We arrived in Auckland some 10 hours after boarding the plane from Incheon, Korea. We were running on about 10% brain power by the time we landed due to lack of sleep. You can’t get decent rest in economy class ... it’s a myth. Of course, there wasn’t much we could do about this except drink coffee and hope that it got us through the day.
Getting through customs was an absolute breeze though; we were expecting a lot of queueing, and waiting around while every inch of our possessions were searched, and inquiries made by border control into our personal lives and bank accounts dating back to last century but no... the airport staff were almost as friendly as the sniffer dog and helped us load our bags into an x-ray machine where we waited for just a few minutes.
We strolled over to border control, who simply confirmed how bad we look on our passport photos and waved us through to the arrivals lounge. That was it, probably the same speed if not faster than arriving at any other airport, and we were finally in New Zealand!
When the doors opened to exit the arrivals lounge, I finally accepted that we were here... that was the moment for me when I could at last be excited for the year ahead.
Our ‘transfer’ if you could call it that, from the airport to our Airbnb apartment wasn’t exactly smooth however; due to the owner being at work we ended up with around 4 hours to kill in the city centre before we would be able to get on to the premises. This would have been fine if not for the fact that we were carrying around enough luggage to support a small village for a week.
As a result of this inconvenience, we sought refuge in a nearby mcdonalds and soaked up their wifi until we could move in, trying our best not to fall asleep whilst doing so. So after stuffing ourselves with cheeseburgers we caught the bus over to Parnell, it was a two minute walk to the apartment followed by our lovely host Libby showing us around. The place was amazing! Everything we could want, and a perfect hub from which to organise the first week of our trip. We got straight into sorting out the admin side of things and thanks to some hard work and a little bit of luck, we managed to get all the necessities sorted out in just four days!
Day one, Wednesday was dedicated to getting some proper rest, a day of unwinding after the long flight and not doing much in the way of productivity. After bringing all our belongings into what was to be our home for the next few days we went straight to the pool. Although the weather was cloudy we didn’t mind as the pool was heated and we also had a hot tub, which was way too warm to use on a hot day anyway. It was exactly what we needed. The hot water however, made us realise just how tired we were, and so we got our heads down only to wake up a few hours later and unpack... well, one of us did anyway - nothing was going to make Liam get out of bed until morning.
Our ambitions for Thursday though were quite high, and with the intention of being productive we set out to find a bank account. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. Our first choice of bank was Westpac, who in very few words informed us that they were not currently providing accounts for travellers. So after being refused by them, we put our hopes into ANZ. We were told to come back in a week by ANZ for the earliest available appointment - not what we wanted to hear and in essence, another failure. Having enough of failures for one day, we decided to use the rest of the day to explore the city and pick up some essentials in the local shops. It’s true by the way that everything is expensive in New Zealand... in case you may have heard. It was another early bedtime for us that night as we were still fairly jetlagged.
As a result of this early night we were actually feeling pretty fresh the next morning, made better by the Friday morning sun being seemingly even warmer than the day before. Our Airbnb host had advised us to try a smaller branch of ANZ on the outskirts of town. “It’ll be easier there” she said. And so there we went after our morning coffee. To our surprise, timing was on our side... and one of the staff happened to have half an hour to spare. It was in this half hour that we set up our accounts, straight forward and simple, as if they were expecting us - we didn’t even need any of the forms we were asked to fill in from our previous ANZ visit. Winner.
After lunch we returned to the hot tub, so warm that the gentle afternoon shower was actually refreshing. The weather really does change unpredictably here. Later we hit the town again, firstly walking through the university campus (which is open to the public) and then ending up in Albert park. This park is quite big and offers amazing views of Auckland’s skyline. It was a good place to stop for a snack before taking a photo by the fountain.
As we walked back towards the town centre we were finally given the famous New Zealand ‘welcome rain’. It’s funny when it rains here; due to the temperature, everyone continues to stroll around casually in their shorts and t-shirts, not bothered in the slightest by the downpour. And just like the locals, It didn’t stop us from enjoying the rest of the day either.
This brings us to day 4, our first Saturday in New Zealand. We left our apartment early in the morning, keeping true to our busy schedule that we had started. The last 3 days had gone extremely well, but we weren’t prepared for what was about to happen next...
Up next: Day 4
More photos in our GALLERY
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