well i’m on my way…

Is was pouring down rain my first full day in Auckland.  Ugh.  I miss Australia already!  I tried to take a walk to the supermarket-what would normally be a 20 minute walk ended up taking me nearly an hour.  Between stopping under awnings and fighting with my inside-out umbrella I ended up getting soaked, which was strange because every few minutes the rain would change.  It would alternate between a downpour and a soft rain.  But every time the rain let up a bit, the wind would take over.  I was bent over trying to walk against the wind.  It was insane!  I ended up hanging out in the hostel most of the day.  I couldn’t be bothered to deal with the rain.   I went out with my roommates to a bar, didn’t stay out late, but did ask the busker (street musician) to play some Bob Dylan for me when I noticed his harmonica stand on his collarbone.  I had to give him a dollar and he played “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright”.  Great stuff.

On Saturday I went with my German roommate to walk around the city and go to the top of the Auckland tower to check out the view.  The weather here is very intermittent-rainy one hour and clear blue skies the next.  It had been raining for quite a while when we got to the top (53 stories I think?) so the views weren’t that great, but it was neat to see all of the extinct volcanoes around the city.  Lisa (the roomie) was afraid of heights, so it took her a while to get off the wall in the center.  I, on the other hand, was all up on the windows looking down, thinking to myself, “This isn’t that high…” Parts of the floor were glass instead of concrete and it was very entertaining watching everyone else afraid to step on it and then warming up to the idea of looking down below.  Lisa wouldn’t go near it, and of course, I took a photo of my feet suspended above the city below.  Lisa went back to the hostel and I hopped on the $1.60 bus that goes in a big circle around the city.  It was a good way to get an overview of the different areas of the city.  I went out with Lisa and a few other people from the hostel.  The bar we were in sucked;  some of the people we met were going to another bar that had a cover, but myself and a few of the other people are on a budget, so we went to the bottle shop (liquor store) and picked up a few bottles of wine and drank at the hostel with more like minded people.

I woke up after 6 hours of sleep ready to do some walking.  I walked 2 hours away from the city to check out Mt Roskill, the only reason being our names so similar!  I sat at the top and surveyed the land.  Today was clear so the sights were much better.  I checked out my map and realized I wasn’t too far from One Tree Hill, the exact hill U2 named their album after.  I also heard of a Coast to Coast Walkway that was supposed to be a nice scenic way of seeing the city.  I tried finding it with no luck for a while, but stumbled across it a few times while taking city streets to the tourist sights.  After checking out the view from the top of One Tree Hill, I realized that it was pretty much the same view I had from the Auckland tower, except today the skies were clear.  I saw quite a few sheep and lots of people trying to run up this hill-or ex volcano if you will. 

I realized that I was on the same street of a burger joint a friend had recommended to me.  She claims this is the best veggie burger she’s ever had and still gets cravings for it-and she was here in Auckland years ago.  So I ordered it, not knowing what was on it.  When they handed it to me, I thought they were handing me a brick.  I opened it up and examined the contents:  avocado, fried egg, lettuce, tomato, onion, shredded carrots, beetroot, pineapple, hashbrown, mushrooms, and salsa-all on like a French burger bun…yum!  It was so big it was hard to eat-it’s unfortunate that I could never get a bite that contained everything.  But it was so good!  So if anyone’s ever in Auckland, go to Alligators.  

By then I was exhausted (I’d then been walking for 7 hours) so I started heading back towards the city.  I stumbled across Harley Davidson (it was one of those days where you find everything you might be looking for) but being Sunday it was closed.  Near my hostel, I noticed a few old looking headstones popping out from beind a fence.  There was a huge sign advertising Symonds Street Cemetary that told about this history of it-it was really only used from the 1840s-1880s, so it’s a prime example of the Victorian headstones, not to mention a great way to research family lineage.  The cemetary is set on the side of a hill, and this hill is covered in beautiful foilage-palm trees, other trees unidentifiable to me, but massive with lots of brances and huge leaves.  I felt like I was in a rainforest (and technically maybe I was).  I have never seen a more beautiful cemetary.  If it was open, I’d change my mind about being cremated and want to be buried here. 

For those of you who don’t know me, I kind of have a thing for old cemeteries and ghosts.  I love walking around, inspecting the headstones, looking at dates and names and inscriptions.  And the afterlife has always interested me.  I spent a summer of my teen years hanging out in one of the most haunted places in the United States, if not the world-an old cemetary called Bachelor’s Grove.  Those of you who do know me, you know damn well I flipped my camera to black and white and started taking crazy amounts of pictures.  I think I took 100 but I haven’t had a chance to look at them yet.  I’ll let you know if anything comes out.  (The supernatural is known to appear through other forms of media-aren’t usually seen by the naked eye.)  I found a set of stairs and began descending them, until I got that instinctive feeling in my gut, not afraid of ghosts, but it was very near dusk, I had no flashlight, and I could hear branches falling off trees around me.  I promised myself I would come back in the daytime.  I think I spent over an hour there.  What an awesome day!   

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 22nd, 2009 at 4:10 am and is filed under New Zealand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.