March 22: Auckland and surrounds

We'll be starting our visit to New Zealand in Auckland. Apart from being a major port of entry to New Zealand, they also have an annual Pasifika festival that celebrates the many cultures of the south Pacific region. Seems like a lovely way to recover from 25 hours of travel, plus a 12-hour time difference. We're staying at the Bamber House Hostel. Note that the modern hostel, recognizing that many of its original teenage and young adult clientele have aged and are now looking for more comfortable things, has evolved from its traditional bunkhouse atmosphere. Though there are still communal dorms, most hostels now offer private accomodation for couples, and the quality of the accommodations is often quite nice. These rooms represent a good balance between the more expensive B&B experience and the more communal hostel experience, without sacrificing that most essential of modcons: the private bathroom.

Travel to New Zealand went well enough, but it’s an endurance ordeal: 2 hours in the airport, then 5 hours to Vancouver, then 3 hours in the airport, then 15 hours to Aukland. It wouldn’t be so bad if I could sleep on planes, but I can’t sleep while I’m vertical, and the only seats that recline enough to pass for horizontal cost an extra $3K or more. Not on my budget. I’ve tried a sleeping pill before with no luck, and the resulting grogginess isn’t much better than just going without sleep. Shoshanna can sleep, at least with help from a friendly pill, and with being able to lie across my lap. I did manage to pass out for an hour here and an hour there, but didn’t manage anything like restful sleep. In future, I may insist on breaking up the travel by (say) stopping for a couple days in Hawaii or somewhere else midway to the final destination.

Aukland airport is big but reasonably efficient. But there are some delays, as New Zealand takes its inspections very seriously to prevent foreign pests from entering the country. For example, because we had hiking boots that had been used in the muck of another country (Italy last year; Canada this year), our boots had to be inspected. Despite some clay crusted on my boots that I’d been unable to remove with a wire brush, we passed and were allowed into the country. Foreign fruits and vegetables are also verboten. Although there’s an amnesty line where you can dispose of anything you forgot to throw out before getting on the plane, it’s best to not bring anything in the first place. Steep fines if you get caught!

Shoshanna had pre-booked a Supershuttle, which is a fast and convenient way to get dropped off at the door of your new home—in our case, the Bamber House hostel. We’d arrived a little after 5 AM, so the sun was still down and all the visual signals were telling my brain it was the middle of the night, and it was very weird driving in the darkness, with the darknesss transforming into a slow sunrise.

Unfortunately, because of our itinerary, we arrived before the hostel office opened, so Shoshanna’d gotten the door code from them so we could crash in the common room until the office opened and we could register. By the time we’d made it in the door, “crashed” was the right word for my state of mind. We’re talking blue-screen-of-death crashed. Managed to keep it together long enough to notify the moms and my brother and sisters that we were safely here, then I lay down on the couch and passed out for half an hour of horizontal bliss.

Shoshanna registered us while I rebooted, and we schlepped our bags upstairs to the bag storage until our room would be ready around 2 in the afternoon. Plans for the day were to get out into the sun and walk until we dropped so that we’d be on New Zealand time as soon as possible. We started our day with a quick but sweaty hike, it being a beautiful and summy—but warm!—summer day of about 24°C. A bit of a shock after -10°C to -20°C back in Montreal just before we left.

We started our day with a trek up to the top of Mount Eden, which is a significant volcanic crater and eruption of mountain on the southern end of Aukland. It's an easy 5-minute saunter from the hostel, followed by a stiff and steep 15-minute climb. It’s not Kilaueia, but still looks to be 100-200 meters across and about 100 m deep. Once up top, you get a lovely panoramic view of the surrounding country. Aukland’s downtown is much like any other big city’s—a concrete wasteland, though with a few nice parks. But the city straddles a narrow isthmus between the northern and southern parts of North Island, so there’s lots of water around it, and the lowlands around the water are pleasantly green, with lots of forest and park amidst the homes.

Breakfast was at a pleasant little café named “Mont” at the foot of Mont Eden. I had a Mexican scrambled egg on a bagel, with tomato “relish” and some nicely fierce hot peppers. Shoshanna had a vegetarian omelette with pesto and sweet pickled daikon, which is odd but worked well. Good coffee too, which jump-started us. From there, we walked into town. Lots of Asian restaurants of all kinds, so if you’re a foody like us, you could spend many days exploring. We walked all the way down to the port area, where the cruise ships dock and the main shopping drags are distributed. (Cruise ships are crazy-big when you get close. Just saying.) Because we arrived around lunch time, the streets were aswarm with people, so lots of good people watching.
We took some time to check out the end-of-season sales at a couple of the big outdoor gear stores, but since we’d already stocked up on supplies for our big hikes, we didn’t buy anything, tempting though it was. Most normal people want to win money in a lottery. I’d be just as happy to win store credit at some place that sells hard core hiking gear.

On our way back, we stopped for the national two minutes of silence that had been arranged to commemorate the victims of the mosque shootings. Just before the time, we stopped for an ice coffee in a small shopping side-street, and a busker, a guitarist with a microphone, was approached by a security guard, who reminded him of this ceremony. So the busker loudly reminded everyone about the silence, and by and large, everyone within earshot shut up and just stood still and thought about what had happened. It was a very nice feeling to be part of that.

A short disance away, in Aotearoa park, near the town hall, they’d set up an enormous theatre-sized screen, and we arrived as they were live-broadcasting the national ceremony of remembrance. As we arrived, an imam was publicly thanking everyone for how accepted his people had felt in New Zealand, particularly after the murders, when there was such an outpouring of support. There was a good turnout at this small park, I’d guess two or three hundred people, and seemingly thousands at the televised ceremony (from Wellington?). The imam said all the right words to make me teary and tell New Zealand and the world how grateful he was, but I didn’t find him a compelling speaker: too much repetition, too long (he needed something more lyrical and flowing), and none of the magic you’d expect from an Obama or a John Kennedy. But it was a nice grace note from a tregedy with no other redeeming features, and the turnout speaks so well of New Zealanders.

After his speech wound down, we headed back to the hostel for a shower, some sink laundry, a pre-dinner nap, and bloggery. More later about dinner. About 5 hours of walking, which is pretty good for our first day. A pleasant surprise was that our room was in a row of attached cottages behind the main hostel building, so a little more privacy than I’d expected. Small and cramped, but clean and comfortable. Still, lots of young adults (20-somethings) staying here, so it probably won’t be quiet quiet.

We’d done a bit of snooping around for places to eat, and the two main contenders were Zool Zool, an interesting-looking Japanese izakaya (pub, sort of) and Brothers Brewery, a local microbrew company that has now opened a restaurant called the “Juke Joint” at the back of their brewery—southern U.S. BBQ. Since we love doing beer tourism, the brewery wins the honors to host our second meal in New Zealand. Time to head off to dinner, so will report on dinner tomorrow. I imagine we’ll be pretty tired by the time we get back.

Next installment: March 23