Day 78 - Brisbane - Auckland

Trip Start Nov 29, 2007
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50
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Trip End Mar 27, 2008


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Sunday, February 10, 2008

We had got checked in fairly early at the airport so we had plenty of time to have a cup of tea and look around the shops at Brisbane airport. We were both quite achy, tired and itchy after our night in the car, neither of us had slept for more than an hour or so. We were both looking forward to the possibility of a sleep on the plane. We went through to departures about an hour before we were supposed to board and found in front of us the most enormous queue through immigration. As we joined the end of it, I immediately started to panic about boarding our flight on time. The queue was however, continuously moving but still there were some in it that were being called forward to board their plane. There were constant calls for various people on various flights over the loudspeaker and this was delaying the planes. I have no doubt that it was down to this huge queue - what a rubbish set up this is. It took us about forty minutes to get to the front but then we had to get our bags x-rayed. We still had time though as we discovered that there was a slight delay on our flight. We went to get some duty frees and then made our way to our boarding gate which had been altered because of a delay on another flight. We were only delayed by about an hour in total which wasn't bad, considering. I was amazed when they told us that we would be in Auckland in two hours and fifteen minutes, I didn't realise that New Zealand was so close. We both enjoyed breakfast on the plane and Dean got a bit of sleep - it seemed no time at all before we touched down, but with the time difference it was about 4pm.
It took us ages to get through customs as they insisted on us getting our hiking shoes out so they could have a look at them and check they were clean, and then they took our tent away for inspection. They are very keen on this sort of thing here, foreign soils and seeds (or the possibility of them) are thoroughly investigated by bio-control. They were the same when we got to Australia but our tent was brand new and unused then so they weren't bothered about it. We waited forty minutes to get our tent back and then they had just scrunched it up and thrown it back in the bag which annoyed us. So, in the middle of the airport, we had to get it all out and fold it away properly so Dean could somehow tie it back onto his backpack.
We searched the airport while we were waiting for the tent, looking for campervan hire. We had been told in Australia that we would be able to sort this at the airport but that was a load of rubbish as there were only car hire companies here. So, we got in a taxi and headed into the area where Lonely Planet promises all the rental companies are. We did see one and stopped outside it - closed. It was past 5pm by now (and a sunday) and we knew that we had definitely run out of time to sort this out today. We went to have a look at a room in a nearby hostel. They gave us a key and told us room number 5. We walked through a little communal area with a lounge and kitchen (a bit scruffy), which is shared by five rooms. There were all these doors (more than 5) but none of them were numbered so we counted round and guessed which one number 5 would be. The key opened the door but it was obviously an already occupied room, thankfully no-one was in it. I didn't like it at all, if this key opened the wrong door then that meant that the other keys would open our door if we stayed here. There was no way I was staying here, I wouldn't feel secure at all thinking someone was going to walk in all the time.
We picked up a load of leaflets for various campervan companies at the hostel reception desk, told them no thankyou and went somehere else. After consulting Lonely Planet, we found a hotel not far away called Aspen House. It's not the nicest place I've ever seen but it would do and we paid for one night. We both enjoyed a lovely hot shower then set off to find an internet cafe where we could investigate some deals from these company leaflets. After half an hour of looking about on the net, we realised that our best bet would be to wait till morning and trail around in person. We were both absolutely shattered so we had something to eat and were in bed for 6pm. It may not be the nicest hotel in the world but that bed was to-die-for-comfortable and we both slept like babies.
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