Auckland,
North Island,
New Zealand
Sunday, January 18, 2009
We walked all the way from our hostel into town with the rucksacks, we had the car on the way in a few days ago so we hadn't had to heave them all that way. We got "The $5 Bus" to the airport, which costs $7 bizarrely, the fella that owns it spent 13 years in Norwich and loves East Anglia so I wasn't bothered. We flew from Christchurch up to Auckland over the volcanoes and mountains of the North Island. Stuart and Anne were at the airport to pick us up with a ton of our mail from England and took us to One Tree Hill which was the largest Maori Pa (fort). There used to be a tree on it which was chopped down by the settlers then repalced by a non-native tree which Maori activists chopped down in 2000 so its no tree hill now. We stayed at a lovely motel nearby which Stuart and Anne paid for for us, although we have stayed in about 99% good places, stayign somewhere like that seems like absolute 5 star luxury. Thank you both again if you read this.
They showed us the city centre and took us on a ferry over to Devonport, a quaint little town on the other side of the harbour which reminded us of the Sydney ferry to Manly. We went for a superb meal, which they wouldn't let us pay for again. Lucy and I shared a huge seafood platter with ridiculously rich choccie brownie for desert which Lucy couldn't finish. In 7 years I have never seen her leave something chocolate (we did take it with us though for breakfast).
