Yha Auckland International

On Tuesday morning I hopped onto my Stray bus at about 7:30 am. As always, I completely overpacked and don't need half the stuff in my HUGE bag! But hey, that's just the way I am... take it or leave it. After a snide comment from the bus driver about not being able to take that kind of bag on the bus if we were in Europe, I wasn't too fond of him... and thought that he hated me for having such a big bag! I knew this was going to be a long drive... 10 hours from Wellington to Auckalnd, and was...

On Saturday morning we jumped on the Magic bus for our last time ever. We were on our way back to Auckland for two nights before catching our flight to Sydney. We stopped at the big Kauri tree to get a look at it in the light of day, mighty impressive once again. The final round of super 14 games happened to be on this weekend so we decided to go to see The Auckland Blues play the Canterbury Crusaders in Eden Park. It was a much more lively game this time as the Crusaders needed to win to qua...

I arrived yesterday in Auckland last night from Sydney without a hassle. I'm staying in the downtown area and walked around last night. The downtown is so small and I felt very safe. Around midnight when I was in my hostel though, the sirens went off and I heard a helicopter and saw spotlights going! Was glad that I was safe in my hostel. Never did find out what was going on there! I had made plans to meet up with 2 people from my Outback Tour... Jackie, who I also saw in Syndey, and Jay. Jac...

Today Jay, Jackie and I took a trip to Waiheke Island near Auckland. We grabbed a ferry for the 45 minute ride to the island and once there, hopped on a bus for a 1.5 hour bus ride around the island. The busride was nice. Took us to half of the island (the other half is farmland). We had some nice vantage points looking down into the bays on the island. And the weather was perfect for it... very sunny and the water was so blue. We packed our lunch and ate on the beach. There were various walk...

Driving in Nz is not the same as driving in Europe. The biggest roads they have outside the cities have a maximum of two lanes and when there's a mountain you need to get past you don't drive through it in a tunnel, no, you you go all the way up over the mountain and all the way down again.The first day we just had to get from Auckland to Wellington, a distance of 650 km, which would take you 5-6 hours on the A1 through Germany, but in Nz it takes 9-10 hours. We camped at a small camping grou...

14.29 - Just got on the plance holding a package resembling a tampon! It's actually meant to be a face cloth but i don't really want to use it with that thought on my mind! I was up early again today with a hangover yet again. I got a rolling taxi into Korotogo where i waited for another but none were picking me up. A mand told me that these taxis are illegal and there was a police checkpoint up ahead so i couldn't get one. I was forced to get a proper taxi back to Horizon costing me $40! I a...

17.08 - I have had a great day. After getting a taxi to the YHA and paying $25 for it, I checked into my room. It's great, really clean and comfortable as is the whole hostel. I then decided to check out the CBD and get some dinner. My thoughts about the place were right, it's a really good city. Everything is modern and chilled out although it's quite hilly. In the end i decided to take the easy option and just get a McDonalds. After eating, i walked down to the harbour which was also very n...

16.05 - Woke up early due to the noisy Czech's I was sharing my room with. The day has come, as I knew I would, when I had to go food shopping. Everything is so expensive, a box of cornflakes (small box) cost $6 or £2.50! At least it should last me a while. After breakfast, I decided to go to the New Zealand National Maritime Museum. As I got there it started to rain and I also felt the sudden urge to go for a momentous ****! Ironically, in a city full of toilets, the nearest one was over 100...

22.00 - A long day today but very interesting. After waking up I just hung around in the hostel for a while to pass the time. I didn't want to go to the museum until after dinner. After a fairly long walk, I got there. I can safely say the walk was well worth it as the museum was excellent. There were three floors; the first about the history of New Zealand and the Polynesians. It was very similar to the Maritime Museum except there were a lot more artefacts. The second floor was all about Ne...

16.20 - Another good day today. After waking up I just hung around the hostel until dinner time again. I got my CV that Ryan sent to me so I will be able to hand that in to the restaurants I tried yesterday. I planned a lot of my future trip around NZ based on a tour bus I am likely to take with the Kiwi Experience. It was hard work, especially since I do not exactly where the good places and sights are. I only managed to do the North Island as well. After a tuna sandwich for dinner I caught ...