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  Parnelss, New Zealand
Thursday, November 30, 2006

This morning I was really worried that the guy wouldn't give us our money back for the room, we'd got up early and just wanted to get the hell out of the hostel. To be fair the bed was comfy and the noise had stopped but I still hated the hostel and couldn't wait to leave. Luckily the guy did renage on his offer and paid me back the two nights money. We grabbed our stuff and, for the third time in a row, waited for a taxi to take us to another hotel. We've never been so pleased to get back to a hostel before. City Garden Lodge is the most perfect hostel in the world but it's lovely. It's someone's home, it's personal, it's clean, friendly and most of all it's not in the centre of town. Our room wasn't ready but we checked in anyway and was told to go and make ourselves some breakfast and have a coffee as it would be ready soon. As Lee and I sat in the kitchen, eating our fodder, we both really wish we'd have never bothered leaving. I feel really sad that we've wasted so much of our time in Auckland. We haven't seen much at all really and there's so much here to do. I also didn't managed to meet up with my Sister's good friend Jackie. Which I am really, truly sorry for. Depsite all the setbacks we'd planned our last two days to be good ones. Once we were settled into the hostel and our lovely room, we headed out to the Bog Irish pub for a quick drink then into town on the local bus. We thought we'd treat ourselves to a few nice beers in Shakespear again and actually stayed there to eat. I had the steak and Lee had the beef and oyster pie.

Auckland skyline

The food was gorg, we acutally interuppted our pool playing to eat. It was probably the nicest steak I'd had in a while and even Lee thought it was a better choice than his. We stayed in the Shakespear for a while then headed down to the casino about 8pm I think.

We'd decided that for our last proper night we were going to spend the night playing poker in the casino then spend the day in Parnell Thursday. Which is exacly what we did. I really like the casino here, they're not as strict as other places, as I've moaned about before, but the people in there are real characters. There wasn't a space on the table when we arrived so we chucked our names down and headed to the bar to watch the live band and enjoy a pre-poker beer. We both got called to the table at the same time, which meant we were playing on the same table again, something I didn't really want to do again incase it came to a showdown but as it turned out there was a complete nutter on the table that didn't have a clue how to play but had more money than sense so just won loads of hands buy putting overbets in. It wasn't actually poker we were playing, more like bingo, or snap maybe. I did lost a bit of money but it was so funny to sit there and watch. Everyone else around the table just couldn't believe this guy they were playing against and it kind of became a table aim to get this guy back. Luckily Lee's pocket Queens held up and we all cheered at one end of the table when they turned into 3 of a kind, then a full house, then quad kings.

Auckland Skyline from Devonport Ferry

We had a great night at the casino, i lost money but came out up overall after the three trips. Lee made a bit of money and covered his loses from the other night but the pure entertainment value of the evening made it worthwhile. We grabbed a taxi home and was so happy to be in a nice room at a nice place.

The lie in was great, much needed after all our traumas of the last few days. We both woke up almost fresh as a daisy. Our last day in Auckland was a lovely relaxed affair. We pottered around the hostel, and our room, sorting out our packs for our departure tomorrow. I don't know how my pack weighs so much. Lee's convinced it's the clothes and shoes but I just don't know. I took some clothes to the post office and sent them back home plus a few books that I haven't read but don't want to leave. We did the last lot of washing and I had a real purge on my ruck sack. I chucked out everything that I possible could that I didn't need. Stuff like instruction manuals, leaflets, anything heavy in my toiletries bag that was almost finished. I also donated quite a few bits to the free table in the hostel. I left my really heavy pot of foundation plus the handbag I'd bought in Christchurch. I was considering sending it home to my Sis but it only cost 4 UK pounds and I'd used it to death so I don't think the postage would have been worth it. Besides, I don't think it was her style anyway.

I felt much better about having a good old clean out, I was also hoping that it might actually have made my rucksack a bit lighter but I'll find that out tomorrow. We spent most of the day in Parnell, I took stuff to the post office got some breakfast stuff for tomorrow, we ate most of the stuff in our food box so we didn't have to leave too much and then, early in the evening, we headed into Queens Street to use the internet and to treat ourselves to one last night dinner back at the Occidental. We both had mussels again, big fat juicy morsels of mollusc, washed down with the finest Belgium beer. Fan-blooming-tastic. We stayed for another lush Belgium beer then jumped straight in a taxi home. I can't quite describe how I'm feeling really. I'm really sad that our time here has come to an end but equally I'm really excited about getting to Australia. For as long as I can remember I have always wanted to go to Oz and tomorrow it's going to happen. It's great.

I will miss New Zealand though, it's one of the nicest places we've been. I think I prefer the South Island to the North Island but they've all got their good and bad points. Although the bad points aren't that bad really. Kiwi's are easily the most friendliest people on the earth, really welcoming, really helpful and so knowledgable about their stuff. The chocolate over here is great, much better than anywhere else we've been so far. NZ is a very beautiful country, the scenery is pretty spectacular in most places. I hope we come back one day because we didn't really have enough time (I think we've said that about everywhere so far!)

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