Aukland, New Zealand (Post #96)
Hello! I know, I know, we haven’t blogged in over 2 weeks. Maybe we hit the blog “wall”?! Michele here….Mike is on a computer next to me in an internet cafe on the south island of New Zealand. We both have blog assignments that we hope to finish tonight. If so, there will be six new blogs!
We flew from Singapore through Bali and Australia before arriving in Aukland, New Zealand on March 8th. Before we left Singapore, we were hassled a bit about that fact that we were flying to Australia and we didn’t have an electronic visa. We explained to the guy at the check in counter that we weren’t even getting off the plane in Australia since it was a continuation flight. This didn’t matter to him and our bags were put aside and we were referred to another desk. The people at the other desk said we needed an electronic visa in order to visit Australia and since we had not obtained one, they were unsure of how we were going to be allowed into Australia. We explained to them that we weren’t going to Australia for a visit and that this was merely a stopover. The guy explained the situation to several people at this special desk and none of them knew what we should be doing. When the counter suddenly became very busy he said, “Uh…don’t worry about this,” gave us our tickets, and checked our bags through. Hmmm…o.k., whatever!
Anyway…It was another one of those situations where we moved ahead multiple time zones (5 times zones to be exact) so when we went to bed at midnight on the plane we were practically landing and it was morning. Ugh! To make matters worse, while in Australia, our early morning stop, I bought a huge cup of coffee from a foofy espresso shop and drooled over it with anticipation. I obviously have enough experience to know that airplane coffee sucks so I was looking foward to my $3 USD coffee that I would be bringing on the plane from Australia to New Zealand. When I started to get on the plane I heard,
Airline staff: Excuse me, ma’m, you can’t bring coffee on the plane.
Me: Why not?
Airline staff: Because it is a hot beverage that could be spilled.
Me: Seriously?
Airline staff: Yes ma’m – but you can stand here next to us and drink it until we shut the doors.
The problem here was that I had the foofy espresso counter make it extra hot (boiling water) so that by the time I got the breakfast on the plane I would have an awesome, hot cup of high quality coffee to go with my meal. So, I tried to drink it but it was so hot it was burning my mouth off. After all the passengers got on the plane, I was left standing there with almost a full cup of coffee and had to leave it there with the staff. Can you believe it? You can’t bring coffee on an airplane these days! Sheeze! Coffee drinkers beware!
Upon our arrival in New Zealand we were given custom entry forms. We have filled out many of these but this one had some specific questions that pertained to us. One question asked if we had been hiking in another country in the past month. Answer = yes. Another question asked if we had hiking boots with us that had been used during our hikes in other countries in the past month. Answer = yes. Once we were going through customs and they saw these answers we were referred to the biohazard team. In the biohazard section of customs, we were told to unpack our backpacks and hand over our hiking shoes. We did this and it appeared as though they sprayed our shoes with some sort of anti-contamination stuff. They handed them back to us, only now there were wet and wrapped in individual plastic bags.
We caught a super shuttle mini bus from the airport to the hostel we were staying in downtown Aukland. The first thing we noticed is that we could read every sign and understand the converstations of everyone around us.
Aukland sort of reminds me of Seattle or Porland. The streets are wide and there are many funky coffee shops and clothing stores. We also commented how it was strange to see people walking dogs. We didn’t see any dogs in Malaysia or in Singapore and in many countries we had previously been in dogs were used as working dogs or guard dogs, not as pets.
While in Aukland, we spent time planning the rest of our New Zealand trip, making car rental arrangements, and setting up diving trips (you’ll soon discover scuba diving is our new passion). Since our hostel was in the heart of downtown we also walked around the downtown area quite a bit and visited the 328 meter Sky Tower at night in order to get some photos. This is anaward winning photo of the Sky Tower:
Photo — Mike
From downtown Aukland, we also took a ferry over to a Devonport. Devonport is a quaint suburb on the tip of Aukland’s North Shore penninsula and only about 15 minutes ferry ride from downtown Aukland. There are many well-preserved Victorian homes as well as upscale art galleries and cafes in Devonport. We did the “two volcano walk” described in our guide book, which took about 3.5 hours. We started by walking up to the top of the extinct volanco cone, Mt. Victoria. From Mt. Victoria there were outstanding views of Aukland and we could see the other extinct volcano, North Head. After leaving the first volanco and walking through the picturesque Devonport suburban streets, we stopped at a corner store (mom and pop shop) before heading to North Head volcano. From the top of the North Head volcano, there were also stunning views of Aukland as well as views of the homes of Devonport and neighboring Cheltenham Beach. Here is a photo taken from the North Head extinct volanco that includes a bit of Devonport (in the foreground) and the skyline of downtown Aukland: (I love this photo!)
Photo — Michele
After returning from our two volanco walk, we took the ferry back to downtown Aukland and visited an ice bar called Minus 5 Degrees. This bar is made entirely of ice (including cool looking ice sculptures) and Mike and I had to dress in special boots, gloves, and jackets to enter the bar. It was a bit expensive but certainly novel and we were both glad we went. They only served vodka drinks since vodka does not freeze. Here we are in our “gear” enjoying our vodka drinks in our glasses made of ice:
On the morning of March 11th, we left Aukland and headed for Tutukaka, New Zealand. This is very tiny town on the north island from which we would be scuba diving out to the famous Poor Knights Islands. Read blog #97 for more on driving adventures and stuggle to find a place to stay.
Tags: Category #26: New Zealand
Michele Harmon
Hey guys, I really enjoy reading about your travels! But, um, I think it’s supposed to be spelled as ‘Auckland’ , New Zealand? Anyways, I really like your blog on Taman Negara in Malaysia, which I am planning to visit and I am glad you managed to stop by in Singapore! I am Singaporean, and I have a love-hate relationship with my country – haha! I lived in the US for about 2 years – in Georgia – MIDDLE GEORGIA!! I was doing my undergrad degree at an all women’s college – Wesleyan College, Macon, GA!! Actually, I liked it very much – as long as I kept my mouth shut about religion and politics!! Hee Hee!nrPeace, alice