Arrival

So here I am in the fourth night of my stay in New Zealand. So far everything has been amazing, and sometimes overwhelming. I'm trying to get used to 1. Learning the ins and outs of Kiwi culture, and 2. Learning the ins and outs of living in such a large city. Auckland is beautiful; very busy in the city centre but there are parks and natural areas dispersed throughout. After arriving at my hostel on Hopetoun Street in the morning, I took a walk through West Park while I was waiting for my room to open up. What an introduction to the city; the park is beautiful, right on the backside of the hostel.

After getting in, I traveled down stylish(and expensive) Ponosby Road and also walked down Karangahope Road. Crossing the Grafton Bridge from K'Road I ended up at the Auckland Domain, a huge city park with open fields for recreation, flower gardens, walking trails, and the enormous Auckland Museum.Here are the pictures I took that day:



After sleeping in the next day I decided to catch a bus to Mount Eden in the south part of Auckland. The extinct volcano is the tallest in Auckland at almost 200 meters above sea level. It was a refreshing walk, the slopes pastoral with cows grazing alongside the path. There was a main path of red gravel and also dirt paths, lots of options for outstanding views of the surrounding city and harbor to the north. Returning back to the hostel I found a new person in the room, Nick a Brit freshly arrived from Fiji, so we made our way up to K'Road and had an interesting night at the pubs. We learned that the gay bars aren't quite so obvious as you may think, and ended up having a pint at two or three before we caught on.



Yesterday morning I got a cab from the hostel to take my to my new place in the Columbia apartment complex. I am staying in a tiny three-bedroom apartment. There is not really a common area, just a kitchenette, restroom, and shower, but at around $600 a month it's a pretty good deal for the inner city. I have a seldom-there roommate from Italy named Marco for now. I met Nick at the Sky Tower at noon and we hopped a bus to the Auckland Museum inside the Domain. The museum was very interesting, and massive. There were three floors but we were only able to make it to two. The first floor was mostly focused on the cultural history of New Zealand, European and Maori, and the cultures of the peoples of the hundreds of South Pacific islands to the north. The second floor displayed the natural history of New Zealand and its wildlife. The volcano exhibit was neat; they had rocks formed from many different types of magma. Some of them were very heavy, dense with rare minerals.

After the museum we went back to the hostel to pick up Rachel, a Tennessee native taking a sailing class in the harbor for a week, and took a bus to One Tree Hill, the second-tallest volcano in Auckland, south of Mount Eden. The road up it was paved, and very steep. We took two rest breaks on our way up. We were amazed to see natives biking and running up the steep path. One young father was running while pushing his child in a stroller up the hill, while his wife kept pace alongside. The level of activity, and fitness, in this country is unlike anything I've seen in the US. The summit gave a beautiful 360 view of surrounding South Auckland, and we were able to see the terraces the Maori had carved into the slopes of the volcano years ago. No crops are planted there now; instead sheep graze the slopes.

Returning to central Auckland we journeyed to K'Road again and fared better this time at the pubs, not being accosted by spirit mediums, angry Russians, or flirtatious transvestites like the night before.



I unpacked today and cleaned up the apartment; my body needed some rest after the 8 hour plus days of walking. Tomorrow I'm going to catch the ferry in the morning out to Rangitoto Island, New Zealand's newest volcano, for a day of hiking. My address is:

15 Whitaker Place
Apt 14E3
Grafton Auckland 1010
New Zealand

The address for my photo albums is http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/dustinrcollins although I think you can just click on the slideshow to bring the page up. I'll be in touch; leave me some comments.