01-09-2003. The flight over to Auckland was fantastic. Unlike other flights before, there were monitors in the back of the seats in front, so we could choose from a menu of films and even video games, as you can imagine I was in my element – I’d even managed to get to level seven of Epileptor 2 by the time we landed! Sarah instead watched ‘Finding Nemo,’ chuckling and ‘aaahh’ing all the way to New Zealand! As our plane came in on it's final approach we flew right over the tip of North Island, we were amazed at how similar the terrain is to that of England, a cross between the South-West and North Yorkshire.
Our friend Bek met us at the airport. She looked a bit worried and thought she’d missed us as we’d been kept back in customs for ages. They made us unpack our backpacks as they wanted to check our tent and boots for contamination, even our Didgeridoo was taken away for testing as they said it was made of a 'non-native' wood. When we finally got out of the airport building we made our way over to Beks place at Mission Bay, close to Kohimarama and only a few km's out of Auckland itself. Bek had kindly offered to let us stay whilst in Auckland. As her place is a small studio apartment it meant she had to give up her double bed and sleep in the next room, as you can imagine we were pretty grateful.
We’d both decided whilst in Sydney that we ought to get work once we reached Auckland. We’d checked our finances, and although we’d probably manage to get to South America we feared that things might be that tight we’d literally be able to do nothing while we were there. So we spent the next few days scouring the papers and the local area for jobs. Sarah found a job almost straight away in a bookshop; literally five minutes walk from Beks place up at Eastridge. I also fell lucky when Bek said there would probably be some casual warehouse work at the place she works. I guess we were really amazed to both be working within a week of our feet touching the ground in New Zealand. It seemed really strange working in a warehouse doing manual packing work, how people do this day-in-day-out I’ll never know, it must drive them insane. I couldn’t believe it on the fourth day when they actually had me making plastic Kiwis, very cultural eh! There were several thousand of them and I had to stick eyes on every one!
Sarah’s birthday fell on the sixth and as a treat (courtesy of Sazzle & Chris back home - thanks loads guys!) we all headed down to the waterfront, to a little restaurant on the corner called Portofino. It was great to eat a nice meal in a 'proper' restaurant, quite a change from budget noodles and vegetables! We’d seen Sarah's birthday in the previous night when Bek had a bit of a party with a few friends at her place. Needless to say we both had sore heads the following morning.
One evening a pretty heavy storm blew in. From Beks house we could see lightning flashing over in the direction of the city. Bek suggested we jump in the car and drive over to Mount Eden, a dormant volcano overlooking Auckland. The view was incredible; we watched lightning illuminating whole sections of the night sky from our 360-degree viewpoint. The lightning storm attracted quite a crowd even made the news the following night. On Thursday the 2nd we both finished our jobs, we’d done as planned, staying at Beks for just a few weeks until we’d accumulated enough money to cover our travels around South Island. My last day passed pretty uneventfully and if I’m honest I was glad to finish, the job was beginning to drive me mad. Sarah in contrast had a great last day, the girls at work bought her a huge bouquet of white roses and Allisi the Manageress wrote her a fantastic reference. It seems Sarah really made an impact in the short while she worked at the shop, even the owner popped by to tell her to look no further if she ever wanted work in Auckland again. Nice to know eh!
Earlier that morning we’d dropped Bek off at the airport which meant we had her place to ourselves over the next few days. It made Thursday a really long day as we all had to get up at 4am to make sure we got her over there on time. Needless to say we had a good lie in next morning and that evening we got a bottle of wine and a video (Lord of the rings!) and had a quiet night in, we’ve not done that for ages – it was great, just like being at home!
The first few nights we we’re at Beks we met Kate who Bek works with and Simon her partner, a really nice couple. As Bek was away, they’d offered to pick us up and take out sightseeing around the Auckland region. We had a fantastic time, driving first over to the western coast to a desolate looking black sand beach at Piha. We walked up Lion rock and even got filmed by a German film crew making a travel film! From there we headed across country through the Waitakere ranges to the east coast, where we stopped at a small beach for a picnic south of Warkworth. The eastern coast has white sand beaches and the vegetation is noticeably different from that of the west. The east seems more rural with much more of the land seemingly employed in agriculture of one sort or another. We eventually reached Goat Island and walked down across the rocks to see the fish swimming along the gullies. The visibility wasn’t that good as we’d had quite rough weather over the last few days but we did spot a few large snapper. That evening Kate and Simon threw a BBQ and invited their parents and a friend over, we had a really nice evening, eventually crawled onto their sofa a bit worse for wear around 2am. Great company and a great night. Next morning Simon was up early and rustled up bacon & eggs to soak up the alcohol before we headed off for some more sightseeing, along the coast area by Howick and Music point. Kate and Simon’s place is quite close to Howick at Mellon's Bay and has the most incredible vista across the foreshore and gulf; people back home would pay a Kings ransom for such a view. Kate and Simon would ideally like to buy the section the house stands on, but seemingly, as everywhere, house prices are spiraling upwards at an alarming rate in New Zealand also.
Kate and Simon dropped us off at around 4pm, we’d had a great weekend plus we’d been given the opportunity to see parts of New Zealand I’m sure we would have missed traveling on our own. It was great to meet two like-minded people who’ve traveled themselves and who are so enthusiastic about sharing the beauty of their country. More importantly, we both felt we’d made two new friends, I’m almost certain we’ll be bumping into Kate and Simon again in the future. (If you read our journals guys, I know you said no more thanks are allowed - but I guess one more won’t harm, so thanks again for a great time!)
Sunday evening we drove over to the airport again to pick up Bek after her stay in Sydney. As she'd been, we were now getting excited about our own flight down to Queenstown on Tuesday, being at the airport again just made things worse! We spent our last day in Mission Bay sorting out a few tax forms, to try and claim our income tax back before we leave, plus picking up a few last minute knick-knacks from the city. Sods law; the day we leave the sun comes out – typical eh!
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