Well today has been…. interesting. But I’ll get to that later.

We arrived into Auckland Tuesday afternoon and it was glorious. You can breath in and your lungs don’t feel like they’re about to melt!
We had a taxi to meet us and take us to the storage locker to leave our bikes in safety as we head into the city.

It felt like coming home, everyone is so friendly, however the city is noticeably different from everywhere else we have been in NZ previously, very multicultural.

We stayed 3 nights in the centre of the city so we (I) could sort out the boring grown up stuff like tax, bank accounts and phone contracts.
Checkout my impressive spreadsheet to try and work out what network to go with for phone and broadband. (Mobile data is more expensive than JT…………!!)

Aside from walking around the city for 3 days and getting stuff sorted we haven’t really seen a lot.
Thankfully the hostel was nice with good cooking facilities, whilst other travellers are sat with bowls of pasta we have been living it up with avocado, tomato and eggs for breakfast. Our beloved garlic pitta bread for lunch and classic Victoria style dishes in the evening (however James did make dinner for us last night)

The hostel was that good they had dish cloths to match my top…

Last night was supposed to be, have dinner early, do laundry and find a van. Except a lovely lady, we shall call her Mrs Gisborne, started talking to us and did not stop for at least 3 hours (was like being at home with Mother 😉 )
Then the late night Asian eaters started. One thing we have noticed travelling, there are a lot of Asian people travelling.
Another thing we have noticed, they don’t eat with their mouths closed.
Another thing we have noticed, THEY SLURP SO LOUDLY WHEN EATING SOUP. I noticed this first, and as the kind person I am shared this snippet of information with James, who wanted to ram their chopsticks up their noses!
(James: yeah right that’s what I said!)

This morning we decided to get up early and try to use the hostel internet before too many people were up. We failed, it was still slow even being up and out at 8am.
So we checked out, went to leave our bags at the hostel we had booked for tonight, Friday 10th February, then had planned to go and see a few vans.

However, when we enquired at the hostel, it became apparent James had unknowing booked 3 nights from the 10th March. Oh dear. With every hostel in the city full to capacity the only ones left were dodgy crack houses or really expensive. As it happens we’ve ended up in a half arsed drug house with a private room for a gazillion dollars, but at least it’s a bed!
(James: it’s really not that bad)
– it is! I had to clean the kitchen before I put the bag carrying our food on it.

However, van viewing was slightly more productive. Went to see a ‘backpackers van dealer’ AKA con merchant and swiftly left, then head back out of town to see a different van James had seen online. Completely not what we were after, more than we wanted to pay for that size van but in good condition.

We shall see…. The adventure continues