Wee wee wee all the way to kiwiland
Trip Start
Dec 29, 2007
1
25
42
Trip End
Ongoing
Auckland,
New Zealand
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
A damp wet cloudy morning outside, left hand driving, a 100 km/h speed limit & lots of greenery greeted us so yep, I felt at home. The sole exception is when you are driving & intend turning left. This is when you have to give way to oncoming traffic turning right...WEIRD. The Auckland suburbs remind me of a hilly version of Douglas & Wilton but with mailboxes out on the road like in the US
D on arrival
. Auckland, the city of sails as it's more commonly known, is comprised of 4 cities: Auckland, Manukau, North Shore and Waitakere. The suburbs stretch from west to east coasts. The property boom bit here around 2000 so prices match the rip off Euro price. A lot of the houses are timber-framed & strangely enough most houses in Nz are not equipped for cold weather. There is generally no internal heating system so bye bye radiators & hello gas/electric heaters. It's a kiwi thing. Although we were not overcome with jetlag, we did take a relaxing morning to adapt to the new location. After one attempted stroll at noon towards downtown resulting in saturation we resorted to a day of dvds & Nz daytime tv where I got myself Notebook-ed. As it is part of the commonwealth, stories from the UK make the headlines regularly here so you don't lose touch with the premiership. Drink driving & domestic violence (a national problem) are highlighted on tv here frequently as are seriously graphic sensible drinking adverts. Like our own national treasure, TnaG, there is also a Maori channel ... Oh and they have Coronation St but it's about a year behind....harsh.
On day 2 as the weather improved we started to attack our to-do list sorting out IRD numbers (PPS equivalent), bank accounts, unblocking phones, accommodation, transport, jobs, etc. Banks here charge for any transaction carried out in person, any online transfer & any statement you receive but conversely do offer higher rates of interest
D Auckland Harbour bridge
. Fortunately I went through an online company, Visafirst, who sorted out my IRD number & bank account back in December but Vane had to travel to Manukau City, an hour south of Auckland CBD, to verify her ID as the IRD form had since changed. Auckland has a huge amount of currency converting outlets which is no shock given the tourism industry. There are only 2 phone networks competing for your service, Vodafone & Telecom, the latter having SIM-less phones so with little competition phones here are sold unblocked. It's much pricier here to call as you are charged almost a dollar for your first minute full whack whether it's 59 seconds or 1 second & it's a flat rate all day long but international calls are much cheaper. I stuck with vodafone so now you can feel free to send your messages & prank calls to my new # 00642102722074. Landline phones don't charge for local calls here which is also handy.
Naturally given our desire to travel as much as possible we needed to get a set of wheels & the place to go is Ellerslie racecourse where throngs congregate each & every sunday selling/buying anything from a crockheap to a top of the range Jag. Mechanics are on site at $150 a pop to inspect any potential purchase & a VIR (Vehicle Information Report) can be carried out on any car at $50 a go to find out if there are any fees currently registered to the car owner. Incidentally insurance is optional over here & 3rd party is very cheap
D & V Circus
. They also have an equivalent of our MOT called a WOF which is not half as intensive but has to be carried out every 6 months to ensure road worthiness. Petrol prices over here are slightly cheaper than home $1.87/L & most stations have prepay systems after a bout of people running off after filling up over recent years.Divided into price ranges for easier searching, we combed through the cars under $5k until Betsy appeared. She was a shining vision, with curves to die for & a body which had been kept in shape over the years. She was destined to be my new 1993 Mitsubishi Emeraude wearing a nicely matching price tag which was bargained down to under $2k. It has central locking, an alarm system & most importantly a CD player which I was told is imperative for long distance driving as radio signals disappear outside main cities. It doesn't have personalised plates which actually makes it stand out over here.
