Auckland, Week 1

Wednesday, 10^th October 2007, we arrived in New Zealand, made it through security (including the stringent checks of Piper, the customs Beagle, who can sniff out fruit at 10 paces), the kind people at immigration stamped our visas and we were in!

We got the bus into town and straight to Auckland Central Backpackers. We managed to check in and get a quick bite of lunch before the jet lag hit us again! We’re now 12 hours ahead of Ireland.

Thursday morning, we got moving again. First call was to the Backpackers Car Market, a garage where people can display their car/van for sale for a small fee. A handy source for backpackers! It’s the start of their busy season, so prices are about to go up. The vehicles on show there are usually at 12 – 25 years old so it’s only backpackers buying really, and the prices vary according to the demand at the different times of year. Hopefully that means that what we buy will be worth about the same again if we sell in a years time.

We’d both organised getting NZ bank accounts opened from home, so just called into one of the branches here with our account details and ID and got our bank cards! How simple compared to home! Though we’re still trying to work out how one accesses one’s money and moves money from our Irish Accounts to the NZ ones now…

I got a sim card for my phone (Vodafone are the only mobile providers here and are enjoying the monopoly – no freebies!) and texted a Kiwi polo player Sean had contacted before leaving home. He invited us to their club session that evening, so we tackled the bus service and turned up at the pool. We played a couple of good games with them in their heated outdoor pool, and then set off for their after pool session pub session. Ended up at a committee meeting – those things are the same the world over! Got a lift back to the hostel from one of the lads, Andrew, and an invite to their training session on Sunday morning. Starting to feel like we’re not just on holidays here! Well, not just the kind of holiday where we’re going to be going home in a couple of weeks anyway!

Since then, we've agreed to buy a 1993 Toyota Emina, which hopefully is in good enough nick to last us the year without falling apart, and that we'll hopefully manage to sell pretty well at the end of the year! Paying over the dosh tomorrow.

We went to the local Polo Club's training session this morning. It's far too energetic a way to spend a Sunday morning -trying to play in a plastic polo boat in very strong winds! We're going to stay in Auckland till Friday morning, going to the pool session again on Thursday evening. Then the plan is to hit Taupo and visit Jane, an old friend of Sean's.

Oh, and the update from home is that my sister, Susan, managed to fall off my horse (even though he did a great jump over the fence) and break her leg! Get well soon Susan!