Hong Kong 19th-22nd November 2006
Hong Kong has been quite different from what I expected. Its definately a very modern and interesting place. Unfortunately I've not done as much as I have wanted to as the last 2 days have been marred by Amber Storm alerts. I'm not sure exactly what that means but there has been lots of thunder and lightning and torential rain! Its a shame.
I arrived on Sunday morning at around 8:30am and then I proceeded to get lost in the airport (lovely as it was!). I eventually found the place I had prebooked for the Hotel Transfer and after that it was quite simple. I got to the Hotel Metropark Mongkok (See Here) at around 10:45 and as I hadn't really slept on the plane I was knackered. SO I pretty much spent the day lounging int he hotel room watchign some TV and reading a book. I had a quick wonder around the area (Mong Kok in Kowloon) and its quite an interesting area. Very residential and lots of small shops and looks somewhat in a state of disrepair but then there are loads of skyscrapers all around and they seem to be pretty much residential appartments and relatively small ones at that. Lots of washing hanging out of the windows :). I evetually got to bed at around 10pm and slept until abotu 7am which wasn't bad. I don't feel like I have suffered too much from Jet Lag.
On Monday I got up relatively early and enjoyed a good breakfast in the Hotel and then made my was down on the MTR (Metro) to Hong Kong Island. The MTR is really clean and quick and relatively inexpensive which was a pleasnat surprise, but it was very crowded at all times of the day. I sepnt the mornign just wonderign around Central which was quite intriguing. It had countless Mall's which were all very smart and were made up of shops like Armani, Prada and countless Jewellery shops. These were all linked by walkways above the roads which made it easy to get around and quite pleasant. This area is really chock a block full of Skyscrapers and really has to beeen seen. Someone I met here described it as 'Manhattan built on a hill' which I thought was quite apt. I made my way up to St James Cathedral, which is more like a parish church than a Cathedral and quite plain inside so it was a little dissapointing. From there it was a short walk to the Victoria Peak Tram. The ride up is fantastic and althought the day was failry misty you coudl still see quite well but it woudl have been great to have a perfectly clear day. Once at the top the views were fantastic both to the north and south of Hong Kong Island. I stopped off at the peak for lunch and took a short walk around the peak path. Its 13KM long so I didn't go all the way round but again there were some great views and interesting plants like Bamboo. After spending a couple of hours up at the peak I descended again and went into Hong Kong park which was fantastically maintained and it was great to have a park and see skyscrapers peakign over the tops of the trees. There was also a fantastic Aviary in there as well with loads of spectacular birds. I spent a good hours wondering around the park and then I decided to go back to the Hotel for the night.
The last couple of days in Hong Kong were very wet including Amber Storm alerts which meant lots of rain and lots of thunder. I managed to get out on the tuesday but only managed to get completely lost and spend most of the morning getting confused. When I did find out where I was it started to pour down so I had to abandon my quest for the Hong Kong Space Museum. Very disapointing.
The last day was spent mostly waiting around in the airport getting bored. I also started this off then :) The flight was from Hong Kong to Sydney and was uneventful. I didn't mange to get much sleep though. When I got to Sydney I had 4 hours until the connecting flight to Auckland and I found that the Bureau de Change wouldn't accept my left over Hong Kong Dollars so I had to sit aroudn thirsty. The departure gate had a great view of Downtown Sydney which was cool and also it was very hazy as apparantly there was a bush fire nearby and the smoke was flowing over Sydney.
New Zealand 23rd November - 25th January 2006
Arrivign in Auckland was great. I arrived and the Sun was shining and it was a pleasant 22 degrees. It was nice to arrive where it wasn't humid and raining! I caught the shuttle bus to downtown Auckland and the bus dropped me right outside the hostel (Auckland Central Backpackers) which I had prebooked for 2 nights. Geoff and Elle were arriving the next day at 4:30am. I had been trying to contact them for several days, but I hadn't had any response. I knew the flight details but as I was knackered from travelling, I decided not to meet them at the airport and to sleep in.
The next day I got up fairly early as I had got to bed early the night before. I checked email at the hostel and there was still nothign from Geoff and Elle. I had sent them details of the hostel previously so I decided to go for a walk around town and see what I could see.
I had a good walk around central Auckland and went up to see the Sky Tower which was quite impressive, but I didn't do a bungy jump from the top! I then went down to the harbour area and wondered around there for a while, it wasn't that inspiring. I then wandered up Queen Street which is the main shopping area and saw the huge Father Christmas outside one of the shops. I was quite surprised that there wasn't much more in the way of Christmas decorations in the shop windows. Its quite a relief to see relatively few Christmas decorations at this time of year. I got some lunch and then made my way back to the hostel to see if there was any news from Geoff and Elle. There wasn't. I was begining to get worried that I wasn't going to meet up with them.
I was hanging around the hostel when I got a text message from Dad saying that Geoff had been in touch and had given him their address. I went onto the internet and found his email which said that they hadn't heard anything from me either and that they were staying at YaPing House and gave the address. I decided to go up and try to meet them. I caught a bus up to the Mount Eden area which was relatively simple and then stopped off in a corner shop to ask directions. While I was in there looking at the streetmap a local offered to give me a lift as he was just around the corner. What a stoke of luck.
I finally made it to YaPing house and met David one of the Hostel people and he had heard about me from Geoff and Elle and how we hadn't managed to get in touch and how email wasn't working between us and confirmed that yes they were staying there :) That was a relief.
