Arriving at the airport
If you saw my previous travel post then you would know that we made it to Auckland from London after 35 + hours of flights and travelling through airports.
Our flight came in at around 5am local time and by the time we made it through the airport security and customs, collected bags and went to freshen up it was about 06:30am.
Pick up a SIM card
Once we were freshened up, we picked up a SIM card at arrivals (super easy to do, just go to either Spark or Vodafone and pick the deal you want – they then set it up for you).
We got one 10GB SIM for $49 from Spark. So far, the coverage has been decent and you can download an app which lets you track your data usage.
Getting into the city
Once we had our SIM card, it was then time to head into the city.
To get from Auckland Airport to Auckland city, you can grab a Skydrive shuttle which takes you there for $16 per person. Plenty of room for bags and you can pre-book tickets online if you want to. We however, just bought ours when we got on the bus.
Arriving Auckland city centre
The shuttle dropped us off near the city centre. We decided to walk down to the harbour area to see the water. At this point it was still really early in the morning ~7am so a lot of places were still not open.
We found a nice bench and gave both our parents a quick call to let them know we had made it safely and we ready to start our adventures.
We then grabbed a coffee with a lovely view of the water. This helped our energy levels and then we set off towards our accommodation. Luckily, we were able to drop off our big backpacks for the day even though we couldn’t check in until the afternoon. Without the weight of all our stuff, we felt limitless and set off to enjoy our day in Auckland.
Walking up Mt Eden
We set our sights on climbing up the big hill called Mt Eden which is not too far from the city centre. I think it took us about 40 minutes to walk to the base and a further 10 minutes (maybe) to walk to the top. It is a simple path and opens up at the top with a large crater. It was a lovely walk and the views of the city from the top were spectacular.
More walking
On our way back to the city centre, we walked via the Auckland war memorial museum park but we didn’t go into the museum. The park and outside of the museum were a great view. I do wish we had gone into the museum as it would have been very interesting to learn more about the history and exhibits.
The park was full of large beautiful trees as well.
We stopped by the Wintergarden on the way which was free to enter and has some stunning plants of display. This was quickly followed by a stop off at the Wintergarden café where we had another coffee and a sweet treat. (This may have been the best muffin I have ever had in my entire life).
Back to the city centre
We then made our way back to the city centre and wandered around looking at things we couldn’t buy. I was surprised by how many shops there were and I thought Auckland was really nice.
By this time, we were starting the get very tired. We had walked for many hours and our jetlag was catching up to us.
We found yet another park to chill in and finally checked into our accommodation around 3pm.
The big crash
Jetlag hit us pretty hard, we crashed and fell asleep around 4pm and slept for about 14 hours in total. We missed dinner and just slept through.
We were staying at a very budget hostel and it was not very comfortable but we were so tired it didn’t matter at all.
In the morning, we felt a lot better after some rest and set off to get some breakfast, before picking up our hire car and heading onwards with our adventure.
Next time in Auckland
What I would do next time in Auckland? As mentioned above, I would definitely go into to Auckland museum.
The other thing I would really like to do is catch the ferry to Devonport and walk to North head for a different view of the city. We had this on our list to do but we just didn’t have enough time or energy.
You can also go up the Auckland skytower for a another view of the city but we decided not too spend our budget on this. If I came back I would definitely consider it again.
We only had a limited time in Auckland and whilst we didn’t come to New Zealand for the cities, it was a great place to start our adventure here.
Keep an eye out for more travel posts on the way.
