Newt

We awoke this morning to blue skies and sunshine. We packed up our bags and checked out of the luxuary of our hotel. After tromping through Auckland with a bag that inexplicably desires to incapacitate me with its sheer weight (how did it get so heavy? Seriously!) We caught the train from Britomart Transport Centre to Penrose, the depot point where we were to pick up our Spaceship.
We arrived, and were cheerily greeted by yet another bizarrely smiley stranger. This was Charlie, who was going to tell us about our Spaceship. Named 'Newt' (Or, 'The Rare and Bizzarre Abyssian Newt of Destiny Mobile') our brilliant orange auto is going to be our transport and our home, for the next two months. Yep, two months - we have extended the hire for an extra 3 weeks, which takes us to the 20th November! We are sitting in a carpark by the Pak 'n' Save supermarket eating lunch and repeating 'This is our house now' on a loop. I think we are both in shock. My shock may stem more from the discovery that the car is an automatic, rather than a gearstick shift drive, as I am used to.
All the buttons and sticks on this car are the opposite way round to my little Ka. It is also huge, not unlike a tank. Also, as previously mentioned, it is orange and called Newt.
We have stocked up on enough food to feed a small army and now we are just trying to decide what direction to head in. Who knows where we will be by this evening.
Road Trip!!!!

Parakeet

'Sitting here on top of the bay, watching the sun fade away...'
I write this from a patch of very green, very spongy grass overlooking the yachts tethered in the harbour, Auckland rising up behind. Very 'City of Sails'. Alex is taking macro shots of the flowers and I am excitedly pointing out the brightly coloured parakeets flitting about from tree to tree.
How idyllic. The gentle hum of the motorway provides an unusual soundtrack, but nevermind.
We caught a bus from Queen's St. to Posonby, a district of Auckland that the guidebook promised was an olde-world creative coffee-shop type place with picturesque views over the harbour. The harbour part is right...if you tromp down vertical roads to get there! The street itself was a little disappointing, lined by a road instead of a gently winding pathway.
So, we walked/abseiled down the hill and took some oturist shots of Harbour Bridge and back over the sails to the city. We are sitting here for a while before attempting to find a way back to the hotel without having to purchase mountaineering equipment.
Parakeets are awesome. Fact.

Sunshine

We somehow managed to join temporarily with a peace march, they gave me a balloon :)



After perusing the map, we found a random little bit called, wait for it...'Emily's Place'! So brilliant, we visited it and it was a grove of 'Peheratakawa' (or something similar) trees which were actually the coolest trees ever. So we scrambled all over the trees, then through Albert Park which was lovely and verdantly green.


Today was the first sunny day we have had and was it gooood!
We went down to Queen's St. and round the Viaduct on a hunter-gather mission for food. The sea was about 20 different shades of blue and green, with steamlined sleek yachts gliding along.
We located a seafront coffee shop and I had the most yum breakfast ever. Try sitting on a hightop stool looking over the sea and islands across from Auckland, with a warm apricot and yoghurt muffin, librally slathered in salted butter from a tiny white porcelain pot, while drinking chilled guava and apple juice...oh it was great!
Anyways, forgetting my love affair with the breakfast menu, we then embarked on what turned out to be an 8 hour walking trip round and round (or should that be up and down?) Auckland, which is significantly larger than we had originally thought.
Then we went to Auckland Museum and looked over the entire collection of Maori history and New Zealand natural history. The Maori intricately carve every single part of their house, doors, tools, everything is decorated.

As we left the museum (halfway during the volcano exhibit), we decided to take a walk through the Domain (another park) towards a duckpond. This involved yet another hill, which was torture! After trawling through the fern-like rainforest, we made it back to civilisation.

Oddities

After waking at 4.30 this morning and partaking in an odd mix of cheese and scrambled eggs, we set off for Kelly Tarltons, Auckland's number one tourist destination and more importantly, the ideal location to while away a rainy day. Kelly Tarltons is an 'Antartic Encounter and Aquatic Adventure' and we went on a polar vehicle through a penguin habitat, as well as watching a diver being practically eaten by three gigantic manta rays with 2m wingspans and rotating through an underwater tunnel filled with vicious, man-eating sharks. We also travelled in a mini van masquerading as a giant shark, which was excellent.

Five Random Things about Auckland:
1) The crazy traffic lights - they click down, getting faster and faster, then a laser-like shooting noise, as if we have just been abducted by aliens whooshes out of the air and you have approx. 3 seconds to cross the gigantically wide, 5 lane road.
2) Rain expectation. New Zealand is equipped for regular rainfall. Instead of life stopping the moment the downpur starts, everything continues anyways due to every pavement being covered.
3)Freakishly friendly people. Every shop you go into is ringing with cries of 'Hey there!' 'How're you today?' and 'Whats up, guys?' It is brilliant, and yet both of us still treat this exuberance with mild suspicion.
4) The wonderful mix of Eastern vs. Western. For lunch today I had a tofu kabab in chilli-caramel sauce and a vege sushi roll. Alex had cantonese style beef. There was also an Italian, a Mexican, a 'Hollywood Bakery' and various other Asian cuisines.
5) The entire city of Auckland is built on about 70 volcanoes...some of which are still active. It is extremely hilly, and that, combined with the crazy traffic lights, makes getting places fast an issue. Especially if you are full of tofu and trying to catch a bus shaped like a giant shark. Fact.

