On Oct21st after enjoying fine Argentinian steak, flan and Malbec wine, I took a long 14 hour flight to Auckland. The flight itself was remarkably smooth. Although they offered dinner at 1AM in the morning which I refused but they served breakfast 11 hours after that so I was very hungry!

Had a very interesting experience with NewZeland customs. Because of my hiking shoes and tent in the backpack, they decided to go through all my things, the bastard even opend the iodine tablet bottle (used for water purification).
I have no idea what he was looking for.

Anyway, checked into Xbase hostel in downtown Auckland. Nice place, the dorms are very cramped. But the hostel has nice Sauna and pool. Auckland itself looks like mini San Francisco with its ferry building and the wharf. Otherwise Auckland downtown itself is full of McDonalds, Burger King and Starbucks!

In the afternoon got my Motorola cellphone unlocked for $39 NZD. Purchased a Vodafone Sim for $35NZD. The nightlife in Auckland is nothing to write home about, it seems. I went to couple of clubs with guys from the hostel, most were playing Rap music, not my cup of flat white!!

On 22nd I took a 9.15 ferry to island of Rangitoto islands and walked up to the top of the volcano, its only about 250 meter high. Its a nice hike, you get good view of the Auckland city and islands around it. On that day there was yatch race from Auckland to Darwin so there were lot of interesting yatchs in the harbor, although the day was bit cloudy.

It is interesting that Ranitoto island is only 600 years old and it has so much vegetation, whereas the Galapagos islands are million year old and very little. But Ranitoto is 10km from shore and Galapagos are 600 km. I wonder if Galapagos will change rapidly in next 100 years with so many people visiting it and bringing things with them...

Anyway I took overlander from Auckland to Wellington. The train left Auckland at 9.25AM and arrived in Wellington at 8.45PM. The train itself seems old, mostly tourists, but did not meet anyone interesting. The train was full of much older couples from UK and USA. The train ride itself was very good. The country side looks very lush with lots of ships and cows. I would certainly recommend this train ride if you like the train rides.