It was about 2pm and their door was shut so I decided to let them sleep for a bit longer as they had been travelling for quite some time and arrived very early. I sat down outside and read and chatted to some of the residents. Every now and then I went to knock on the door but there was no response. I hung around for about 4 hours to see if they got up and eventually David offered to open the door and check to see if they were there! They weren't! They had gone out without him seeing them! Typical! I left them a note with my hostel details and mobile number and decided to head back to ACB. When I got back I discovered a note under my door saying that Geoff and Elle had been looking for me all day and that they had given up and would pop down tomorrow to at aroudn 11am. What a disaster! Oh well! I was jet lagged so had another early night. The hostel was a huge place and very busy but I had arranged with David to stay the next day at YaPing house so I wasn't as worried about accomadation (U2 were in town and all the hostels were full!).
The next day I got up and waited around in the lounge area. I chatted to Hamish and Ben who were from the UK and were looking for work in New Zealand and helped pass the time while waiting for Geoff and Elle. I decided to check email while waiting and discovered a new email from Geoff and Elle saying they were going shopping and would wait for me up there! Lucky I checked. I decided to get a taxi up there and got there just as they came back from shopping. Hooray! We had finally met up. We started planning our trip. We decided that the best thing would be to hire a car so we decided that we would go and find the hire car places and investigate. We caught the bus back into town and wondered through Albert Park on our way to Beach road where our guide books said all the Hire Car places were. We then spent the rest of the afternoon walking up and down the road asking about prices and getting details of the hire car places. We then sat down in a pub for a drink and sorted through all we had gathered and decided on Ace Car rentals which didn't include drop off at Wellington and pickup in Picton (after ferry ride to South Island) but that wasn't a problem as the saving in the cost was about the same as the cost of the ferry. We went on back and found that the place had closed! We would have to come back tomorrow. We made our way back to the hostel and we spent the evening chatting and catching up on what we had been up to. It was very pleasant.
It was Sunday and we were not sure that Ace would be open on a sunday so we gave them a call and they were. We made our way back down again so we coudl order thr car for the next day. I spent some time fillign in all the details and forms etc and then we got the car there and then. That was a surprise :) We drove round the corner and we went into my first New Zealand Supermarket to get some food for the evening. It was nice to see strangely. We then went back for lunch (gorgeous Fish and Chips) and to drop off the food.
We had decided, the day before, that we would go to the Auckland central Museum in the afternoon and we could drive there now which we had not expected. The museum is based in the Auckland Domain Park which was very nice, so we wondered through there to the Museum. There were three parts. The ground floor explained abotu New Zealand History and had lots of Maori artefacts and it was quite interesting. The Second floor was about the Natural History of New Zealand. The Third floor was a war museum. We didn;t get time to fully do the thrid floor but it looked interesting as we passed through it quickly. That evening we got chatting to a local who was staying there and he told us a lot about New Zealand in general on various topics. We also met up with a German guy called Thomas who had been travelling round already and gave us some of his experiences and knowledge of the place.
Auckland is a very nice city, very green but there isn't much to do here that is of much interest.
Monday morning was bright and warm and we started off the day with a walk to the top of Mount Eden. The hostel had a good view from it but the summit of Mount Eden (which the hostel is on) was excellent. We got a good view all aroudn the city and could see several other of the Volcano sites aroudn the place. We got a great view of the harbour and Central Aucklands skyline. It was quite impressive.
We had spent several days in Auckland, meeting up and sorting things out but now it was time to get started. We checked out and said goodbye to the people there and set off for the Northlands (north of Auckland). The first place we thought to stop at was Goat Island Marine reserve which was about 100km north of Auckland. The drive was quite nice and we saw lots nice scenery along the way. Once out of Auckland and its suburbs the roads quietned down quite a lot and route 1 turned into single lane (as most of the roads are) which was both hilly and twisty. We decided not to stop at Goat Island then but went on to Pakiri Beach a little futher north. We stopped for lunch at a deseted picnic spot by the sea and then after lunch we went for a walk on the beach. The beach itself was deserted aprt from one other couple it was also huge and pink due to the shells that made up the sand. It was quite windy but sunny and it was fantastic to wander up and down a deserted beach. There was a sign on the beach which said how much seafood we could take away per person which was great, if we had known how to collect shellfish. We could have taken away oysters, green lipped muscles, clams or oysters, amongst others. Oh well.
We carried on from Pakiri up gravel roads (lots of those in New Zealand) to Mangawrai Heads and checked in to the Coastal Cow Hostel (themed place about Cows). It had been quite a hard days driving so we decided to eat out in the village which was quite nice as I had my first tatse of New Zealand Lamb, yummy. We had to share a room at the hostel but we were on our own and Geoff and Elle had earplugs! :) The owner wasn't there as she had just given birth and was still in hospital. There were a few others there and there was a guy called Brent and his Dad staying there and it was Brent's Birthday so we sat around and chatted and we helped eat the Birthday Cake. A pleasant evening.
The next day we got up early and made our way over to Goat Island Beach and Marine reserve. It was a nice morning and we managed to arrive before anyone was there and the beach was empty. It was really beautiful. It wasn't that warm so I decided not to go snorkelling but Geoff and Elle did. I stayed on the beach and wrote up my diary and managed to get my neck slightly burnt in the process. By the time we left, the beach was getting pretty packed. We made our way to the fish and chip shop for lunch and then carried on north to 'Sheepworld' - Yes really - a place dedicated to farming sheep! We took a look at the prices though and decided not to go in. Instead we went a little further north and took a walk up to Domain lookout. It was a nice walk in the woods and we got a pretty good view from the lookout but it wasn't anything special. It was getting late again so we made our way back to the Coastal Cow for our second night.
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