nearest grocery store. It was nice to have the language on my side unlike my grocery shopping experiences in Europe. When I was finished I headed back to the hostel and had a late breakfast. I packed my things and off I went.

Mount Eden was right down the street so I went down and it took about 20 minutes to climb to the summit. The view was absolutely spectacular. It provided stunning views of the city from every direction. I took out my packed lunch and had myself a nice picnic on the summit. Them I stuck around and people watched for about half hour, taking pictures for everyone I could and receiving a few keepers for myself in the process 😊 I also found a quieter spot near the peak and peed off the mountain. Hehe. (See picture for view)

After that I went back to the hostel. It was raining for most of the day so I didn't really go out. I chatted with Will. He was a veteran traveller from Cambridge. I also met a german guy named Bastian who had just finished his nz adventure and highly recommended Abel Tasman national park in the south island and im prett6 sure its now been added to my list.

Then Allison joined us in the common room followed by Loren and Kelly. They let me tag along with them on adventures to their previous hostel to find Allison's glasses which was fun. They had a car so we blasted country music and sang our hearts out. Then the three of us went out to Nandos for supper. I thought it was just a fast food joint but I had a half chicken and was completely stuffed by the time we finished up.

We got back to the hostel around 830 and I've decided to stay in and keep a low profile for the rest of the night. My bus tomorrow leaves at 745 so I need to get an early sleep. Chat again soon guys. Next stop Paihia and the bay of islands! 😊

-Terrence outLue lisää