Happy Birthday to Me!
Trip Start
Aug 14, 2008
1
19
20
Trip End
Sep 25, 2008
Auckland, North Island, New Zealand
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Linda collected me with her mother in tow and we went in to her house for a few minutes. I was doing the rounds today as we left and went further into suburbia to Marions home, who, true to her word last night, was still in her pyjamas! She made us egg sanwiches for lunch, and after an hour or so we collected my bags and whizzed off to Hamilton to meet the Stray bus.
In Auckland I checked into Nomads Fusion, which is a brand new hostel and (a damn sight better than the fat Camel a few doors down). It's a bit of a bodge in terms of design and practicality, but the sheets are the cleanest yet and on the top floor there's a outdoor rooftop deck with amazing views of the high rise buildings surrounding us. I have a 12 bed dorm all to myself tonight which is nice, but it would seem that I am destined to spend my birthday alone!
Day 204 (My 23rd birthday) - Woke up in my big empty room and went off to the Sky Tower in the morning, which is the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. I paid extra to go to the Sky Deck, which is higher than the normal observation deck and was worth it as the views were great and I was just about the only person up there. The weather is ok, but quite showery today, but you could still see for miles and it was actually pretty cool seeing the localised clouds and showers moving and scattered throughout the city. I went to the cafe for a coffee and biscuit and sat and enjoyed the view - a really nice, relaxed start to the day.
Walked back along Queen Street and through the CBD, stopping at the hostel to make a packed lunch. I caught a ferry over to a suburb of Auckland called Devonport. I really liked the area as it was very quaint and village like and had a great view of downtown Auckland from across the bay. I had a mooch along the coast and around some of the little shops before walking up Mt Victoria, an extinct volcano in the middle of the district. The views of the city and gulf islands surrounding were beautiful and as the sun shone down on Mt Victoria today, I found a patch of grass out of the wind and ate my sandwiches (bakes beans, avocado and lettuce - yum!) - I honestly felt really happy and at peace lying and relaxing there for an hour - who needs expensive restaurants?!
I came back down and by and by returned to the hostel and found a load of people had moved into my room. Explored the city a little more and cooked pasta for dinner (followed by a mission along Queen St in search of an equivalent to a birthday cake... which turned out to be a delicious, fresh cookie which I ate on the walk back) - I justified to myself how a quiet birthday would be a good one as I had pampered myself in mud pools, gone skydiving and partied until the early hours a week ago and didn't need repeat... besides how many people from England get to spend their birthdays in Auckland (I have been having my birthday everyday since I left home!)
And having said all this, having let slip to one of my roomies, I ended up celebrating my birthday with a load of strangers - and it was great! There were 8 of us staying in the room; Josh and Mike (US), Maike and Philip (Germany), Kayleigh (Canada), Fabien (France) and Matt (England) and we all got on like a house on fire - played drinking games on the rooftop terrace, surrounding by lit up buildings - quite awesome. We then aquired two others and went in search of a bar, making it only as far as a busy little karakoe bar on Queen St. A few of the group sang a few numbers and everyone made such an effort for me to have a good birthday - Then the whole bar sang Happy Birthday to me and a big Samoan called Mike sang a few slow numbers in my honour... soon the whole bar were celebrating my 23rd! I had such an excellent (and unexpected) night - who knew celebrating your birthday with 9 strangers, who come from every corner of the world, could be such fun!
Day 205 - We all woke up feeling a little worse for wear, but I sprang into action and went to the ferry terminal to get myself over to the perfectly symmterical, still active, volcanic island of Rangitoto. I got to the terminal an hour early and so sat in the sun on a bench by the waterfront and started planning my next moves after NZ. The weather being showery again, I managed to avoid them all and had basically constant sunshine all day.
The ferry took 25 minutes to the island, where I walked to the summit and was rewarded by gorgeous panoramic views. After walking around the crater and back down, I had half an hour to kill before the ferry came, and so sat by the sea in the sunshine. Soon my night caught up with me and I lay down and was just about asleep when some girls called me to wake up because the ferry was approaching - thank god they did as it was the last ferry leaving Rangitoto that day and otherwise I'd be stuck there - with absolutely nothing but trees and black lava rock to survive!
