Travelling Post 51 - Auckland

I landed in Auckland sometime in the mid afternoon and eventually ended up at my accommodation a couple of hours later. My first nights stay was at the Nomads Fat Camel Hostel and, thankfully, I only booked one night. It took ages for me to get checked in as the staff were slow and they only had one machine to encode the key cards, then they sent me to a room where I had to ask fellow backpackers which bed was free and strip it myself. When i made my bed I discovered they hadn't even given me all the sheets I needed so had to go back to reception for more, and then the people in my room were amongst the biggest idiots I've had the experience of meeting on my trip so far. At 1.30 they came in drunk and loud, then left again, then came back and so on for the next hour before I gave up and went downstairs to read before they went to sleep. Safe to say I checked out there early the next morning and moved to Auckland City YHA, which was a vast improvement, but my first night in NZ didn't look like a good omen.

After not getting a good nights sleep I still couldn't waste the day so I wandered around town, looking in an Art Gallery (not my thing) then checked out the excellent Maritime Museum and the equally excellent Auckland Museum,

On my second day in Auckland I took a free Stray tour of the city where I learnt Auckland has the 4th biggest city sprawl in the world. Their comparatively small population of only 1.4million obviously has a policy of 'why build up when you can build up across' and why not I say, it makes for a good view. I got to see someone bungee jump from the Skytower, the highest building in the Southern hemisphere which was OK. The tour also drove us around the city, pointing out places to get a cheap or free haircut, and other such useful information as well as stopping off at Mt Eden for some great city views, a memorial for the first NZ Labor Prime Minister, and I got to walk along the Harbour Bridge to watch a free fall bungee jump. The tour was really interesting and great value, unlike some things I've paid for whilst away a didn't want to I wouldn't have minded having to pay for this.