Auckland Adventures

We stopped off in Auckland for just long enough to remind ourselves that the weather and prices in London are wonderful. Perhaps that is Auckland´s only role as a world travel destination (I had been labouring under the illusion that London fulfilled that feel-good role for the rest of the world).

The prices of a loaf of bread, piece of cheese or bottle of New Zealand wine in an Auckland supermarket were enough to convince me that London is not the rip-off it is made out to be. It was the middle of their summer, but for the whole three days we were there it was cloudy, cold, raining and miserable. As the only two local man-made structures of note are both in Australia, we weren´t expecing much excitement on the building front, but we were astonished by a 30 foot high semi-mechanical papier-mache Santa Claus clamped to the side of a high street department store. It was motionless apart from its left eye (which winked) and left index finger which curled menacingly. The overall impression was of a child terrifier from a made-for-TV Stephen King horror.

We spent most of our time in Auckland trying to find someone who worked for Varig airlines who was awake, had a working braincell and a working computer system. We failed.

Sonia did succeed in being crowned ¨miss backpacker 2005¨ in the dodgy hostel bar after we were lured there with promises of free New Zealand beer (which is actually very good). Two Brazilian girls dropped out because they couldn´t drink an alcopop in under 24 hours, so Sonia stepped in to wow the crowds with her chocolate-eating abilities.