The City of Sails
We arrived in Auckland, The City of Sails, pleasantly surprised by its sheer size, cultural diversity and welcoming attitude. We didn’t tour much as as we would have liked as we had some special shopping and socialising to catch up on.
We stayed in Auckland City Base (ACB) an impressive 523 bed hostel. A backpacker heaven it had everything under one roof like a bar, nightclub, internet cafe etc. The most impressive were its two free cinema rooms which had movies playing back-to-back 24 hours a day, so when we were feeling a little groggy after a nights socialising we’d hide in there for a few hours.
At night we soaked up the atmosphere in the city’s Irish bars, there’s a hell of a lot of Irish in Auckland. Our time was primarily taken up touring the jewelry shops for an engagement ring. We did find one but when we went to pay the funds we had transferred from our savings account (to compensate for our SA flights) hadn’t cleared so we had them send it to their Wellington branch so that we can collect it en route. Pictures of the rock will follow in a week or so 
.
Apologies for the crap photographs, these are the only ones we took while in the city. The most impressive building was Sky Tower, at 328m it’s the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. Don’t ask what the whole suitcase thing is about, some passenger stuck on the Aurora cruiser which had been docked for days for repairs was killing time trying to train pigeons to walk the maze – what it that all about? After a brief conversation with him we knew he wasn’t the full ticket. We felt sorry for the porter who had to to cart these suitcases to and from the cruiser.