Library

Here we are, in Auckland! Its so crazy, even though we are here I don't think it has quite sunk in. We woke up, the earliest I have voluntarily opened my eyes in years, at 7.30am. Its 18 degrees, and a bit grey and drizzly, but hey, a sudden burst of sunshine would have confused us native British rain-miesters.
The mission was simple. Get out of the hotel, and locate breakfast. This being one of my special talents, scrambled eggs and toast were found in approx. 5 mins of leaving the building. The staff were so friendly, and we have already had people chatting to us in the street, conversations fired off by Alex's Kent jacket.
It is such a bizarre, but workable mix of London higgedly-piggedly buildings, big wide American grid streets and Japanese-style street awnings and signs. We have been wondering around all morning taking it in, and are currently holed up in the Library to use the net. The Library is great, such a lovely space! It instantly makes me feel inspired and cultural. :P Connection is a bit slow though!

Landed

Wahey! Our flight finally was good to go at three, six hours after it was originally meant to leave. By this point, I was Sleepy, with capital a 'c'. We boarded the plane and Alex practically forced me into a travel cushion/sleep mask/ear plugs situation. I jumped a mile when they gave me my dinner (very hungry, wolfed it down) then passed out for the entire flight, jumping again when Alex woke me to get off the plane. The steward probably thought I had issues with seizures. Eye masks make me jumpy.
We got through customs, security, biohazard stage, lugguge collection. Amazing, considering at every other airport, my passport has been scrutinised way more than Alexs. On arriving in Sydney, I was even taken aside, into another room for a full on pat down and bag scan! Nerve-wracking! Alex thinks it is hilarious that I am constantly treated with such suspicion. *sigh*
We found a shuttle bus into town, no mean achievment considering I was practically sleep walking, which took us to our hotel. Already, everyone we meet is so friendly, its quite weird, considering the usual stand-offish British manner.
The hotel is awesome, we have the coolest room ever, complete with view of the SKytower, lit up beautifully. A quick shower to wash off the grime of travel, and sleep, glorious sleeeeep!
Pictures will arrive soon, I'm going to go out and take a load of first-impression shots to upload later.

Waiting

Sooo, its 4.24am in the UK, and about 1.15pm in Sydney. I still haven’t slept, but remarkably, feel fine. I shall probably crash out when I actually need to do something useful later, like locating the hotel. In the meantime, we are waiting for our plane. It has changed gates no less than four times, and it keeps being delayed. We have a great position with floor to ceiling windows onto the runway though, so we sit and relax, and watch the planes. The bizarre dust has cleared and its sunny outside now, so hopefully we’ll be off soonish.

Dust

That disk by the lamp in the above picture is actually the sun...


Upon swooshing into Sydney’s airspace, the sky turned a ruddy red colour, like being inside of a kidney, and the wind upped its game. Turbulence saw everyone strapped into their seats, looking out of the window anxiously…we were only 2000ft up and yet nothing could be seen of Sydney, which should have all its light blaring out like a beacon at 5am! The air was consumed by an intense dust storm, the like of which my flight partner, born and bred in Sydney, had never before seen in her life. The pilot made a few attempts and we circled loops over the Tasman Sea for an hour. Visibility was so low they couldn’t detect the airport, much less the runway! Just as we were about to give up and divert to Brisbane (not helpful, considering our connecting flight from Sydney to Auckland left in about 3 hours) the pilot made another attempt. We made it! The pilot sounded genuinely shocked, which was rather disconcerting, but we made it, so its all good. Now, sitting in Sydney airport for our connection (Please please come!) The news has said that Sydney city is taking a day off today – the dust is so severe. The air is actually orange, as if the world outside has been set in Orangina. Mental. What a welcome to Oceania, huh? Its like we just landed on Mars.

Journey

The day finally came! We departed Heathrow at 9.35 pm on Monday and I am not entirely sure what day it is now, or indeed, what time. I am in Sydney though.
We got comfy in our seats, complete with blankets, cushions, eye masks, socks and mini movie screens. Once off, we were fed, brilliantly picnic-like trays of tasty food with every type of utensil and condiment you can imagine is produced in small, logoed satchets. As I had vege meals, I rather fantastically got served first every time, leaving Alex and our seating partner (both carnivores) looking longingly at my feast.
There was an open bar, and hundreds of movies and cds and random tv shows to watch, as well as my ridiculously massive pile of magazines.
My task was to stay up for the first 9 hours of the flight at least, in an attempt to set my sleep cycle. Weirdly, I actually managed that feat with no issue! In the last hour, I dozed a bit but then we had breakfast before getting off at Singapore.
We were in the terminal wondering around for an hour whiles the plane refuelled, then we set off for Sydney. By this point, I was bored with the notion. This next stage was to be spent in sleep, ideally. However, despite lying back with my eye mask and cushions and blanket, and soothing music no sleep was forthcoming. Doh. About from semi-awake dozes, I have not slept in over 35 hours. Eurk.
The vege meals are getting more random though – the last one was macaroni cheese, with tomato sauce, red, green and yellow peppers and cold cauliflower and chickpea salad on the side. The others got some weird gelatinous green goo which Alex bravely identified as melon blancmange. Lucky for me, I got chocolate and a fruit plate  The joys of vegetarianism.

Departure

So, we find ourselves in the departure lounge of the airport...surprisingly, there is absolutely nada to do back here, unlike the usual sprawl of shops and cafes. We have visited starbucks and queued for long times in WHSmiths for sudoku magazines (with free pen!!!). We have also watched the planes take off and the sun set behind the runway. In half an hour, our flight will be called and we can board. Then, hopefully, dinner will be served. :p

I can feel the rumble of planes taking off through the seat, the walls and the windows. It is distinctly unnerving.

Flight Day

!!!

Alex has set off for the airport, I'm just about to depart too, I just need to track down my cat.

Scary moment! I fear emotional goodbyes await at the departure terminal.

Here we go!