Auckland: at a glance

On January 25 we left Australia for New Zealand!

Bye Australia!  We will miss you so!

Hello New Zealand!

Thanks China Air!  You've been swell!

We took a bus from the airport to the place we were supposed to pick up the key to our apartment and then we had to walk about 15 minutes up and down hill (with all our luggage) to our apartment.  Not convenient or fun!  We finally made it to our apartment.  It's nothing special, but it gets the job done.  What's really nice about our building is that we have a pool, gym and tennis courts.  Yay!  I haven't done a walk through yet, but I'll post pictures once I do!

After we unpacked, we walked 7 minutes to the grocery store, called Countdown, and got some provisions and called it a night.  Here's Countdown:


The next day, we wandered around the city:

Queen Street and Victoria Street are the main streets near us (about 10 minutes walk).

This is the Sky Tower:

You can pay $28 to go up and see the view.  You can also pay $145 and do a "Sky Walk," where you are harnessed and walk along the edge.  You can also pay $250+ and do a bungee jump off the top.  We're planning on just doing the $28 viewing, we don't want to pay for the rest.

We walked inside just to have a looksie:

Like I said, we didn't go up, but we plan on it soon.

Albert Park (about 7 minute walk from our apartment):

Where's Aaron?

There he is!
The trees are so trippy!  I feel like I'm in Middle Earth already!

Beautiful!

The next day we went to an outdoor festival at Silo Park, at the end the wharf.  So to recap, the day before we walked inland into central Auckland and today we walked along the edge, by the water.  Let's look at a map:

We live on the far right side, off of Beach Rd (pretty much right where it says "Beach Rd").  We're walking all along Quay Street, which is the main street along the wharf.  We walked all the way to the end of the wharf, where it says "Wynyard Wharf," about a 25 minute stroll.

They're having a bunch of festivals here this weekend because it's some sort of anniversary weekend:

Perfect timing!  Let's walk along the wharf:

It's really beautiful down here and it's so close to our house, we've already come back a couple times.
We ran into a street performance:

Neat-o!!
Kept walking:

There's a swimming area sectioned off here:

They have a bunch of restaurants lining the wharf:

and a little park, with a kiddie pool, basketball court and play structure:

There really is something for everyone in the family!

We finally reached Silo Park and the festival (they do this every Friday apparently):

You can still see the Sky Tower in the background:

The food looked out of this world good!

I wonder why they call it Silo Park??

They also do movies at night in the grassy area, so people had blankets and popcorn, getting ready for the show.  Tonight's movie: The Secret Garden.  Do you remember The Secret Garden??!  I used to love that movie!  With the orphan girl and the creepy uncle and the cousin that couldn't leave his room (and somewhere in there is a garden).  We didn't stay (I was improperly dressed for the cold!), but I want to go back next Friday and see a movie projected on the side of a silo.

We weren't too hungry, but we wanted to try stuff, so we opted for an assortment of dumplings:

Oh man!  Insanity!  They were all delicious, but the standout was the spiced lamb and veggies.  So good!!!
New beer we like:

I bought myself a little souvenir:

I got "Haere Mai," which means "Welcome."  This guy actually cuts these out with a laser.  Love it!

The festival was great!  The food was a bit pricey, but the goods were reasonable.  I also got a small watercolor print of the world that I really like for $20.  Things are expensive, but our money is worth even more here than Australia, so if I'm spending $10NZD, I'm really only spending about $6.50USD.  So, when you think about it, we're not spending as much as it seems, which is always nice.

Got some nice nighttime pics:

The next day, we went to another festival at Queen's Wharf, which is way closer to us than Silo.  On the way, we passed the Vector Arena, where they do all kind of shows and concerts (I think currently they're doing a run of Cirque du Soleil):

Check out this view from the train tracks:

Once we arrived at the wharf, there was some sort of carnival going on, so we decided to check it out.

They were giving out boat rides and tours, but the lines were so long, we just snapped some pics:

They had games, rides, food and a concert.  Super fun!

We kept walking and saw these Auckland photographs on display:

Look how many there are:

We walked for a bit until we got to the festival we were there for:

Can you believe that guy standing right in the middle of my perfect picture??!  What an ass!  I can't tell you how many times this happens to me.  Grr!  

