New Zealand

Finally Made It To Auckland!

So, the reason for my trip had finally arrived. We arrived into New Zealand on a wet and grey day and, I have to say, Auckland had a distinct look of Manchester about it! Trying not to dwell on that too much and with a few nights booked in a hostel just off Queens Street, we set off to explore the city before jumping on our tour bus. The thing about Auckland is, it's fairly hard to see what it has to offer without a mode of transport so we stuck fairly central and did what we could. The first day having said that was mainly getting to know the hostel laundry rather intimately after nearly 2 weeks of having no facilities!

The next day, however, was Debbie's Birthday! We visited Auckland Museum where we saw a cultural performance (which basically involved lots of singing and brandishing weaponry) and got to understand a little more about the Maori and also their interaction with the settlers. Debs and I were both surprised to find that although there was fighting, the two sides seemed to integrate a lot more quickly and easily than, say in Australia! We looked at a variety of exhibits but perhaps most interesting was the full sized Wharanui or meeting house that had been donated to the museum by a Maori tribe and reconstructed almost in its entirety inside the museum. You could even walk inside it to have a look around. I took lots of photos. The carving was very impressive and I really liked the small touches of Paua shell that the Maori believe give their carvings spirit. That evening, having abandoned our search for some live music, we opted for a nice meal (nice if slightly large - see the photos!) and ended up in a comedy club. At $5 for a whole evening of comedy it was a good deal we thought and we even got a few laughs (although it was almost what you would call an open mic night and some acts were more successful than others - a more memorable one being some weird blonde lady who spent her time being quite racist to an asian in the audience. Memorable for all the wrong reasons you might say!)

We spent our last day in Auckland mooching around the Art Gallery (which was OK as far as galleries go but Sydney remains my favourite), dodging rain (cold rain at that - which made us quite sad that we weren't in Fiji any more) and meeting up with Susan (a girl from our Fiji trip - it seems that NZ and Fiji go hand in hand and you meet comparatively few people who have done one and not the other!).

On the 14th December we finally made it onto a Kiwi Experience tour bus. We had been warned that we might be stuck in Auckland for a few days yet as the buses were so busy but as luck would have it, the buses were so busy that they put on an extra one! The gods were smiling upon us and we set off with a skip in our step to the local 'Countdown' supermarket, loaded up with provisions and headed for Hot Water Beach. Once out of Auckland heading South, the first thing you hit are the Bombay Hills. So named I think because of the Indian immigrants. Far from resembling Bombay however, the lush, green and hilly backdrop was more reminiscent of Switzerland or Austria. The fields are full of grazing cattle and the miles rolled peacefully away.

When we reached Hot Water Beach, there was a chill in the air and the wind had picked up. Still hopeful of getting on a kayaking trip around the coromandel peninsula, we first headed quickly to the beach to see what all the fuss was about this hot water. So, apparently it's some form of geothermal activity that means that as the tide comes up the beach, water is pushed through the hot sand, thus heating it and allowing you to dig a hole and lie in your own pool of "hot water". Unfortunately, it's very busy and although the beach is large, the area where the water is hot is fairly small. The upshot of this is you end up sharing "baths"! (Which actually as it turns out isn't such a bad thing as, if you remember digging holes at the beach as a child, it's quite hard work to dig your own hole!). Following the slightly disappointing thermal experience, we headed back to the bus to hopefully catch up with the kayaking group. However, seeing the ocean on our arrival, we were quite glad to hear it had been cancelled! There was quite a swell should we say. So we happily settled for a walk to Cathedral Cove instead, even if we felt a little silly in our swimming gear! The thing that hits you about New Zealand when you first arrive is the greenness of the greens. Everything just looks so fresh and the walk we did illustrated this perfectly.

Photos of Auckland and the start of our tour