Downtown Auckland is actually quite small roughly the size of Cork but with extremely undulating streets. In a way after all the upgrading of streets at home, it kind of resembles the city. It's an isthmus surronded by Manukau & Waitemata harbour so you get sweet views while walking towards the city centre over the motorway bridge (it's a spaghetti like junction underneath). Patrick St to us is Queen St to Aucklanders & it's packed with high street shops, oriental restaurants & lots of bookshops including a Borders wuhoo! I was aware that Auckland had a strong asian population but I had no idea that strong meant I was playing Where's Wally in order to find a kiwi
Car
. There are plenty of green reserves around the city such as Auckland Domain & Albert Park & a big open plaza in Aotea Sq where people tend to gather at lunchtime & holds a market each weekend. It's also home to Sky Tower which is the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere at 258m which has restaurants & casinos inside. Surprisingly there are quite a lot of immaculately clean public toilets scattered throughout downtown & the suburbs which are well maintained bar the odd George Michael lookalike. As our first weekend loomed we got to meet a few of Jim & Rosaries friends & the multicultural-Irish community that join together to play football. I swear there's more Irish here than there is at home mainly from Cork & the North. The Clare Inn is a local haunt where people rush to after sunday games & for thursday poker nights. Naturally there are plenty of pacific islanders here too (Auckland has the highest population in the world of polynesian folk), & man do eat their fibre. I'd say I could count on one hand the number under 100kg - they are enormous, half obese & half Arnies. Going out in Auckland feels like going out at home. We made friends with a girl working in the bank who brought us out & gave us a taste of the nightlife. For such a highly populated city it has a small town feel.
Kiwis are genuinely warm & friendly like when you are on a bus they shout thank you to the driver on exiting, a distant cousin of "sound ya langer"
D Hopetoun St
. They are also very obedient for example at traffic lights, jaywalking is a rarity. Also bus-stops here in downtown tell you exactly how long until the next bus...nifty. Being a tourist here you do feel welcomed. Definitely one of the their most peculiar traits is the fact they go to supermarkets & walk down along the streets shoeless ... bizarre. True to their reputation they are fitness & sports crazy. You see swarms of people jogging before work in the morning & immediately after in the evening straight from the office & if I haven't emphasised it enough already, Auckland streets rise & fall like there's no tomorrow so a simple jog is demanding. Huge floodlit pitches reveal teams training with rugby ruling the roost when it comes to sport although football is growing in popularity here. The coast line is packed with cyclists. Archery is practised in the park behind our house so yeah they like to stay active. The Auckland library resembles that of UCC but also provides free internet access & permits you to take out 35 books at a time & hold them for a month, which will no doubt help in planning our travel route. While there we spent our time on the trademe website, the quintessential bible for kiwis. It's a form of ebay but caters for jobs & accommodation also. Apparently the guy who started it invested $70k & was rewarded with $200M when he sold it recently. We made use of it searching for a place to live. Being a couple is a hindrance with the cliché "no cats, no couples" exhibited on half the pages & the other half having a fetish for cats so our choices were quite limited
Hilly streets
. After sending countless mails, we got one reply at the end of the 1st week which turned out to be perfect on viewing. It was based in the suburb of Mt Albert so we were only 20 mins from Auckland without traffic although traffic here is horrid. We have just one flatmate, a sound chap from Burnley along with the owner, a musician. Naturally driving always gets a mention so I have noted kiwi drivers have this strange tendancy to follow like sheep (In a country where there are more sheep than people maybe it's forgivable). You constantly find 2 lanes of traffic following the same path stopped at lights with a handful of cars in one lane & an army in the other but drivers continue to join the longest queue for some reason...loopers.
The job search had been an ongoing obstacle. We spent a couple of weeks sending out CVs to every recruiter in the Auckland area, every classified ad & every website. Companies here tend to go through recruitment agencies directly to find an employee & each recruiter wants a list of where your CV has been sent to as multiple copies sent to the one place are not appreciated. Like home they do take an eternity to give you feedback. After many trials & tribulations Vanesa got a job doing the books of the Auckland Law Society & I got a job with Innoflow working on wastewater systems so before anyone says it yes I'm still in the sh*t.
