Auckland - December 21, 22 and 23

The 21st, I arrived in Auckland and started scoping out the city.  I camped out in Albert Park (in the shade - Auckland was MUCH warmer than Dunedin) and looked at the relatively short list of activities to do in Auckland.  Honestly, Auckland isn't all that thrilling during the day - unless you leave.  So, since Auckland was going to play multiple parts in this grandiose excursion, I decided to not explore too much on my own since I'd have to do it again with other people.  So, instead I figured out where all the backpackers were and the bus and ferry terminals...and the local yarn store.  Yup, I have my priorities.

On the 22nd, I met my college friend Lorena at the airport and after the initial thrills of having a travel buddy wore off (only slightly) we bussed back to downtown Auckland and checked into our camp-like backpackers.  I would HIGHLY recommend this backpackers: City Garden Lodge.  It's a little removed from downtown Auckland in the Parnell neighborhood.  But it's so lovely, the kitchen is well stocked and organized and everyone there is really nice.  As soon as we got there, we met the girls in our dorm room with us - both were actually American and super nice.  We nicknamed our dorm the "American Girls" room, I enjoy the name even though I'm not really a fan of the dolls...

We then set off on a quest for cheap fish and chips.  It's a necessity for all newcomers to NZ.  Sadly, the f+c in Parnell was all hoighty-toighty and expensive; and they didn't have donuts.  No deal.  So, we wandered all the way into downtown in our (unsuccessful) quest. 

Once we found some food, we made tracks to the yarn store (yes, I'm a knitting nerd).  But Lorena was super excited about it too!  So I bought a boatload of yarn for presents and Lorena bought some for small projects to work on when we had down time.  Then, since we were both a little bushed from so much travel, and the knowledge that we'd be going non-stop for the next 2 weeks, we headed to the back porch of our backpackers with a cup of tea and knit and caught up for, oh, hours...

The next morning, we were expecting Laura and Todd to meet us at the backpackers before we took off for the zoo.  While we waited, we hit the sunny back porch again and continued to knit and chat with the other backpackers.  We met some very cool people, Danielle who was heading home after several months in NZ, David who's been here nearly a year and is new to Auckland and Dwight who'd been biking all over the North Island and Australia.  All cool people and interesting conversation, so the wait for Laura and Todd was not tedious.  But when they arrived we took off to see kiwi birds.

L and Me riding the bucking Tuatara - KIWI! - ginormous tortoise

MONKEYS!                                Please clean my armpit   And the other one                 Oh yes, my bum too

 Needless to say I enjoyed the monkeys, cheeky as they are...

hippopotomi, giraffes, and...Todd? oh my

On our way home, Laura and I were happily reminded of the most fabulous town in the greatest state ever...

Lorena and I then cooked dinner, after which we attempted to teach Lorena how to play cribbage.  Note to self: teaching people a rather complicated card game after a bottle of wine is difficult for both parties... (but I won, so all is still well with the world :)