Day 1-2 - Auckland

Well, I've been here just 39 hours but it feels like a hell of a lot longer - mainly because I've been so busy! My impressions of Auckland are evolving as my experience does. At first, I felt completely lost and was wondering why on earth I'd come here. This wasn't helped by the bitterly cold, humid and overcast weather for most of yesterday. However, over the two days, I've seen a lot of amazing stuff and the weather has drastically improved. Oh, and I'd now recognise the Auckland skyline and in particular the Sky Tower if I saw it anywhere. The Sky Tower rather over-features in the photos I've taken. I hope to go up it sometime in the next couple of days.

Photos are still to come - I got them off my digital camera tonight, but am not able to do much with them until I can shrink them a bit and do some editing on them.

Wednesday 21 July, 10:30pm (NZST)

Since writing the last post, I wandered aimlessly around Auckland, assisted greatly once I acquired the Kiwi Minimap 2005 street directory for Auckland for just $15 at Dymocks. I've personally found it invaluable and it's still the cheapest directory I've seen anywhere. My only complaint is that the scale's a bit confusing - a few millimetres on the map is about 100m, so something that looks only a short distance ends up being a half hour walk. Still, I shouldn't complain - there's no question that my getting around is improving my fitness.

My wanderings ended me up at Karangahape Road (K Road to the locals), which apparently used to be a red light district but has become something of a Chinatown. My general observation of Auckland is that, unlike Australian cities which have absorbed and adapted European culture, Auckland has actually done the same with Asian and Polynesian culture. There is no shortage of sushi bars, Korean restaurants and kebab bazars - in fact, more of them than anything else, even in the more working-class areas.

Hearing somewhere that travelling extensively on public transport in the first day gives you more of an overview of a place, and feeling tired anyway, I decided to go to Otahuhu (even the locals disagree on pronunciation), a station in southeast Auckland which is on both the east and south train lines, by the east (scenic) line and return by the south (motorway) line. City centres are often quite sanitised places and this would give me an opportunity to see the suburbs.

This excursion led to at least two additions to my Survival Guide (see next entry) and exploring a working-class suburb. Think big containers piled up everywhere, and trucks that act as if the road laws do not exist. One thing I have observed about Auckland is that people are generally very friendly, and this place was no exception. I walked the Portage Road, a 0.9km road over which a group of Maori at some stage dragged their canoes from one waterway to another opposite.

On travelling back via train, we got stuck just out of Newmarket station as a signal was broken, and ended up waiting more than 30 minutes in total across 3 stops to get back to Britomart (the central station). I was somewhat concerned that no-one else seemed to think this was even odd or anything more than a minor inconvenience. I suspect that these sort of oddities are not unusual - it's a pity, considering they are actually really nice trains comparable with the Perth/Brisbane ones. The train stations, apart from the central ones, reminded me of country airstrips, with rocks sprayed on and a small concrete edifice sufficing as the platform. They were spectacularly badly located - the train journeys seemed to go through industrial areas rather than areas where people actually live, work and shop. Britomart, a nice, modern, multilevel station that reminds me of a couple in Melbourne, was completely empty when we arrived back. When I told several Aucklanders of my experience, I got quizzical looks and was asked why on earth I didn't use the bus.

Feeling a bit dispirited, I decided to try out the Auckland ferry system, apparently one of the best in the world. Auckland doesn't have a river - it has harbours, and many people work on one side and live on the other, and the Auckland Harbour Bridge kind of goes to a different bit (the Northern Motorway joins Northcote and Birkenhead with central Auckland - a bit hard if you live in Devonport, just 4km from Auckland but at least 15km from Birkenhead). For ferries that are just public transport, they were incredibly luxurious - the top level contained a bar selling soft drinks and potato chips and had two outside viewing areas, and the bottom level had a coke machine. They even had toilets! Not bad for a ferry where the average journey length is 10 minutes. My idea once arriving in Devonport was to catch a bus to Takapuna (a major urban centre in the North Shore) and see Lake Pupuke, which I'd heard somewhere on the net was good.

