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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
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“After a few routine questions and a swift stamp I was let into New Zealand” |
Well, we landed in Auckland at a pretty reasonable time - unfortunately we didnt know what that time was and it took us a good 20 minutes to actually find out the correct time as everyone we asked had something different - it turns out the clocks had changed the day before for daylight savings!
Anyway after landing we headed off to immigration to get new sparkly visas stamped into our passports - after a few routine questions and a swift stamp I was let into New Zealand. Thankfully I checked Tara's passport against mine as it turned out that I had been given the wrong visa! They had stamped me with a 6 month tourist visa instaed of the 12 month working holiday visa that I should of been given.
We collected our bags and headed towards customs where I hoped I could find someone to help me out with this problem. Thankfully a customs guy wanted to do a routine check on our bags so I explained my problem to him and he took me back through to Immigration to get it sorted - it was no problem they just swiped my passport and re stamped it. I also had to point out the immigration guy that had stamped my passport in the first place - Oops I think I got hime in trouble - but he shouldnt have stamped me wrong in the first place so it is his own fault.
So I headed on back through customs to meet up with Tara because she had my bags. A few minutes later we were sat on the airbus totally exhausted but headed towards the centre of Auckland and our hostel for the next 4 days Auckland Central Backpackers (acb).
After a quick Burger King and a walk up Queen Street we decided that it was too much effort after not sleeping for 2 days - so we headed back to the hostel to get some sleep.
Most of the next day was spent in a kind of JetLagged coma - I just felt so bad and didnt have a clue about what day it was never mind what the day was. Tara and I just ended up wandering around Auckland and tried to decide what our plans would be for the next couple of days and weeks that we had planned to travel around together for.
Due to the jetlag we were falling asleep at about 8 then waking up again at stupid times such as 3 and 4am - it was very annoying.
On the Saturday after we arrived we decided to go up the Auckland SkyTower - it was helpful that we had been given a free ticket for this attraction from the hostel because we were staying there for 4 nights.
It was only around the corner so we wandered around took some photos then headed inside to get the lift to the viewing platform.
The view was amazing - you could see the whole of Auckland - well a lot of it - and there these glass bits of floor which were aparantly as strong as the concrete floor - I wasnt so sure but put one foot on one anyway so that I could take a photo!
As it turns out Im not such a great fan of heights - so being up there wasnt fantastic for me - I took some cool photos though and watched the clouds roll in over Auckland which was pretty amazing.
We also went down to Auckland harbour - well what we thought was Auckland Harbour - we only found out that it wasnt when we went up the SkyTower - we were only around the corner from it though - and if only I had a lot of money so that I could buy one of those boats - the houses around here were pretty amazing too.
The Sunday was my final day in Auckland for a bit though as I booked my onward travel up to the North of the North Island - the Bay of Islands and Paihia. I decided to go with the Magic Bus people because they were the cheapest and are really flexible.
The rest of this day - well a good chunk of it anyway was spent at Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World. This was a bit of a waste of money really - it was good but is not really worth it if you are over 10 years old - the Stingrays were pretty cool though and the guy that fed them was pretty hot too!
The only other reason to go here is because of the Penguins - which are very cool - excuse the pun.
When we got back to the room - we packed our bags and got ready to head up North tommorrow morning - our bus leaves very early which is not good but is kinda necessary I guess
previous travel blog entry
abrahamshahalam says:
If you’re in NZ and looking for adventure, you’ve got to visit Queenstown. It’s not called the ‘adventure capital of the world’ for nothing