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| The Sky Tower. The tallest freestanding structure in the Southern Hemisphere apparently. |
Given the third degree I was subjected to before I was even allowed to enter the country, I was pleasantly surprised that I breezed through immigration/passport control without even having to speak to anyone. Sadly, my joy was short lived when we had to queue for a couple of hours to get through several biosecurity checks. New Zealand hopes to be pest free by 2050, so they search luggage with a fine tooth comb, although I was complimented on the cleanliness of my hiking boots (mainly cos I'd been wading through waterfalls in them).
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| Myers Park |
I was only in Auckland for a few days, so I had to be picky about which activities to do. The sunset kayak to Rangitoto sounded fun. Rangitoto is a volcano island that only formed about 600 years ago, so I was interested to see what it looked like.
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| "Only" a 5km kayak away |
We set off in the mid-afternoon, after a safety briefing and a quick lesson in how to kayak. Unfortunately, much to Eric the tutor's chagrin, I couldn't get the hang of it at all.
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| I did it myyyyyy wayyyyyyy |
To be honest, the Hewitt Hold worked well for me, and I put down my sore arms to the fact that I'd never kayaked before, not my cack-handed technique. Everybody laughed at Dick Fosbury the first time he did the Fosbury Flop.
Anyway, we got to Rangitoto and it was quite something. Eric cooked us a genuinely lovely dinner of steak, kumara (sweet potato) and salad (meh). I even got a decent cup of tea, something I'd not experienced since forever. Then we set off for the summit. It wasn't a strenuous climb, but it was certainly unique. The lower part consisted of dried lava (which just looked like massive black stones), but over the last 600 years, nature had taken over (despite it being used as a base during WWII).
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The volcano crater. Which only became this overgrown in the last 20 years.
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| Auckland and the harbour bridge |
It was getting dark when we descended. So there was just time to take a few terrible photos of Auckland at sunset before we leapt back in our kayaks to paddle back to base camp.
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| Get a haircut hippy |
I'm glad I went for the sunset tour. Kayaking in the dark is great fun, and despite the fact that I never quite mastered the art of paddling, steering, and talking at the same time, we were never in serious danger of colliding with any of the large boats we shared the sea with.
Auckland has Mount Eden, which is quite similar to Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh. It provides lovely views over Auckland - a bit like the kayak trip from the day before except at a different angle. It helps you appreciate how big Auckland really is - 1.6m people live here, which is a third of the population of New Zealand.
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| There's the Sky Tower again |
Mount Eden is also a volcano. In fact, the one thing I've learned from my time in New Zealand is the entire place seems to have just blown up or is just about to do so.
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Another crater
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Regular readers of this blog (both of them) will be delighted to learn that I got to do my first parkrun in four months (sadly, they don't exist in Central and South America). I was quite pleased with my time, but I don't think I made any friends sprinting to overtake a buggy at the finish line - the guy's exact words to me were "Well done. You beat a baby."
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| And leaving the park, this "silent killer" nearly ran me over |
The parkrun took place in Wester Springs park, which is home to boring swans and pigeons, but also to some crazy guys called Pūkeko, which are great fun to watch. I didn't even think they flew until I saw two of them bam each other up and one flew off in a huff. They've also got big crazy feet and can run faster than me. Here's a video although tbh, you could find a million better ones online.
Oh, and a top tip if you're travelling west to New Zealand, you'll cross the International Date Line. So despite leaving on the Monday morning and the flight only lasting 5 hours, we landed on Tuesday afternoon. Of course, being an utter eejit, I'd booked a hotel for the Monday night. What a numpty.
Next up. The bus to Rotorua, which apparently smells of rotten eggs (the town, not the bus).
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