Ignoring the fact that I lived in Ireland for 25 years and never visited France, which you can literally drive to,
we figured it would seem ridiculous to not visit New Zealand while living in Australia.
So we arrived in Auckland and added a new element of stress and excitement to our travel adventures: A hire car.
The plan being to drive from Auckland to Wellington, stopping off for a few different things. From Wellington we
would fly to Nelson where we would be picked up by my aunt and uncle for 2 days of family fun in Motueka. After
that, fly to Queenstown (they did not take my hints that they should drive us 7 hours to Queenstown) for skiing.
When we arrived in Auckland it was dark and raining torrentially. Compared to Melbourne it was also freezing cold
(about 6 degrees). Our new sat nav led us safely to our B&B in a charming little suburb with a large hill called
Mt Eden nearby. We were hungered, as all we had eaten was a McDonalds upon our arrival. We better eat something
healthy to counteract that McDonalds, we told each other, scanning the restaurant-filled street for a salad bar.
It is raining a lot though, Dan pointed out, and that Pizza Hut is right across the road. It happened. I'm not
sorry.
I have friends who lived in Auckland for a year, so between them and my uncle we had an absolute abundance of... 4
recommendations. Mt Eden was the first one. As it was right next to our B&B we walked up it. Even though it only
took 20 minutes I was still distressed to learn that if you want to, you can actually drive. Why even have the
damn car if we're going to walk up a mountain? Mt Eden is one of New Zealand's many volcanos, though the centre of
this one was just filled with grass and rocks. I'd never seen a volcano before, either dormant or active, so I was
very excited. It would be a long way to fall. Or a long way to climb back up if you were a drunken teenager who
decided to roll down to the bottom (I imagine this must happen). The peak offers panoramic views of the city,
which are said to be better than the Sky Tower (the second of our recommendations) so we took pictures with the
intention of comparing them later. The view was beautiful and the sky was surprisingly clear.
Onto our next recommendation, this one in fact from the girl working in the B&B, we walked down from Mt Eden into
the centre to walk up the main street (Queen Street). There is only one main street in Auckland. It's ok, but none
of the shops sold gloves, which was the main thing I wanted from Queen Street. It also wasn't Auckland's fault but
the weather deteriorated to a rather grey miserable point, where even if it wasn't raining you still felt like you
were walking around a black and white photo. We made our way to the Viaduct dockland area (third recommendation)
and had a wander, admitting that it would be very pretty in more clement weather.
The fourth recommendation was conveniently on the docks, the Maritime Museum. Dan was delighted of course, but
even I enjoyed the displays set up to mimic the interior of the immigrant boats. It's a rather good museum as they
go. While I can never get fully on board with looking at pictures of things behind glass, this one had more
entertaining stuff than many.
Our fifth recommendation (Queen Street added by our B&B friend) was the Sky Tower. Dan and I can't go on a trip
to any city without going to a really tall building. So up we went. As always, it showed the city from far away.
The novelty here though was sections with a glass floor, which you have to pay extra for in Melbourne. Top marks
to this particular Very Tall Building for that. If I'm really honest with myself, the view was better than Mt
Eden, plus we got to see it at night.
A friendly girl helped us figure out our bus back and asked us about our holiday. When we said we were going to
drive from Auckland to Wellington she adopted a worried expression, then dismissed it saying she was sure it would
be fine.
Back in our B&B we met a nice English lady who asked about our plans. "Haha good luck with that", she said about
our proposed drive from Auckland to Wellington.
Two ominous warnings that we should probably have taken seriously...