This morning was a bit of a pain - got up early to catch our stray day tour of Auckland. Then proceeded to stand at a street corner for about half an hour before Hope popped up back to the hostel lobby, up on the third floor, to find out that the tour start time had been changed by an hour.
I was particularly saddened as during the wait, I dropped my Starbucks Australia travel mug. It's now cracked, and has coffee on the inside. If I can't get the liquid out I may have to throw it out. It's particularly sad as I've been to 3 Starbucks so far this morning and have been unable to track down a New Zealand mug to replace it. Everyone seems to be sold out - I may cave and buy the Espresso cups to pack as a souvenir. And maybe just buy a super heavy duty travel mug at an outdoor supply store we're planning on stopping at tonight. I may also replace my towel with one of those quick drying ones.
Another thing contributing to my less than elated mood is that I also forgot my memory card plugged into my camera, so I only have like 20 low quality shits in the internal memory of my camera.
The tour so far is kinda blah. The guide is nice enough - half cook island Maori, half New Zealand Maori which is kinda cool. At first just watching someone go down the sky tower, then stop to hear about some sailing tours. It's made annoying by the fact that it's cold and rainy. The group is cool though - 2 other girls will be starting the North Island tour tomorrow with Hope and I which will be nice.
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We just got back from Michael Joseph Savage memorial - despite the cold, you have a really awesome view of the city and surrounding islands. I think dad would really like Auckland - it's called the city of sails, and there's boats everywhere. When we stopped by to hear about cruises we saw fancy racing sail boats from the America cup.
Anyways, off to a pub for lunch. More later.
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The pub food was decent. Stopped at Mount Eden in the afternoon for another nice view of the city that would have been greatly improved by better weather. Ended the day on a high nite with a free bridge walk on the Auckland bridge. Which was cold and miserable in the rain, but atleast the view was nice - apparently we could see the larger marina in the southern hemisphere.
On our way back did some souvenir shopping at Victoria Market and then stopped by this outdoor equipment store called Katmandu, where I possibly spent too much money buying stuff for myself. Though at least some of it were essentials - I needed to replace my towel which never dried from Cairns. It smells. A lot. And even if I tried to wash it it wouldn't dry again. So now I'm the proud owner of a new quick dry towel. Not to mention packing cubes and a new travel mug. No luck on the Starbucks front.
Anyways, spent some time in the room watching a movie and packing. Am currently out to dinner with one of girls from the tour this morning, and someone Hope knew from her south island tour. Free wifi, so I'm struggling to get this post ready before it's time to go.
Aiming for an early night - tour in the morning. I'll try to update again when I can.
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