New Zealand – Auckland

 Day 1 – New Country/New Zealand!!

It was finally time to say our goodbyes to Australia and all of the friends we have made here. We were up at stupid o’clock to get to the airport to catch a 6.00 flight.  It was very sweet as Donna and Tracy got up at 3am to say their goodbyes to us, we then waited anxiously for our cab to the airport that turned up late.

The flight to New Zealand took around 4 hours and with another 2 hour’s time difference (forward) we arrived in Auckland around midday.  We are now the furthest point from home and 12 hours ahead of the UK!

We then caught a bus into Auckland city and after a short walk we found the block of flats where our Air BnB was.  After waiting for someone to come out of the building so we could get to the mailbox where the apartment keys , we then let ourselves into the apartment.

Although the apartment was central, quite big with a balcony it was quite dirty complete with a used condom wrapper under the settee cushion….nice!!

Anyway we quickly unpacked and headed out to check out the city and get our first impressions of New Zealand.  A short walk down the road and we soon found ourselves in an old bar to do our usual toast of being in a new country.

From here we wandered around Auckland checking out a few bars along the way before heading to  a supermarket (Countdown, the New Zealand version of Australian Woolworths), where we picked up some supplies for the next few days.

We headed back to the apartment where we cooked some dinner then spent the rest of the evening watching a lot of episodes of Breaking Bad. We ended up having a very late night whilst Shell washed and dried all the bedding as judging by the cleanliness of the apartment we did not trust the sheets!!

Day 2 – Blogging Day!

We got up fairly late (Glenn not Shel) and cooked a breakfast before spending most of the day doing some serious blogging and research, booked a hire car for 3 weeks and did some research where we were going to head for first.

The weather was not great so the only time we went out was to go to the supermarket to pick up things for our evening meal.

Our evening meal was our Muriel special of lamb cutlets, potato, salad and yogurt/mint sauce, but unfortunately it was not as tasty as when we cooked it outside the van!

For the rest of the evening we continued blogging then watched another bunch of Breaking Bad episodes before going to bed. Sometimes you just need a Sunday type few days when you are traveling!

Day 3 – Groundhog Day

We woke to torrential rain that continued all day, so the day was pretty much spent exactly the same as the day before, blogging, research and TV.

So we basically did not see a great deal of Auckland but did pump out a load of blogs (which you may have noticed if you have been following) which caught us up on Australia.

Also due to the lack of exploring in Auckland I only have a couple of photo’s for this blog, which was the Sky Tower which was just next to our apartment.  Hopefully we may get a chance to see a bit more when we pass back through here before catching our flight to Chile.

Once again we watched a few more Breaking Bad before heading for bed.