Checked out of Stonehurst and dropped Sunny back to Ezy Car Rentals and caught the 80 minute flight to Auckland. For our baggage we checked in two wheelie bags, two rucksacks, one tent, one double duvet, two pillows and a blanket as well as a cool bag full of food. With the greatest respect to Qantas, they didn't even bat an eyelid.
Picked up our car and headed to Mount Eden which is the closest area to Eden Park where the Auckland Blues were playing the Stormers that evening and we had tickets. Our first impressions of Auckland were the roads were busy, with three lanes and it seemed much dirtier and run down than the South Island, plus it continued to rain on and off constantly. Eventually we found a fairly sub standard backpackers called Oaklands which was chosen purely on the basis of it's locality and we had food and drink in a pub called De Post which is a Belgium theme pub. Mount Eden seemed pretentious when it had nothing to be pretentious about.
We went to the game and our seats were even closer to the pitch but the atmosphere was not as good. There were plenty of families and kids but lots of swearing and when the Mexican wave went round the ground all the plastic bottles were thrown into the air so you had to cover yourself for protection. Auckland won a pretty error strewn game and we wont be rushing to go back.
We headed back to a pub in Mount Eden where we watched two of the other Super 14 games and then turned in for the night.
1 vote 
