So I arrived in Auckland on a slightly murky Saturday morning. The airport staff were...a bit grumpy really, which was a minor shock after the inherent politeness of Japan (case in point - our flight to Auckland had about 250 Japanese school kids going to language camps. I thought 'Oh dear, someone kill me now;. Not a PEEP out of any of the them. Not one problem, not even a tiny one. It wouldn't happen with English kids...)but the bus driver restored my faith in Kiwis by being fab! Its a shame I couldn't follow his directions to my hostel properly, but hey, my geography has always been poor. Thing was, I minded. Somehow it didn't matter in Japan - I didn't understand the language or the writing or the maps, but in NZ? No excuses of the sort - I just had the map upside down. Great.
Hostel found and checked into, I went for a wander down Queen's Street towards the harbour area. I'm struck, as I meander in and out of shops with no specific purpose, quite how EXPENSIVE everything is. Its roughly $2 for every pound which makes some of the prices eye watering, particularly food. I had developed (as I always do, on the same foot, on the same toe, in EXACTLY the same place - think I'd learn) a blister on my little toe and had failed to bring a blister plaster with them, so I set out to track some down. $16!! That's 8 GBP! That's CRAZY. Hmmm...
Undeterred, I set out to Mount Eden and admired the view of the city. Truth is though...I don't like Auckland that much. Maybe its that I got used to having little pockets of calm and serene everywhere but...not sure about Auckland yet. I slept in late today, tracked down a supermarket to buy somethings for breakfasts and lunches as the local convenience stores produce looks somewhat suspicious, verging on inedible and then went to Auckland Museum which had some great exhibits about the development of the Maori culture and a very interesting floor on the history of New Zealand and warfare. It's always interesting to read about other countries perspectives on conflict, particularly WW1 and WW2. Having studied both of these time periods from an English and a German perspective, I always consider them to be the major players, but actually they're called world wars for a reason - they touched people all around the world and I would do well to remember the impact of those events, whilst begun close to home, reverberated around the world. One of the Air Commanders during the Battle of Britain was a Kiwi and was responsible for the British Government's gift of a Spitfire, which was proudly displayed to honour the 127 Kiwi airmen of the Battle. Very interesting.
I found greater satisfaction in the park which surrounds the museum than in the urban sprawl, so I look forward to escaping the city and beginning to see some of the beautiful scenery NZ has to offer. Tomorrow I plan to escape to visit some of the nearby Island on the Island Hopper Ferry and explore some of the untamed scenery just off the Auckland coast. My bus departs bright and early on Tuesday morning, so am gearing up for that. As the Kiwis say - She'll be right.
