Well Kiora (Hello/welcome) to the not-so sunny Aotearoa, or New Zealand to you and me! Home to a 'massive' 4 million people, 49 million sheep (that's 12.25 sheep to every human!) and us two for the next month! New Zealand as we know it is made up of 3 islands, the North, South and lesser known Stewart island off the South Coast. We were going to try and cover the 1500 miles from North to South to see, but more importantly do as much of the country as possible in that time.
Its always a bad sign when you fly into an airport and its pissing down with rain. A great welcome to New Zealand!! We hoped that this wasn't going to be a bad omen! So first day in NZ, the start of what was going to be a very busy "extreme" month.
We landed in Auckland airport along with what looked like about 5000 Japanese students, all waiting in line to have their passport stamped. I felt for the customs guy, as I couldn't tell one person from the other - they all had the same haircut, clothes, bags etc. No wonder his queue went down a lot slower than ours!
We got through customs fine and made our way to the luggage reclaiming area. It was here we saw a women walking around with a dog. Thinking it was just the usual drug dog we ignored it, but it wasn't until it stopped next to a couple next to us we realised that it was a dog that sniffed out fruit and wood. For some reason New Zealand are very strict about what you can bring into their country. The couple next to us had been stopped for having a dried leaf they had brought back with them from Fiji. Even though it was dry and inside a book the dog still got wind of it. For their mistake - instant $500 fine, ouch!
We had booked ourselves on the NZ equivalent of the Fiji Experience, back in London. It seemed like the best idea at the time, especially as we only had the month. We weren't booked into to leave on that till Wednesday so we had 2 days to fill in Auckland.
Now you would think that being one of NZ's biggest cities, there would be plenty for us to do, not really the case. After walking around the city in 30 minutes, we realised that if we didn't want to climb their tower, there wasn't actually much more to do. Because of this we spent the next 2 days either walking around, shopping for items lost before (sleeping bag), or trying in vain to catch up with the Internet travelpods (still isn't the case as you can see!)
The same could be said for Auckland's nightlife. Granted we were there on a Monday and Tuesday night, but we thought we might find something worth going to! Because of this we spent both nights in the local backpacker bar. Although very tacky, we did have a good night both nights and met some people you will start to hear a lot of from now on. I introduce... Little Katie, Dave and Louise, all from Cambridge. Kate and Dave, an ex couple, had previously been in Thailand before flying to NZ to meet Louise, over here for a month.
After watching Dan fail miserably at the fear factor competition - (your see the mc taking the piss out of Dan for being sick first in the photos above) we headed for bed. Probably a little later than we should have though at 5:30am - Bus pickup time... 7:30am, the start of many hangovers on the big green bus!
Joke of the Day
Bob the builder was going through a house he had just built with the woman who owned it. She was telling him what colour to paint each room.
They went into the first room and she said "I want this room to be painted a light blue." The builder went to the front door and yelled "GREEN SIDE UP!"
When he went back into the house, she told him that the next room was to be bright red. The builder went to the front door and yelled "GREEN SIDE UP!"
When he went back into the house, she told him that the next room was to be tan. The builder went to the front door and yelled "GREEN SIDE UP!"
When he came back, the lady was pretty curious, so she asked him "I keep telling you colours, but you go out the front and yell green side up; what is that for?
The builder said, "Oh don't worry about that, I've got a couple of Kiwi's laying the turf out front."
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