Auckland, City Of Sails

Auckland is apparently called the city of Sails because 1 in 4 residents have access to some sort of sailing vessels.  From the pictures of the many harbours you can see that there are absolutely tons of boats here.  Another fact; although the city only has a population od 1.4 million, the city is the fourth largest in the world on land-mass, as the majority of residents live in cul-de-sacs in the suburbs and no one lives in appartments in the city center.  Great untill you see the traffic jams in the commute to work.

We arrived into Auckand airport around 7am, after our brief 12 hour flight from LA and were really lucky when we got the hostel as no one had been in our room the night before, and could check straight in and get a shower.  I felt sorry for the lad who was on the same flight as us, but had to wait untill 4pm.

To stay awake we quickly got out onto the street and managed to catch a free Kiwi Bus tour around the city.  This 4 hour bus ride was completely free and very interesting, not to mention the surburbs we saw that we otherwise would have never found out about.  First place after the Harbour bridge was an area called Deveonport, a really nice area part of the North Shore city where we saw a few extinct volcanos (there are over 40 around Auckland) and a still active one across the bay.  From the photos you can see this entire area is just gorgrous.

We saw a few more suburbs, grabbed a chicken tika pie for lunch, heard some history about british battery defenses and headed back to the city center.  We went back to the hostel and rested for about 5 mins.  4 hours later we woke up and feeling awful it was time for tea.  We went out to find it was pitch black (no window in room) and bloody freezing.  We walked down the main street for ages passing about 10 McDonalds and Burger Kings, before eventually sitting in a Nandos.  I think we had two half chicken meals for less than 20NZD, less than 3.50GBP each, i think thats cheaper than a big mac meal back in Britian.  We met a couple on the days bus tour and they were saying how expensive they thought NZ was, but they had just come from South America, namely Boliva where they were eating out for 40p each!  Its only now that i realise how expensive the UK really is.

Day 2 we spent the day exploring the city and the habour where all the americas cup (sailing) teams are based.  We saw a couple of city parks and the victoria market, but its just full nof junk shops selling fluffy kiwi's.  Id heard so much about New Zealands Pies that i had to try some and we went to Pie Mania in the center of the city.  I went for Peppered Steak, and it was absolutley nectar, proper spicy with thick gravy n all!  On the evening we headed up the skytower, the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere for some views of Auckland in the day and night, really beautiful with the harbour.  We then headed for some lovely Thai food which was excatly that, though a little bit spicy for Jill and Myself, as were calling the water lady over every 10 mins.  Oh and like everything else so far in New Zealand dirt cheap at less than 4 squid each.

On our last day in proper Auckland we headed to Waiheke Island, a smallish island off the Bay of Auckland that is easily accessed by ferry in 30 mins.  A women on the ferry told us to only drink bottled water as there is no water system on the island and all the locals drink from thier own water tower.  Their bodies are used to drinking water that has seagul droppings in, but that might give us softies diarrhoea.  Good Tip.  When we arrived on the Island you can instantly see that quite a few people park thier cars at the ferry terminal and commute into the city, but the island is at least a decade in the past.

The island is really beautiful and has an amazing beach cove around every corner.  We walked from the ferry to the islands main settlement Oneroa Village, where we got the famous Oneroa Fish & Chips (or Fush & Chups as the Kiwi's say).  Jill had the normal fish and (on Gary's recommendation) i went for the fresh Red Snapper, both in Beer batter of course.  We got normal chips but managed to try Kumara Chips (deep fried sweet potato chips) which were amazing.  Anyway it was the best fish we'd both had and the Red Snapper was just on a different level!  All for 9.70NZD hahaha, literally cheap as chips.  We then walked around the island for the rest of the day seeing beaches and coves, hopefully the photos will do it justice.

We then walked to another ferry terminal to get to Half Moon Bay back on the mainland, where i met one of my old swimming coaches Gary and he would look after us for the next day.  We saw a swimming pool, where the kids train in an open air pool, all year round regardless of the weather.  We then arrived at Gary's friend Jenny's House for a traditional Korean Barbeque.

Iv honestly never felt so welcomed and it was clear that Jenny had spent the entire day preparing our meal, as it had roast pototoes, home made sushi, home made dumplings, her grandmothers home made spicy paste, and then continued to barbeque this tiger beef, oninons and mushrooms infront of us as we feasted.  The first time we had eaten Korean, and im sure it will never be bettered!  You can see some of the feast on the photos.  We were then put up in a lovely room that came with a heated bed before our big trip to the Bay Of Islands the next day.