Auckland

Stuck in Queenstown airport with little to do, Steph and I went immediately to the Air France lounge. Of course there is no such thing in ZQN, but we made do with our own wine and cheese picnic overlooking the mountains at the drop-off curb. If you are stranded here on a bad connection, head for the hill directly opposite the carpark. It's got loads of flags marking scenes from the Lord of the Rings with the 'Remarkables' mountains in the background.

It was already Easter on board our Virgin Blue flight when all of a sudden the flight attendant got on the microphone for an Easter game. Every passenger used their call buttons to respond to quiz questions and win enormous Cadbury shopping bags of chocolate.

Finally in Auckland - I was eager to hunt down some cafes that the Paris Kiwis had sent me in search of. We dropped our bags and went immediately down to the Viaduct, a portion of the harbor built up to accommodate the America's Cup crowds. The docks had an azure glow to it as the sun tried to shine through a thick mist off the water. We went for a happy hour wine harbor-side and quickly noticed we were among the yacht crowd in their docksiders and Musto jackets.

We liked Auckland’s maritime flavor and closer access to raw nature. Sydney for beginners? The ‘city of sails’ has as an equally impressive length of coastline in its bays, and access to TWO oceans.

The next day Steph and I embarked on an ambitious walking tour of the city. Our bus legs needed some exercise after all. We felt very strange to be in this city, as Steph said, it was an enormous contrast to our south island escapades that had made it seem like New Zealand could never have such an urban metropolis: “It’s like being in another country” (Steph). Unfortunately much of Auckland was boarded up on this Easter weekend. We crossed the domain and visited the Auckland museum, which had excellent historical displays to fill our gaps in NZ battles and conflicts.

The city view from atop Mt Eden. Auckland has no less than 64 volcanoes which have long been traditional Maori village sites since they were defensive strongholds. All of the city’s volcano land may be given back to Maoris. This would be a pretty rough deal for other residents and business who now have to lease the land they owned, and may have owned for 50 years or more.

A “Wharenui” in Auckland. This ‘big house’ is the traditional Maori meeting meeting place.

Our hunger and curiosity then lured us to “K” road which would normally be buzzing with trendy cafes and bars. We browsed some shop windows and the enormous collection of records in real groovy records. They have literally millions of old vinyls, cassettes, vhs, and compact discs for 1-5 dollars. Luckily there was a homemade burger joint open in an old theatre foyer that grilled us up some monster burgers with plum sauce (not bad, by the way).

An empty burger cafe all to ourselves.

Completely refueled, Steph and I just needed to make it back to our hostel before the Grand Prix started. I had convinced our Maori hostel manager to show it in the lounge. This was a small victory since usually bars tell me they need to triple check that there is no rugby being played anywhere on the planet before they put on a silly car race. The Queen Street Backpackers didn’t exactly feel like a cosy Easter weekend at home. We were feeling the void of family. But we were packed and excited to see the rest of the north island. Not to mention getting out of the big city that seemed to have tumbleweed blowing down the streets!