Jet Lagged in Auckland

Auckland was the first stop on my backpacking tour around New Zealand. Jetlag could have had something to do with our impression of the city, but we were not totally impressed with it. It seemed like any other small American city, except with a beautiful harbour around it--on every corner there was a Starbucks or a Burger King.

One thing that really struck us was how early everything closes--make sure that, if you are in the city centre, you get everything you need before 5pm. It was interesting attempting to find a) a grocery store and b) one that was open at 5:30pm when searching for yogurt for a friend.

This city does have a lot for water-inclined though--while it was not really warm enough for us to go to the beach while we were there, there were a few there, along with ferries across the harbour that had nice views of the city itself and the surrounding peninsulas, along with the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Had we had enough time, sailing around the city would have been very enjoyable.

The SkyTower is definitely a must if you want to see the best view of the city and people jumping off the tallest building in Auckland.

Quick Tips:

If planning a whirlwind trip of New Zealand, I would advise going to other destinations for longer periods of time than Auckland. While Auckland did have activities to offer, other towns offered much more.

Best Way To Get Around:

We found that walking to anywhere we wanted in the city was easy enough. There is also a free bus that makes a loop around the city and can get you from most major hostels in the city to the ferry terminals and the like.

This was our first stop after our long flight to New Zealand, so I have to say, no matter what the quality of the hostel, it would have been a welcome sight. Luckily, we had picked well.

ACB was very well located, right in the centre of Auckland and only a few blocks away from the Sky Tower. Queen Street had all the transportation you needed to get anywhere else in the city, along with plenty of shopping and fast food. Shuttles from the airport take you directly to the door, so all you have to do is get up the elevator to the third floor. This is the only place you are allowed to go to without having a key, which gives the place some security.

There are plenty of very helpful staff at the huge front desk, which must have had at least six or eight cash registers, although not quite that many staff to work them. The front desk staff were efficient and got us checked in quickly, and also took care of my baggage that was brought over by the airline the next morning.

There was a huge lounge area (and might I say, a massive Internet cafe with the most computers I've seen in a room outside a uni computer lab). The lounge area had lots of couches and also a counter in which you could get information about pretty much anything in New Zealand. We liked the couches since we got there a few hours early, and plus, they provided us a good place to organize luggage before putting it in storage. They had convenient and rather cheap baggage storage (~$8 a day for up to 3 weeks), so we could keep our huge bags there and not lug them around the rest of New Zealand.

The beds only cost about NZ$20 a night, and were coed, eight-bed dorms. Each bed had a locker underneath for your personal belongings, as long as you had a lock to do it up with. The atmosphere was much like a huge city of backpackers. It had a bar and a PA system in every room to announce stuff going on at the bar. Because of this, it was very loud. We were a few floors below the bar and not only got the PA announcements, but could also hear the bar itself. The bathrooms were clean and easily accessible.

Overall, I thought it was a good hostel for a large city of backpackers, and chose to stay there again on a future visit, although it was lacking in the community found in a smaller hostel. My only problem was with cancellations. Because of a flight cancellation, I could not make it to Auckland one night, and let them know. They assured me that I would not be charged for the night… but I was anyway. When I called I was told to call back at some other time on two or three different occasions, and I finally gave up.

The Sky Tower was definitely the highlight of our trip to Auckland. A short walk from Queen Street, the main street through the centre of Auckland, it gave us at least an hour or two of amusement. You get wonderful 360º views of the whole of Auckland, its outlying suburbs and peninsulas, and the glittering turquoise harbour itself. The views aren't all straight ahead of you either--there are a fair number of windows looking straight down that you can walk across--or jump across, after you hear the guide tell you about a 5-year-old kid jumping on one with a rock in his shoe and cracking the glass right through!

There's also the attraction of watching people bungee off the top of the tower, although it's not quite bungee jumping--the jumper gets lowered down to the viewing level so everyone can get a good laugh (there's even a sign telling you when there will be a jumper) and then they are dropped towards the ground, but they slow down enough to land rather than bouncing up and down on a cord. There's even tables on a slightly lower level to take a bit of snack break at.