However, Auckland's weather stepped in to make sure this would not be. It started raining on the bus journey, and was so miserable by the time I reached Takapuna that I just ran across the road and caught the same bus back! From what little I saw though, I decided that I was definitely coming back on a better day to see it. It's amazing comparing Otahuhu with Devonport. The North Shore is a lot more like its equivalent in Sydney, or with the Stirling Highway suburbs in Perth (Mosman Park, Claremont, Nedlands). It is amazing to think just a week ago I walked from Claremont to Perth and did Jacob's Ladder - it already seems way longer than that. On the bus, I met a friendly local boy who chatted with me about music, Australia vs New Zealand, his acting and musical aspirations, and uni life. I think often it is easy to look at and see what is different and forget about what is basically the same.

A note about language here. NZ English is often stereotyped by Australians - my observation has been that while working-class and rural people do speak that way, it's a lot less noticeable in Auckland, the biggest Polynesian city in the world. In fact, some people here are very difficult to tell from Australians. Word-use wise, though, NZ English does differ in some ways - calling the central area (what we call 'town' or 'CBD') 'downtown', for example, or calling a mobile phone a 'cellphone' as Canadians and Americans do, but calling the freeway a motorway as the British do. We're still understood here if we speak our language though :)

Finished off the rather rainy evening by meeting my friend Shannon, who I first met on the net way back in 1994. We had a great time looking for somewhere to eat, eating and then driving around various regions of Auckland checking out the sights while trying not to get wet, and lots of catching up. Was great. :) Got back at 1am and went to bed pretty much straight away.

Slept in, unfortunately - two nights of almost no sleep followed by a busy day caught up with me. Hence I missed the B&B's breakfast menu, and ended up going to a nearby Foodtown to buy tempura and bread rolls, which I ate on the Devonport ferry while enjoying a spectacular view of Waitemata Harbour. The sushi counters at Auckland supermarkets actually sell real sushi that you see the sushi guy freshly making before your eyes - it's quite something. Foodtown (the retail arm of giant Foodland) is the only major supermarket after buying out rival Woolworths NZ (not related to the Australian one), although you see New World stores (are these ex-Coles New World? anyone know?) in a few places.

As for the rest of the day, I went to:

- North Head, a dormant volcano near Devonport which was formerly a navy defence post (as per most volcanoes in Auckland) and had active guns as recently as 1996. Was great fun climbing all over the place and down tunnels, and the views of Rangitoto Island (one of Auckland's dominant features) and the city and Mt Victoria were great.
- Bayswater, a harbour suburb a bit further up, where houses sell for close to NZ$1 million. Like many suburbs of its kind, as referenced previously, the landscaping and house design is excessive, but the end result doesn't look bad. Despite this, as in many parts of Auckland, the roads are poorly maintained.
- Takapuna, a small city in itself with some great Asian cafes, traffic snarls, a pretty cool shell beach, and, of course, Lake Pupuke. It was quite impressive and I ended up spending sunset there. I got chased away by an entire flock of birds, however, who decided that as I had no food, I was of no use to them. :P

Spent the evening talking to a few people who rang me (I have a prepaid number for NZ by the way - if you get a weird SMS from a number starting +6421036, it's probably it) and processing my photos and typing these entries at the net cafe.

Food, budget and other stuff

So far, I have spent NZ$199 in general expenses (about A$180, not including bank fees). This includes food, water, net cafes, souvenirs, the prepaid phone and calling cards, street directory, transport, and the Airbus. Some of these are one-off, the transport is a set cost, and the Airbus actually includes the return ticket. Identified ways of saving money include getting a "sling bag" which I can take out with me, which would allow me to take up to 2.4L of tap water on my journeys, as Auckland tap water is quite drinkable.

Food so far:

19 Jul - Dinner - Plane dinner
20 Jul - Breakfast - At the B&B
20 Jul - Lunch - Subway @ K Road
20 Jul - Dinner - Happy Hippo (Chinese pick-by-numbers in Wellesley Street) with Shannon
21 Jul - Lunch - Tempura and bread rolls from Foodtown supermarket
21 Jul - Dinner - Japanese meal at Mansun restaurant, Takapuna