Tuesday, March 29, 2005 (Auckland – New Zealand NI)
Attacked by the bed. Food gone - road trip.
Trying to find foreign currency in another big city. Still shopping for that
illusive New Zealand souvenir whilst watching people jump off a tall tower. A
definite feeling that we've now done New Zealand.
Day 386 (196). Once again, it was nice to be
able to rest and relax this morning with nothing pressing us to get up and
active. I’m now sporting a gash on my leg from one of the mattress springs
that is just popping its head through. I must have been fast asleep when the
wound was inflicted as I only noticed it myself this morning by accident. The
fugitive bedspring is just one of so many things that are wrong with this place
that it’s almost funny. Even with all its faults, however, this is an
extremely laid back and relaxing hostel and one that is strangely very
comfortable.
Other than some spices, dried noodles and a few condiments, we’ve
exhausted out bags of foodstuffs and so had nothing to eat for breakfast this
morning. There was only one thing for it – road trip to the supermarket.
It’s times like this that I’m so very pleased that we’ve had
the budget to spring for a rental car in countries like New Zealand. The freedom
and flexibility that a car brings with it is something that cannot be
underestimated. The supermarket is a couple of Kilometres up the road and even
though we had to pay NZ$2 (€1.16) to park the car for an hour, it still
worked out cheaper than the cost of a couple of return bus tickets. We collected
enough supplies to last us now through to this evening and tomorrow morning. The
hostel owner was good enough to let us borrow his supermarket discount card but
I have no idea if it did us any good or not. Still, it was a nice gesture on his
part.
We wanted to explore a bit of Auckland itself today but we returned first to the hostel to whip up a few sandwiches for lunch before setting off into town. Since parking is such a nightmare here too, I asked the hostel owner about getting into town by bus. As luck would have it, the city centre bound bus departs every few minutes from just around the corner and for just NZ$1,30 (€0,75) each, it seemed that this would be one of those opportunities to leave the car where it was. At least we wouldn’t have the hassle of finding a place to park it upon our return again either.
Auckland is another city. After you’ve seen twenty or thirty of them, they all look alike and this one is no different. One thing that I was particularly keen to get out of the way with was the procurement of some ready cash for our arrival in Tahiti. We’re only expecting to be there for a day and a bit but we’ve been advised to bring some cash with us.
There is an ATM at the airport on Tahiti but little else and we’ve read
more than one horror story from people who did not enjoy Tahiti because of
logistical problems and the sheer expense of French Polynesia. With the NZ$6
(€3,48) commission factored in, I spent NZ$495 (€287) buying
FCP31,000. Our B&B on Tahiti will cost us FCP9,500 and the rental car for
the day and a bit came in at FCP8,672 after adding insurance. I’m hoping
we will now have enough money to spend the day on the island without needing to
fall back on our credit card. I’m not sure what, on the other hand, to do
about my attempt to try to retain one of every bank note and coin from every
country that we visit. A FCP10,000 note is already over
€90!
It is a nice feeling to know that we now have everything covered for our brief stopover on Tahiti. Trying to find local currency for Chile and Easter Island, however, was a completely different matter. None of the banks or money changes we tried throughout the city centre had any Chile Pesos in stock. Several places we tried recommended that we take US Dollars with us instead. Fortunately, we have a stockpile of those already.
The bus had dropped us off at one of the main shopping streets in the city centre and we tried to explore some of the souvenir outlets for that elusive keepsake that we’re still looking for to remind us of our time here in New Zealand. For some reason, Chinese staff manned each and every souvenir shop that we went into. I have absolutely nothing against the Chinese per se but it did make me wonder whether all the shops were owned and operated by the same company. If so, there was no way we were going to find a bargain or any significant difference in price between in stock between the souvenir shops. I did see several things that took my liking but I just couldn’t bring myself to pay up to NZ$100 (€58) for a carved wooden curio that I might have paid just US$3 (€2,30) for in Africa.
Standing tall over Auckland is the huge needle tower. It looks quite similar to
the one in Seattle, although neither of us has been to Seattle before. It also
looks very similar to the Stratosphere tower in Las Vegas. It was just a couple
of blocks from where happened to find ourselves after shopping around for
foreign currency so we walked over to see if we could make our way up to the
observation deck. There are two observation levels and for just NZ$13
(€7,54) each after YHA discount, we were given tickets to both. A nice
touch was the glass floor in the lift on the way up through the tower’s
spine.
New Zealand is well known for all the extreme activities that it offers. One such activity is jumping off the tower with a cable attached to guide your decent down to a landing pad at the street level. We watched as one woman gave it a go and that was about as close to it as I wanted to get, despite Sandy’s egging me on to have a go for myself.
We spent about an hour staring out over the city from the two observation decks of the tower before descending back down to earth again and continued our search around the city for Chile Peso and a souvenir. We ended up giving up on the Peso but I finally cracked and bought a wooden Maori fighting bat for NZ$54 (€31,32). Finally, we now had something to join our gold panning bowl as a reminder of our time here, apart from the several thousand photos of course.