Got a selfie though, so now I feel better:

Anyway, it's called the Tamaki Herenga Waka Festival and it's a Maori festival.  I've heard so much about Maori culture and how integral it is to New Zealand culture, so I want to see/do as much Maori stuff as I can.  Let's check it out!

There were people doing wood carving demonstrations, tattoo booths and massage areas (I just felt weird taking pictures of people getting massages and tattoos).  There was a seating area and occasional performances, but we only saw a DJ playing and then a couple guys playing piano and singing.  Supposedly there were also traditional dance performances and music, but we missed it.

Outside they had a food area.  This is traditional Maori food:

We went to this food truck:

and Aaron got the Hauraki Dog and I got the seafood chowder:

Both were soooooo good!  Probably one of the best chowders I've ever had (Spenger's and Tahoe Joe's are pretty top notch).  The bread was like a doughnut (not sweet), just a little less greasy.  Not bad at all.  I also sampled a mussel fritter that was so bomb, I wish I was a cow with more than 1 stomach.

They also had stalls with crafts and goods:

Overall, the festival was a bit disappointing.  I was expecting much more, but it was kinda bare.  I'm glad we got to try some of the food though.  

Bridge view:

Since it was still early (we really expected to be at the festival much longer), we stopped at a craft beer cafe nearby and got a sampler:

These names were cracking us up (and we hadn't even had any beers yet!):

We tried all 4 and they were gross.  This was the worst place ever!  The beers were warm and flat and we were so unhappy that we basically left almost all of them full.  If you're in New Zealand and see this place near the wharf, run!

We hit a couple other bars (mostly Irish Pubs):

Aaron's obsession with trying to find Irish quality Guinness outside of Ireland is a losing battle, but we try everywhere we go, nonetheless.  

Yesterday, we went to Thrifty and rented a car for the month!  We worked out a deal with them and I even got a 10% AAA discount (here it's called AA, but they accept AA's from other countries).  For the month for a Toyota Yaris we're paying $1333.  Not cheap by any stretch, but not too shabby either, when you consider that $1333NZD is actually $863USD.  Yay!  We have a car and she's a beaut!

Car video.

Having a car here is tricky for a number of reasons:

1.  They drive on the other side of the road from us in The States and the steering wheel is on the other side as well, so it's really easy to get confused.

2.  Parking in the city is super expensive (we didn't really think that part through, oops!).  We're trying to find the cheapest place we can park, even if it's far from our apartment, but for now are just parking it in a lot right next to us because in a couple days we're going to drive up north.  $12 for 15 hours is not that bad, but it really adds up!  Boo on you, Auckland!

3.  We need navigation and they ran out of them at Thrifty (plus they're so expensive), so we're probably going to buy a nav system because we have limited GB of data on our phones (internet is so expensive here!) and we don't want to get lost in the middle of New Zealand.

All this sounds sucky, but the reason we rented a car is because there are some places you just need a vehicle to access.  Public transportation doesn't get you all over New Zealand and we want to see as much as we can.  Plus, it's more fun to be able to go at your own pace and road tripping is the best!

So, here's the deal: we have the car for 20 days on the North Island.  Then we drop it off in Wellington, at the ferry terminal, take the ferry to the South Island and then pick up a new car in Picton at the ferry terminal.  We have the second car for 7 days in the South Island and then drop it off at the airport in Queenstown, before we take a flight back up to Auckland, where we take a flight home the following day (February 28).  Whew!

So, that's Auckland so far!  Today we woke up at 6am to put more money in the meter and neither of us could fall back to sleep, so we were just awake at 6am for no reason and now we're all thrown off!  Ahh!  We went downtown and booked our Middle Earth Trilogy Tour for Tuesday the 9th and Wednesday the 10th (it includes 3 tours of 3 different sights and you pretty much NEED your own car to fully experience all 3, as they are not close to each other).  

Tomorrow, we are going to drive up north for a couple days and see the Bay of Islands and Northland (basically all over the northern part of the North Island.  Did I mention we're going north?).  We are so excited (well, Aaron's kinda stressed out, but I'm excited and Tui is too.  Yup, I named her Tui after a character in my favorite NZ miniseries, Top of The Lake).  We might even camp out under the stars!

New Zealand, here we come!