I'll stick by my original impression of Auckland, it doesn't hold up well to expectations when you first step off the plane. I now realise there are a lot of really nice parts around the centre - Devonport for example is just delightful. Huge parks, volcanoes/hills to climb, long beaches and views across the bay - Devonport is maybe a place i could live. Overall i guess Auckland isn't such a bad city given time.
I'm here again to wait for a mate - Tony is a guy i met while trekking in Nepal/Tibet. He's recently retired from being a headmaster at an inner city Liverpool boys school and he's going to travel/trek/share a space with me for a month. The longest I've ever travelled continuously with someone is a month and then i was fairly fed up with them...this could be interesting.
It's Friday night when we meet, I've already sorted out renting a car for the next month and over a pint or 3 we plan the next couple of days. Our skills are tested to the limits immediately - Tony's in understanding anything the locals say (he doesn't) and mine in getting Tony back to his motel at a reasonable hour (I don't). In the morning we pick the car up - a Toyota with nearly 200,000km on the clock, a huge charge if we damage it, 1000's of km's to drive, an mp3 converter and a price of less than a tenner a day.
We hope for an inexpensive, musical, magical month...