"She's a bit of a freak"

Day two in NZed was pretty awesome, I have to say. For those of you playing along at home, it is currently very early on Tuesday morning, and we’re re-packing our stuff in our hostel preparing to head on to Taupo. We ended up staying in Auckland last nite as was originally planned because we spent too long on the boat and didn’t want to start driving in the early evening.

We met up with Matty NZed and Steve, aka Capt. Prophylactic, down at the wharf for our boat tour and fishing trip. Sarah Phillips had told us the Captain was one wealthy motherf---er, so I had daydreams about a 50 foot yacht with a bar. No such luck, just your average boat. When I made a comment about really wanting to catch a fish, one of them said, “Oh I wouldn’t worry about it.” With a comment like that I was expecting to fish to be jumping into the boat. Three hours later (and several “New Zealand Water’s” later), not a fish to be had. I tried to ask for my money back, but no luck. I’m not trying to act like Im a great fisherwoman or anything, but I did catch a number of fish back in 1993 at the “Guaranteed to Catch a Fish Pond” in Estes Park, Colo. So basically this whole experience was bullshit.

Actually if I’m being honest, there were a number of times when I just shook my head thinking I was in a boat in New Zealand fishing. What the hell.

The boys boated us over to Auckland, we said our goodbyes, and made way over to our hostel. I’ve actually only stayed in a hostel once before, in Vancouver, so I was surprised with how not-that-bad it was. I hopped on the internet and posted the entries you’ve read and loved from yesterday while Liza ran to the liquor store to get me my next NZed must-have: Scrumpy. Scrumpy is a brand of cider that comes in a liter bottle like it was Mountain Dew. It’s delish, and easily transportable, two of my favorite things.

For the afternoon our plan was to do the Central Auckland Walking Tour in our Lonely Planet (RICK STEVES STYLE). Because we are staying near the wharf, we decided to do it backwards, which was really hard. After seeing our first landmark, we RICK STEVES STYLE stopped to have a pint and some golden fries, and by the time we finished that, it was time to move the car. We had progressed exactly 1.5 blocks from the hostel. Go us.

We jumped in our car and somewhat successfully navigated our way over to One Tree Hill, which is the highest point in the city and offers “stunning panoramic views.” At the top is an homage to the Washington Monument (USA! USA!) that is the grave of the guy who gifted the land for the city of Auckland. What you won’t see at the top of One Tree Hill: a tree. It was cut down in protest 150 years ago, replanted, and then cut down again in 2000. Now there’s just an old stump, on which we sat to drink our Scrump.

After spending all day fishing and smelling bait, we really wanted sushi for dinner. We had a glass of wine at a place called Cin Cin (viva Italia!) and then looked unsuccessfully for 30+ minutes for a place that was both open and sans conveyor belt. No luck, so we had a tasty Italian meal, and then back to the hostel and to bed. All and all a successful day.

A few sidenotes:

-The rental car place was really not excited about giving us a car with a cd player with the rate we were paying. Liza and I played good cop/bad cop, and they eventually relented, especially when she offered to drive the car back to Auckland for them. The thought of having carried 13 cds over here that I would never get to listen to was not exciting, so crisis averted.

-After One Tree Hill, we attempted a grocery store run for breakfast and sandwich stuff for the next couple of days. We wound up at an Asian grocery store which was, um, interesting. I’ll just say they didn’t have bread.

-At dinner we had these delicious prosciutto rolls. Our attempts to enjoy this meat of the Gods have thus far been thwarted. Matty lost the prosciutto he bought to include with dinner the other night (and proceeded to explain to me what it was…idiot), and we thought the subs we bought for the boat had it but they did not. Needless to say, prosciutto is equally as tasty in every country.

That’s all for now. Rollin out shortly for Taupo, the activity capital of New Zealand, whatever that means. It’s about a 4 hour drive, and we plan to do some hiking up to Huka Falls when we get there.