Auckland Holiday (Day 2)

The shuttle ride from the airport didn’t seem to take too long and traffic didn’t seem too bad. It was still pretty early but I don’t think the distance is all that great. The shuttle was reasonably full but not packed. They leave every 10 minutes on weekdays and I think I got there are after the peak demand following all the incoming flights.

We passed through Mt. Eden, which seemed vaguely familiar from some place. I imagine I must have seen mention of it once or twice in the past. After that I didn’t note any particular suburbs along the way but I am sure I must have missed a couple. The sun was rising at this point so I had a bit of a look at the landscape, which was already shaping up to be rather pretty. One passenger got off somewhere in the midst of the trip.

Soon we reached the CBD and the shuttle stops began. There were only about five stops, presumably placed at strategic locations to the various accommodation available. The driver had asked where I was headed when I boarded and I discovered my stop was the last. I got my first look at Queen Street, which I’ve heard about before. It was a lot to take in at this point but I had no worries since I’d be seeing quite a bit of that over time. After what seemed to be many twists and turns, we reached the last stop at the ferry terminal. This was about a 5-10 minute walk from where I was staying. I checked my map and decided my first priority was to find my way to the hotel. It was pretty easy to find as it was close to the harbour and just a couple streets up from there. I spotted the local grocery store, Countdown, along the way. This is the NZ equivalent of Woolworth’s, right down to the fonts and icons. By the time I reached the hotel, my back was getting sore. I was going to see if I could leave my bag there but the door was locked still, being just before 8am. I started walking away when a staff member came and opened up. It was fine to leave the bag there, which was such a relief for my tired being. I just had to lug my purse (which was backpack style) and my camera case with me.

My next priority was breakfast, so I traipsed back to the main part of the CBD to Queen Street. I figured not much would be open there but it seems most shops open at 8am in the area, which is at least an hour earlier than in Perth. While walking around I was feeling terribly undecided on what to eat. There were lots of places there but nothing really appealed to me. I had already even considered some place like McDonald’s or Burger King if nothing much was open but those really didn’t appeal…not to mention that’s food I can get any time…not that I tend to ever want it. :)

One of the things that struck me quite early was how many hills there were to climb in Auckland. It’s all just a bunch of hills and within an hour of arriving I had climbed several streets going uphill. It was quite the workout, particularly for this non-early morning person. I still couldn’t settle on anything. I almost laughed aloud when I came across a Denny’s there. I haven’t seen one in years but there was one in the midst of the many tall buildings. I came across the Sky City structure, the prominent feature in the city. I didn’t take any photos at that point because I was starting to get super tired and figured I’d get back there within a day or two anyway.

I walked back down Queen Street and tried to decide on some place there. Not even the Dunkin’ Donuts was appealing at that point. Eventually I found myself walking back to the Countdown store and looking to buy a drink and maybe something to eat. Within I found all sorts of interesting drinks and chose a bottle of some juice and another of water. I also got a couple of muffins and some fresh mandarins.

I left the store and walked down to where the “hotel” was. It’s quite close to Vector Arena, the major venue for concerts and sporting events (or at least it seems to be). In between the two is a park which goes right up to the old train station there. I found a shady place on bench there and plopped down to enjoy the drinks and food. I was really sleepy at this point and it was warming up as the day wore on, making a cool mist more of an icky mugginess in late morning to early afternoon. I moved around to different corners of the park as time wore on to get some perspectives and did take a few photos here.

As I was going in to the park, I happened to notice a guy in a wheelchair moving along the footpath nearby and the last I saw of him was going towards the old train station. After I’d moved a couple of times, I discovered him sprawled out on the ground, asleep in another part of the park. I later noticed he had moved onto the park bench where I had started out so I wonder if that was a usual location for him to hang out and I had taken it. After that day, I didn’t spend any time there and didn’t see him again but I do wonder what his story is…it didn’t seem like he was just hanging out there and I suppose it’s possible he may have been a street person but I don’t think that occurred to me when I first saw him.

While I was at the park, I would regularly hear trains passing nearby. I couldn’t really see them but they were quite near. Before I left the area, I walked around to find some trains to photograph for Lego Lover and was able to take a few shots of trains passing by from the city outwards.

While at the park, I also noted several birds that were unfamiliar to me. Many of them were really tiny and I still don’t know what they are called but they seemed to be fairly common. I tried to get some photos but I never managed to catch them close enough to get detail.