It wasn't the most adrenalin-packed afternoon ever, but certainly enjoyable, and relatively cheap at around $15NZ for a student ticket up the elevator.

Although this was not an actual boat tour, it was in the vein of a ride like the Interislander Ferry, which takes you across the Cook Straits between the two islands, or the Manly Ferry in Sydney, which takes you through the harbour. This ride was really meant as transportation between two places, but also served as a mini sightseeing tour on its own.

We walked to the ferry terminal, located at the very end of Queen Street. It was rather a long walk, but we got to see a lot of the city in the process. We luckily got to the terminal just in time to buy the $8 ticket and jump on the ferry. It was pretty packed with commuting kids and other non-touristy looking people.

The ferry ride itself was not all that long; it was only 10-15 minutes to get to Devonport from Auckland City. However, it was long enough to get some pretty good snaps of Auckland City and the Sky Tower towering above it, and the Auckland Harbour Bridge spanning from Auckland across to the area near Devonport. It looked suspiciously like another coathanger bridge in another country Down Under.

The terminal in Devonport was rather deserted when we got there. Everyone on the ferry vacated it pretty quickly, and many of the shops that were in the little shopping centre were closed, aside from a few scattered souvenir stores and the ice-cream shop, which we later went to.

We wandered around Devonport, which was a cute little suburb of Auckland, for a while. It was full of greenery and little shops with interesting things, like the one shop that only sold eco-friendly souvenirs. However, all of the shops that we went into were rather artsy and therefore quite pricey—therefore, we didn't end up with anything but they were nice to look around.

After ambling up the main street for a while, we spent time in the little gardens they had, which weren't spectacular but did have this huge old tree that had to be held up with stilt-like pipes. The gardens go right up to the shore, which couldn't really be called a beach because of the general lack of a lot of sand. We sat down on a bench and nearly fell asleep because of the soothing sound of the waves on the shore. When we finally got up, we walked down the shore a little bit, until we got some very nice shots of Auckland from afar, and then called it a day and went back to the ferry.

Overall, it was a very good day trip, and exactly what we needed. It wasn't too exerting, yet at the same time it wasn't too boring, so we didn't fall asleep from the jet lag too early. It was nice to see such a cute little green area in the midst of such a large, and rather bland, city.

Since we only had a limited time in New Zealand before moving on to Australia for our study abroad orientation, we had pre-booked all accommodation, major transportation and activities before making it to the country. This was good in that we knew exactly what was going to happen, and when we were going to make it to where—or so we thought.

Turns out, when we got to the Auckland airport, our flight to Wellington couldn't take off because the city was fogged out. Apparently this happens once or twice a month, so watch out—it's because the runway is only long enough for a 747 to land, and absolutely no longer—so if you overshoot the runway, you end up floating in the bay.

Unfortunately, at least a day's worth of frustrated travellers were already at the Auckland airport, and we couldn't get a flight into Welly before our ferry was supposed to leave at 2:30pm the next afternoon. We looked up train and bus schedules, but all of those were full of angry people for at least the next day as well. As we were all just under 21, we couldn't find any place that would rent us a car.

When we were just about to give up the rest of our travel plans, we met a nice guy, whose girlfriend's mother just happened to be in Auckland and had a rental car. My friend begged him to let us go with him, and somehow the three of us managed to squeeze in, along with our backpacks, his 3 months of luggage from a summer trip, his kiteboard, and him and his girlfriend's mother into a budget hatchback car. It was rather amusing when, 20 minutes into the ride, we offered to introduce ourselves and the mother said, "You don't KNOW these people?!"

It was a great experience though, and one that I wouldn't have had happen any other way—rather than skipping the entire north island on our way to Wellington, Karen tried to show us the main sights, including thermal pockets, Huka Falls (near Taupo), the view across Taupo itself (although it was too foggy to see anything), and she showed us the wonder that is L&P (a drink that is "world famous in New Zealand") and pineapple lumps (chocolate covered pineapple flavored goo). Not only that, but we had a real New Zealand dinner of fish & chips & pineapple fritters. Although it was a bit of a squish in the car, it was worth the 8 hours and definitely inspired me to make my next trip to New Zealand to further explore the North Island!