The journey from Heathrow to Auckland all seems like a distant memory now, but that was certainly not the case. With the total travel time adding up to over 30 hours and my sleeping time adding up to around 6, this proved to be problematic. I have never felt so rough after a flight, but it was mingled with the occasional burst of adrenaline and excitement - all in all a rather strange feeling! But it was all so worth it. At the moment, our plan is to spend a week in Auckland, 19 days travelling round both the North and South islands, 2 weeks in Fiji and then settling down somewhere, getting a job for around 4 months before heading home... via South East Asia for around 2 months.
Our first few days in Auckland were pretty much spent familiarising ourselves with the city and sleeping! We are constantly drawing similarities between Auckland and GuiYang... not sure if this is due to New Zealand being closer to Asia? We went to a few cool places; Silo Park, Auckland Domain and the sky tower to name a few.
The first hostel we stayed at was called Base Backpackers and we were in an 8 bed dorm on the ninth floor. Luckily we had a relatively quite room, and have met some really interesting people already! Everyone here is so friendly, it reminds me of my first year of uni where everyone is in the same position and looking to meet new people! Thankfully we had breakfast included here, as part of our Job Search New Zealand package, so that made the first few days easier as we just stuffed ourselves full in the morning! I really enjoyed staying at Base, the staff were all super friendly and it was clean and right in the centre of the city. The only super annoying thing were the lifts... they took ages to come and, more often then not, one or more of them was not in use. Adding to this, for some unknown reason you can only get the stairs all the way down to the ground floor or to the 3rd floor but not to the others? Not sure why!
We happened to be in Auckland for its birthday weekend, so there was loads going on in the city. They had buskers from all over the world, fireworks and a laser show with the Auckland symphony orchestra (they call themselves 'auckestra' which is brilliant) and they opened up the port for free tours and kind of like a mini carnival type thing which was cool! Unfortunately, we managed to get quite burnt on our first day... factor 20 wasn't cutting it! The weather just feels like an English summer so it is easy to forget that the lack of an ozone layer means that the sun affects us more than usual!
After three nights at Base, we then moved on to Frienz hostel... you can't miss it, it's bright pink! This hostel is slightly cheaper as we're in a 14 bed, and we really struggled at first as there's no air con so it's really hot and sticky! But it didn't take long for us to get over it... not that we had a choice! The hostel is honestly one of the cleanest places I've ever stayed at... they clean it at least 3 times a day and the place constantly smells like cleaning products. The staff don't appear as friendly as Base at first, but they are super helpful! On one morning we came back to the room to see that some girls said that one of the guys in the room had weed all over the lockers whilst he was drunk in the night and they were quick to sort that out! We were just grateful it wasn't near us!!
We then had our Job Search orientation on Tuesday, postponed due to the bank holiday! I think I'm probably going to apply for Au Pair jobs... as that's where my experience lies! Although there are a fair few jobs that look interesting! We also signed up to 'wwoofing' which, if you don't know, is basically volunteering on farms and other places on exchange for a place to stay and food! It seems like a really interesting way to see rural New Zealand so excited to try it out!
Wednesday was a particularly interesting day. I started the morning opening my New Zealand bank account, which took way longer than anticipated. We then walked to Mt. Eden and on the way got stopped by some Scientologists for a free screening about the first Dianetics book. I've always been intrigued by Scientology (don't worry mum, not to be one just to learn more!!) so we decided to check it out on the way back. Mt. Eden was a heck of a trek but sooooo worth it. The views are insane! We also bumped into Lisa, who is also doing the Contiki tour, so it was lovely to meet her!
All in all the first few days in New Zealand have been awesome, and I'm very excited for the rest of my time here!
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