Auckland – Friday 13th February
Tired, and a little bit emotional after leaving behind Australia, our home for the last year, and after saying goodbye again to Dave’s parents at the airport, we arrive in Auckland at 5.30am, after a pretty good Air New Zealand flight.
The inflight entertainment system had gone pop an hour or so in, and since from watching various airport reality tv shows we’re aware that this is akin to a major disaster for the air stewards, we were more entertained by the numerous attempts to get the system up and running again – each time scuppered as everyone on the plane spotted it switch back on, pressed their buttons at the same time and overloaded the system. We were pleased to receive an unprompted, and useless (although it was a nice gesture), $30 Air New Zealand voucher when we got off the plane.
After stopping in at the last bastion of guaranteed international conformity, the golden arches, for brekkie, and waiting until the respectable hour of 7am, we seek out a payphone and call up our already booked hostel for a lift.
The friendly Danish-Kiwi driver rattles up in his old minibus pretty sharpish, and escorts us safely to his hostel to check in. However, since it’s only 7.30, we can’t check in until 11am... we’ve not slept and after accepting the hostel owner’s generous offer of a giant and very comfortable sofa to wait for our room on, we are self conscious for about 30 seconds (since everyone in the hostel is starting to get up and eat breakfast around us), before we fall into a happy doze, only to be woken when our shoulders are gently shaken to tell us that our room is ready just before eleven.
Our room is clean and simple, and we fall immediately asleep again. We emerge at 5pm, Kiwi time, and go out on the hunt for food and a mobile sim-card. We trough down a Chinese meal from a nearby restaurant, decide to share a phone number for our time in New Zealand, since we’re going to be mostly together all the time anyway, and retreat back under the duvet to continue our recovery from the shock at leaving Aus.
The following morning, we are up and ready early, excited about picking up our rented Spaceship from the depot here in Auckland. We accidentally miss our taxi when he arrives within nanoseconds of us booking it, although the driver is beyond chilled about coming back – sweet as bro. He gives us an introduction into the Kiwi obsession for Rugby (apparently, if the game is on, you can forget getting through to any Kiwi on the phone, or by ringing their doorbell), and fills us in on the recent weather conditions: a couple of days before they had their hottest weather on record at 36 degrees, although it’s cooler now and raining. We’re sitting in the back shivering a little, after getting used to the 40-odd degrees in Perth.
We arrive easily enough at the Spaceship depot, and after signing the necessaries, coughing up a chunk of cash via credit card, and getting a run through of all the features, we’re gliding away in our very own bright orange Toyota Estima; complete with bed, one-ring cooker, water tank, mini-fridge, DVD player, two sun roofs, a table and chairs and an awning for the side. It comes ready christened with the name of Flap – much better than some of the Spaceship names we’ve seen on our travels (Gonad, anyone?).
We’ve cunningly loaded sat-nav Ken with a New Zealand brain in anticipation of further map reading incompetence in our new temporary home country. We get Ken on the go, and after a pit stop at the supermarket and a marathon packing session (there’s plenty of storage, it’s just deciding how best to use it), we’re away – up north to the Bay of Islands.