We probably could have made much more of our time in Auckland but the truth is that we are both tired and have the feeling that we’ve now done New Zealand enough. We rode the bus back to our hostel where Sandy rustled up another one of her microwave chicken specials for dinner. I've been sitting here on the Internet all evening, sending and receiving e-mails relating both to our recent travel updates as well as the work front that I will need to contend with in the weeks to come.
Other than some spices, dried noodles and a few condiments, we’ve
exhausted out bags of foodstuffs and so had nothing to eat for breakfast this
morning. There was only one thing for it – road trip to the supermarket.
It’s times like this that I’m so very pleased that we’ve had
the budget to spring for a rental car in countries like New Zealand. The freedom
and flexibility that a car brings with it is something that cannot be
underestimated. The supermarket is a couple of Kilometres up the road and even
though we had to pay NZ$2 (€1.16) to park the car for an hour, it still
worked out cheaper than the cost of a couple of return bus tickets. We collected
enough supplies to last us now through to this evening and tomorrow morning. The
hostel owner was good enough to let us borrow his supermarket discount card but
I have no idea if it did us any good or not. Still, it was a nice gesture on his
part.We wanted to explore a bit of Auckland itself today but we returned first to the hostel to whip up a few sandwiches for lunch before setting off into town. Since parking is such a nightmare here too, I asked the hostel owner about getting into town by bus. As luck would have it, the city centre bound bus departs every few minutes from just around the corner and for just NZ$1,30 (€0,75) each, it seemed that this would be one of those opportunities to leave the car where it was. At least we wouldn’t have the hassle of finding a place to park it upon our return again either.
Auckland is another city. After you’ve seen twenty or thirty of them, they all look alike and this one is no different. One thing that I was particularly keen to get out of the way with was the procurement of some ready cash for our arrival in Tahiti. We’re only expecting to be there for a day and a bit but we’ve been advised to bring some cash with us.
There is an ATM at the airport on Tahiti but little else and we’ve read
more than one horror story from people who did not enjoy Tahiti because of
logistical problems and the sheer expense of French Polynesia. With the NZ$6
(€3,48) commission factored in, I spent NZ$495 (€287) buying
FCP31,000. Our B&B on Tahiti will cost us FCP9,500 and the rental car for
the day and a bit came in at FCP8,672 after adding insurance. I’m hoping
we will now have enough money to spend the day on the island without needing to
fall back on our credit card. I’m not sure what, on the other hand, to do
about my attempt to try to retain one of every bank note and coin from every
country that we visit. A FCP10,000 note is already over
€90!It is a nice feeling to know that we now have everything covered for our brief stopover on Tahiti. Trying to find local currency for Chile and Easter Island, however, was a completely different matter. None of the banks or money changes we tried throughout the city centre had any Chile Pesos in stock. Several places we tried recommended that we take US Dollars with us instead. Fortunately, we have a stockpile of those already.
The bus had dropped us off at one of the main shopping streets in the city centre and we tried to explore some of the souvenir outlets for that elusive keepsake that we’re still looking for to remind us of our time here in New Zealand. For some reason, Chinese staff manned each and every souvenir shop that we went into. I have absolutely nothing against the Chinese per se but it did make me wonder whether all the shops were owned and operated by the same company. If so, there was no way we were going to find a bargain or any significant difference in price between in stock between the souvenir shops. I did see several things that took my liking but I just couldn’t bring myself to pay up to NZ$100 (€58) for a carved wooden curio that I might have paid just US$3 (€2,30) for in Africa.
Standing tall over Auckland is the huge needle tower. It looks quite similar to
the one in Seattle, although neither of us has been to Seattle before. It also
looks very similar to the Stratosphere tower in Las Vegas. It was just a couple
of blocks from where happened to find ourselves after shopping around for
foreign currency so we walked over to see if we could make our way up to the
observation deck. There are two observation levels and for just NZ$13
(€7,54) each after YHA discount, we were given tickets to both. A nice
touch was the glass floor in the lift on the way up through the tower’s
spine.New Zealand is well known for all the extreme activities that it offers. One such activity is jumping off the tower with a cable attached to guide your decent down to a landing pad at the street level. We watched as one woman gave it a go and that was about as close to it as I wanted to get, despite Sandy’s egging me on to have a go for myself.
We spent about an hour staring out over the city from the two observation decks of the tower before descending back down to earth again and continued our search around the city for Chile Peso and a souvenir. We ended up giving up on the Peso but I finally cracked and bought a wooden Maori fighting bat for NZ$54 (€31,32). Finally, we now had something to join our gold panning bowl as a reminder of our time here, apart from the several thousand photos of course.
We probably could have made much more of our time in Auckland but the truth is that we are both tired and have the feeling that we’ve now done New Zealand enough. We rode the bus back to our hostel where Sandy rustled up another one of her microwave chicken specials for dinner. I've been sitting here on the Internet all evening, sending and receiving e-mails relating both to our recent travel updates as well as the work front that I will need to contend with in the weeks to come.
Posted: Tue - March 29, 2005 at 11:07 PM
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Published On: Mar 29, 2005 11:07 PM
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Published On: Mar 29, 2005 11:07 PM