Days 50–53: Auckland
Eking out our last few days of travelling in the big city
A very short flight from Christchurch took us all the way north back to Auckland.
We have fond memories of the North Island being very warm and we had more recent experiences of the South Island being somewhat nippier. We just put this down to the general change of season because it was hard to believe that just going a few hundred kilometres south would make that much of a difference. New Zealand isn’t that big, after all. Anyway, it turns out we were wrong.
While it still wasn’t that cold in the south, the difference when we got off the plane in Auckland was huge; straight back up to twenty-four degrees again. It was — quite literally — a very warm welcome. I’d actually started wearing my chinos and trainers back in Christchurch, but the vest and flip-flops made a whopping comeback despite my flip-flops looking like this…
I know you’re reading this and judging me pretty harshly, but you know what? I’m okay with that. Yes, they may look a little soulless, but they’ve been determined to carry me through to the end of our travels, and I’ve just not had it in me to dig my heels in and say no to them. We’ve been almost inseparable over the last fourteen months despite sleeping apart. They’ve supported me through rain and sand, and they’ve really gone out on a limb for me. They’ve carried out numerous great feats — most notably, my left one and my right one — and they’ve always toed the line. New Zealanders call flip-flops, jandals. I always thought this was a mash-up of Jesus sandals which seems appropriate given how holey mine are. It turns out though that jandals is actually a contraction of Japanese sandals, so I’m not sure that that pun still stands.
Anyway, I digress. I know I got a bit carried away with the flip-flop-based puns there, but then again, both flip and flop are a couple of legends so I think they’re worth mentioning. See what I did there? Legends… Leg ends… Genius.
I’ll be honest and say that I’m feeling quite hyper as I write this so I blame this rather bizarre blog post intro on that. I’m not going to delete it all because I believe it’s probably some of the best writing I’ve ever done, but I will now continue to tell you all about our time in Auckland.
Consider yourselves lucky; Anna has to put up with this on the daily.
We stayed at yet another Airbnb in Auckland. Granted, this one didn’t have a coffee machine… or an epic shower… or breakfast included… or a spotless kitchen… or a door to the bedroom. Okay, fine, the Christchurch Airbnb was way nicer, but the Auckland one was affordable, had everything we needed — except a door — and the people we stayed with were really nice.
They were an Indian family except that the older woman that the girl called mum, wasn’t actually her mum; they just live in the same house and share the same bedroom. Her actual mum lives in India still and her brother lives in Australia. There was also another couple sharing another room, but we don’t think they were related to either of the other two. It was all very complicated and we’re still not quite sure how they all know each other. If none of that made any sense, it really doesn’t matter.
All we know is that they were really nice, and Visha — who I initially thought was called Michelle because I misheard her pronounce her name — made us amazingly tasty parathas for breakfast one morning!
On the day that we arrived in Auckland, we didn’t get up to much other than getting to the Airbnb and then doing some food shopping. Since we no longer had the van, it was pretty painful walking for half an hour to the shops and then half an hour back again with our arms full. I know that’s a real first-world problem, but we did miss the van on that occasion.
On our first full day, we took a train into the city centre to take a look around. We did a fair bit of walking that day so we managed to get a good feel for what Auckland had to offer.
We started around the waterfront where there were a couple of massive cruise ships, and then we walked along Queen Street — the main strip in Auckland. Anna did a bit of shopping before we headed to Albert Park to eat our little packed lunch.
Everyone seemed to be having a relaxing time until a woman stood up on the water fountain and started shouting about how the government are trying to shut down free speech and are making New Zealand an Islamic country. Her reason being that the national radio station was going to play the Islamic prayer on the radio out of respect for those who were killed the week before.
She finished by singing the national anthem — really badly — and assuring everyone that she isn’t an extremist; she’s just a peaceful Christian. The whole thing was more amusing than anything, but it is sad to see these people who preach about living in a free country but simultaneously try to oppress other people in the country.
Oh well, there was still a lot of love and support for the victims and their families even this far up north, as this memorial shows…
After lunch, we wandered around the city a little more before catching the train back “home” for the evening.
The next day was another gloriously sunny day so we decided to do some more walking — we didn’t have much choice without the van!
The main hike of the day was to the top of Mount Eden — Maungawhau in Te Reo. It was more like a big hill than a mountain, but the views of the city from the top were great.
Mount Eden actually used to be a volcano and there was a very impressive crater in the top of it.
You could see the All Blacks’ stadium from the top too which just so happens to share the same name as my primary school — Eden Park.
From the top of the mount, we walked further down into the city to a place called Auckland Domain; basically, a huge park. We relaxed in the shade for a bit — we were pretty sweaty by this point — and then we visited the Wintergardens.
The gardens were a cool find, particularly the two greenhouses. They had some very cool looking plants…
For the last full day of our travels, we were treated to breakfast by our host, Visha. She made amazing spinach and potato parathas — we definitely went back for seconds.
We also spoke to a guy called Tony who is a close friend of the family. He recently got back from a trip to India so he was telling us all about that and all of the amazing food he had.
I already fancied a trip to India at some point, but after speaking to him, I almost considered rearranging our flights. Sometime soon, maybe.
We didn’t do much for the rest of the day other than taking another short walk up one of the nearer hills: Mount Albert.
It didn’t take us too long, but because the area we were staying in was fairly high up already, we still got some great views of the city from the top.
It was quiet too, so we played around on the hill marker like children!
We spent the rest of the day trying not to think about packing again for the second time in a week.
We do have one more day in Auckland, but I want to get this blog out before we leave and I’m not sure when I’ll be able to finish it up once we head to the airport. We don’t have much planned for the last day anyway, so it probably won’t make much difference.
You may hear from me once more very soon, but as far as mine and Anna’s travels go, we have reached the end. Just an eighteen-hour flight followed by a seven-hour flight, and after just over sixteen months away, we’ll be reunited with the UK once more…
… Just in time for Brexit on my birthday! Here’s to hoping for a birthday miracle and it all gets cancelled.
