I arrived in a Auckland with no plan and no bookings for a room. The first thing I did was pull NZ dollars from an ATM. Then I bought a $5 phone card and made call to book a room at the Lantana Lodge in Parnell. Then I caught the AirBus into city centre, and the Link bus to Parnell.
Most of my time in Aucland was spent getting over jetlag. I don't usually suffer it much, but either my travels through Africa did me in, or the 2 day flight over did. I spent the first day walking to and around city center, down Queens St. The city of Auckland is very hilly, which is good because I need the exercise. There is also a very large Asian community here, so there's tons of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese restaurants. I can see I am going to like Auckland.
Later the first day, I went up the Sky Tower and caught a nice view of the city and people jumping off. The next day, I slept in until 1430 (mind you, I went to bed at 11 the night before) so the late afternoon and evening was spent checking out Newmarket, a shopping district near Parnell. A repeat of day wasting occurred the next couple of days. I gave up trying to sightsee around Auckland and resorted to hitting the internet cafe to update my websites when I can. There are tons of internet cafes around that have high-speed connections, CD burners, and CF card readers for digital cameras. It's probably just as well tho, since Auckland is very expensive and spending money on the harbor cruises and ferries to go to near by islands would put me way over budget.
The evenings were generally spent reading The Hobbit, or watching the World Rugby Cup games.
Most of my time in Aucland was spent getting over jetlag. I don't usually suffer it much, but either my travels through Africa did me in, or the 2 day flight over did. I spent the first day walking to and around city center, down Queens St. The city of Auckland is very hilly, which is good because I need the exercise. There is also a very large Asian community here, so there's tons of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese restaurants. I can see I am going to like Auckland.
Later the first day, I went up the Sky Tower and caught a nice view of the city and people jumping off. The next day, I slept in until 1430 (mind you, I went to bed at 11 the night before) so the late afternoon and evening was spent checking out Newmarket, a shopping district near Parnell. A repeat of day wasting occurred the next couple of days. I gave up trying to sightsee around Auckland and resorted to hitting the internet cafe to update my websites when I can. There are tons of internet cafes around that have high-speed connections, CD burners, and CF card readers for digital cameras. It's probably just as well tho, since Auckland is very expensive and spending money on the harbor cruises and ferries to go to near by islands would put me way over budget.
The evenings were generally spent reading The Hobbit, or watching the World Rugby Cup games.