Finally it was 1pm and I was able to check in to my accommodation. I walked across the road to the “hotel” and checked in. This didn’t go quite as smoothly as I would have liked because the voucher I had showed I was supposed to be in a single room but then at the bottom it mentions in a four bed dorm. The single room description was the basis upon which the reservation had been made. It seems the company selling it had a history of misrepresenting the accommodation. Finally the proper reservation was found and I got my key. The room was on the fifth floor and, of course, the only bed left was a top bunk. I must admit that this was more of a downer than the idea of sharing a room, which I’d already kind of accepted would be the case. The room had a locker for valuables so I put my stuff inside and climbed onto the bed. It wasn’t an easy task with my excess weight and not very young body going at it. I did get there and managed to lie down. Eventually I managed to get a bit of sleep, perhaps 1.5 to 2 hours. I think somewhere early on, one of the other girls showed up and we exchanged brief greetings before I said I was going to try and get a bit of sleep. The first girl was English and when I woke up she was getting ready to go out after having worked all day. We chatted a little bit and then another girl came in, apparently also new, who is from Ireland. She was a bit older than the other girls there. She had also been working all day. I didn’t talk to them all that much as I wanted to go back out before dark. As Auckland is still on daylight savings time, it didn’t get dark until much later than here in Perth.

By the time I went out again, I was feeling really hungry, probably due to a lack of any protein in my earlier food. I went in search of dinner and ended up back on Queen Street. I considered eating at Wendy’s, kind of for old times’ sake, but the menu was fairly different to the one I remember from years ago. That kind of fast food just wasn’t appealing to me although if I had chosen a place of that sort, I probably would have opted for that instead of any other fast food place. I found a Zambrero’s down a side street and a Mad Mex on another street…both are Mex Grill places we like here. I finally decided I must eat something and chose the Mad Mex, mostly because I could be sure that Zambrero’s accepted credit cards and I knew Mad Mex did. The food was fine, but nothing that special and it felt rather heavy after having eaten so little in the previous day. I ate outside the place and watched people go by. It wasn’t terribly busy there but I did notice a couple other backpacker hotels on that street and suspect that many of the young people stayed there.

After that I walked back down Queen Street and down to the ferry terminal onto the quay. There was an interesting structure in the middle of one area that was currently empty but the outside was quite different from others nearby, with billowy sort of waves along the length of it.  I think that may have been the imagery intended as the buildings around there all seemed to have a nautical theme of some sort. I walked all the way to the end of the quay and found quite a few people hanging out on benches that were wide and shaped a bit lit chaise lounges. A couple of guys were fishing at the end and there were various sea-going vehicles passing nearby between the harbour and the various islands near the coast. Despite the many people, it was rather peaceful out there, watching the water and enjoying the evening.

Alas, dark clouds had started to move in rather quickly and it wasn’t much sheltered there, so I started heading back towards my lodgings. It did start to rain a bit while I was walking back so I stopped at times under shelter of various city buildings and managed to keep going for most of that time. I stopped in at the Countdown for a big bottle of water to use overnight and the next day. I also indulged myself in the chocolate aisle where I found my favourite Kiwi chocolate, Cadbury Perky Nana…chocolate covering a banana shaped sweet of some sort. We can get them here but they cost about 2.5 times more here and I don’t get them often. It’s really just as well since I probably would eat them too often otherwise. :)

There was more sporadic rain as I walked from the store back to the hotel but I arrived without getting too wet. It had gotten rather chilly so I was glad to have a light jacket with me. The forecast for the week ahead had called for rain pretty much every day and I rather expected it was going to get wet and cold all week and had taken two pairs of jeans just in case that did happen.

Anyway, I got back the room and the last of the four girls in my room was there. She’s from Australia somewhere and she’d also been working all day. I was feeling kind of tired so got ready for bed and climbed up onto the bunk and settled down with my tablet, my phone and my Nintendo DS XL. I hadn’t intended to bring the DS with me but then Lego Lover pointed out my love of getting hits on Street Pass (a sort of Wi-Fi/nfc system where you can record connections with other users of more recent DS consoles along with a few basic details like where they are from and what games they are play. The boys don’t use this much on their machines but I think it’s really cool and take mine all over just to get hits. Silly things that give me pleasure. :D Auckland was an ideal place to get some new connections so I took it along even though I hardly used any actual programs on it.

I used my phone to catch the Scientist on Skype for a little catch up. Then I scrawled a few notes on the tablet with the stylus about my day and then put it all to the side to go to sleep. Meanwhile a couple of the other girls were chatting away and eventually they were all there going to sleep. Lights had to be out after 11pm.  Aside from me, the others were all working the following day so late nights weren’t an option. It didn’t take a long time to fall asleep but I did wake up off and on through the night.

I will leave this at the end of day 2, which really was my first real day there. :)