Today was another early start (6am alarm)...I hope I'm not starting to sound like a broken record. You'll be happy to hear that I didn't stray from my traditional toast and PB breakfast too. Wouldnt want to throw off my chi!
Today was essentially a travel day. I said a final goodbye to my North Island NZ friends his morning and joined the back end of another group heading back to Auckland. It was ok cause the new guide Simon was super nice and fun...possibly even more so than our last guide Dallas. There were also three other people from my old tour on the bus with me so I knew people.
The trip from Wellington to Auckland was approximately 9 hrs of driving. Sounds long but its kind of nice to balance all the running around and activities with some chilling on the bus. The weather was a mixed bag of nuts along the way too but much of the day was cloudy/rainy so it was just as well we weren't doing much outdoors.
We left the hostel between 7 and 7:30am and we drove till about 1:30 before we made a big stop for lunch. We did stop in a little ski town for a toilet break before that and I bought a souvenir magnet of Mt. Ruapehu.
Our lunch stop was a small town called Taumarunui. There was one main street lined with lots of little shops. According to our guide its not a very wealthy town. A lot of the Maori natives reportedly live there. I bought a wrap at a grocery store and sat under a large tree in a park to eat. While there, I heard a rooster call and I assumed it was at a nearby residence. The next thing I knew, the rooster was walking freely around the park. He wasn't extremely brave but minded his own businesses.
After lunch we were back on the bus. We had to stop at the hospital because one of the girls from my tour had been feeling ill and she needed to get checked out. By about 3 pm we were back on the road. Unfortunately, the doctors thought that the girl might have appendicitis but they were not equiped for ultrasound or surgery (it was just a small town hospital) so they made an executive decision to continue on to Auckland where they have bigger hospitals.
We drove for another two hours or so and I dosed on and off. The scenery was the same as usual...fields, hills, sheep and cows. We made one last stop for toilets and snacks before the final push to Auckland. It got progressively busier and more developed the closer we got to Auckland. It was rush hour and traffic was horrible but luckily in the opposite direction.
At 645 we made it to the centre of town. We went directly to the hospital with our sick travel companion Carrie and it was probably a wise decision as she was really looking to be in a lot of pain. They took her in right away and the rest of us headed to our accomodatikn for the night.
I stayed at Nomads Auckland again. I was surprised to enter my room and find a boy there! Apparently it's coed. He was a really nice guy named Frederico from Italy so all was good. No,ono hanky panky.
I spent most of the evening walking around Auckland's main street...Queen St...omce in the light and once afrer dark. It was a happenjng place! So many young adults and travelers. I bought some souvenirs and took some pics. Everthing here is decorated for Christmas but it doesn't look like home that's for sure...Santa Clause and Palm trees is not what I think of!
I bought dinner at Subway again only because it wss quick and relatively healthy...I've been overdoing it on yummy BBQ. I spent the rest of the evening showering, repacking my bag and chilling before bed.
There was one more eventful thing that happemed. At 1am the fire alarm went off and thwy evacuatd the entire hostel. We weee all standing put on the steeet for over an hoir. Lots of drunkos too cause therw is a bar in the hostel. Good times. Anyway, time to say good night Auckland.
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