Auckland
Trip Start
Jul 12, 2006
1
108
230
Trip End
Jun 18, 2007
Auckland,
New Zealand
Monday, November 20, 2006
We headed back to the hostel, left the car, then went in search of something to eat. We'd taken the laptop with us as we had to design a 'For Sale' poster for Corona. We had a walk down Ponsonby Road, which was quite nice, lots of shops and places to eat. There was a fish and chip shop that I's seen boasting Auckland's best fish and chips but it was shut so across the road we spotted a burger place with a big sign outside announcing that they'd been awarded #1 burger in Metro magazine taste tests. It caught our eye and after studying the menu we decided to go for it. While we were waiting we did the advert for the car, we've put it up for sale at $1500, that will cover what we paid for it plus the work that we had done and I still think it will be the cheapest on sale.
I was quite excited about the prospect of a gourmet burger because Lee had been going on about having a nice burger for a while. I'd ordered the Chicken with brie and cranberry and Lee had the bacon and blue cheese burger. But when the burger turned up it wasn't all that really. The chicken burger had been deep fried and there was the smallest slice of brie on it that you've ever seen in your life. Plus the bun was just like one of those burger buns you get in multipacks in the supermarket. Gourment burger my bum! Welcome to the city.
Lee enjoyed his, not the best ever, but edible, which is more than can be said for mine because I just felt sick after eating it.
After our lunch we heading into town. We;d decided to take the scenic route because we'd gone past the turning that the bloke at the hostel had suggested. It was like walking about in San Franscisco, there are loads of hills everywhere. Auckland is full of old volcano domes and thigns so it's pretty hard work walking around. We headed to the Virgin offices on Queen Street to change our tickets. We'd decided to get everything done at once so that we only get charged one fee. We've moved our leaving date here forward one week, changed our Oz leaving date by one week, then we fly to Hong Kong for 4 days and then onto Singapore. We were told by Air Newzealand in Invercargill that we couldn't fly to anywhere in Thailand on our ticket so i didn't think to ask about that leg of our journey till we;d just had the tickets reissued and we'd paid up. That's when the Virgin lady went "yes, you can fly from Singapore to Bangkok". I was so gutted, it woudl have been absolutely perfect as we;ve got friends coming out to see us in Feb but because of the stupid Air NZ lady telling us the wrong info we didn't think to ask. It was just a chance comment that led to the lady telling us. I think, at that point, we both wish we'd never have mentioned it.
So now we've got to pay 50 UK pounds to change just one flight. Grrrrrrrrrrrrr! It's already cost us a fortune to change our tickets. We;re going to leave it for a bit in case there is anything else that we want to change and then do it nearer the time I think.
Once we'd finished in Virgin we headed down Queen Street, kind of the main street in Auckland, for a look. We had a few beers in the QF, which is a backpacker pub place then headed to the Globe bar a little later on. The Globe bar is next to another backpackers and tonight they had a $10 all you can eat pizza night so we went in an signed up for that. All you can eat pizza and a beer for $10 bargain, Domino's pizza at that.
So we waited patiently, drinking our beer, and watching the Domino's men come in and out with hot, lovely smelling pizza. They would disappear behind some curtians at the back of the pub then leave. The pizza was meant to start at 7pm but it was gone 7:20 before they opened the curtians. All the pizzas were laid out lovely but most of them were cold having been left for 20 minutes with the box lids up, so we decied it was a bit of a con really. We would have preferred to buy one direct and eat it hot.
Once we'd munched our way through as much cold pizza as we could we headed to a little Chinese internet cafe to sort the ad out and get it printed off. If there's two things I've noticed about the North of NZ it's that there are more Germans here than anywhere else in the world, god knows who's running Germany or who's working over there but it's certianly not Germans because they are all over here in the North Island, I'm not kidding! Also, Auckland has a huge Oriental community. Which means great food and cheap internet.
The bus stop home was directly opposite the internet cafe and we didn't have to wait too long before the bus arrived, complete with bus driver from Newbury in Berks. He was really nice to us because we didn't really have a clue where we were going or what stop to get off at so he actually took the time to get his glasses out, look at our map and then confirm we were, indeed, going in the right direction and would let us know when we reached Ponsonby Road.
Luckily for us the bus stop was right opposite the hostel so we didn't have far to walk back. Our room was lovely but the walls were a bit thin and we could hear the guy in the next room snoring away, so out came the ear plugs. My sister gave us a box load before we left and they ahve been once of the most useful things we've brough so thanks sis :)
