Auckland: Day 1

I don’t think it will surprise anyone to learn that when we checked in at the airport on Sunday morning, we were told that due to the previous flight being delayed, our flight to Auckland had been delayed by half an hour. Remember when I said “delayed” was fast becoming a theme of this trip? Well I think it’s now just firmly our theme. #TeamMoleheadDelayedinNZ

When we did eventually board our flight (about an hour late I think), it was like walking into some kind of plane paradise. We were flying with Emirates and the difference between this plane and the two we had had with Philippine Airlines was laughable. We had leg room, TVs, menus!, there were cameras on the plane so we could see different views outside!, and it just felt better as well. Me and Meryn are more than jealous that that is the airline Tom will be flying home with next year (here’s hoping our karma somehow gets us an upgrade on ours). 

The flight went a lot quicker than we were all expecting and it seemed like no time at all had passed before we were beginning our descent. I couldn’t quite believe it when we touched down. We had made it! We were in New Zealand!

Going through immigration was so much quicker, and easier, and just better than when we arrived in Melbourne. All the self-service machines were working, they all accepted our passports, the gates accepted our tickets and our faces. The longest wait we had during the whole airport process was waiting for our baggage. And even then that was longer than it could have been since we discovered we were waiting in the wrong place for Tom’s bike bag. 

We had all ticked a couple of things on our boarding passes so we had to go to a couple of people to be questioned about that. We had to go to a bio-customs bit after the questioning because Meryn had shoes in her bag that had been on a muddy walk the week before (they’re really strict about things like that because it can damaged their eco-system). We were all worried that her shoes would be at the bottom of her backpack and that she’d have to unpack the entire thing to get them out but thaaaaankfully they were right on top so it was a lot easier, and a lot less stressful!, for her. 

The guy at the bio-customs place asked Tom about his bike as well, just checking it wasn’t an off-road bike and stuff (again, cause of dirt and soil etc). I’m mentioning this because I think it’s the first time Tom has been asked about his bike, and about cycling, and he hasn’t talked for 20 minutes or more about it? In fact, I think he limited it to 2 sentences. Just quick answers for the guy and that was it. That may be the most impressive sight of my 6 months here! 

We caught the Air Bus from the airport into the city centre. This happened to be the first time since Tom had left his farm the week before that he had had to pay to transport his bike. We have flown something crazy like 11000 miles? and it was the 20 minute bus journey that cost him extra money. He was not best pleased! 

Our first impression of Auckland was that it was cold, windy, grey, and looked nothing like how we had been imagining New Zealand to be. We all decided pretty quickly that we didn’t like it and wanted to leave as soon as we could. Even if we just moved more to the outskirts of the city or something. 

A lot of people have said that they don’t like Auckland since we’ve been here (one guy actually said his favourite thing about Auckland was leaving Auckland) but I think our such strong dislike was more a combination of the weather, being ill, and all of us being bone tired after getting up at 3am that morning. Our opinions definitely improved as the days went on!  

There were two hostels on our street run by the same company and obviously I tried to check us in to the wrong one first. The guy jokingly said that the hostel we were supposed to be in was 2 hours away when I showed him the address and I think he regretted his joke when he was met with a heavily disappointed silence haha! 

That little run in with the other hostel did nooooot help our impression of our actual hostel when we checked in. It was like a budget version of the budget hostel and the impression continued when we saw our “apartment” kitchen and bathrooms as well. It was like being back in my 2nd year house, only with a lot more people and all of them strangers. 

It wasn’t all bad though! The beds were clean and they weren’t too uncomfortable, and the hostel offered a free meal in the evenings which we were happy to learn. Plus the people living in the same apartment turned out to be really friendly and we ended up having some great conversations with them all. The two roommates we had while we were there were great as well, really interesting and so much more talkative than Gary! 

We were all struggling to stay awake so we grabbed ourselves some quick food before coming back to the hostel for Tom to try the free meal that evening (spag bol). They served the free meal in a snack portion, with the option to upgrade to bigger portions for $3 or $5. Turns out that the “snack portion” was actually a perfect Chloe-sized portion of food so it was good to know I’d be able to basically have my next couple of tea time meals for free if I wanted! 

I made it to 8:30pm before I crashed and had to admit defeat. I was still trying to battle my cold and  jet lag and just wanted to sleep until I felt better. All 3 of us were feeling tired and a bit shit I think so they weren’t far behind me going to bed and I think we all fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow. 

Day one in New Zealand done!