We started our Tuesday by skyping with Gustav’s parents, which was Monday evening for them in Sweden. After the Skype call, we went up to the dining room where Latimer served us breakfast.
We had two choices of getting croissants or toasts and flavoured yogurt or natural yogurt. We went with croissants and had an array of marmalades to choose from. At breakfast, we shared the table with one of the other house guests that were staying with Latimer. He was a German guy called Flo who was traveling around the world one country at a time. He had been on long stays in both India and Australia previously and was going to the U.S. after New Zealand. To finance his travels, he was doing freelance web development and programming.
Together, Flo, Latimer, and we discussed a bit of everything. Politics, cultures, and travels. It was very nice, and we had breakfast for probably more than an hour.
After breakfast, we headed out towards the city centre. We were walking and had dressed according to the weather forecast, which turned out to be completely wrong. Instead of cold weather, winds, and rain, we got a day filled with sunshine. It was nice but would have been more pleasant if we had dressed for it.
Our first stop was the Auckland Domain, which is a big park close to the centre. We got a picture with the Auckland War Memorial Museum but decided on not going in. Instead, we had some fika and went for a walk in the park along a path called “Lover’s Walk.”
We continued towards the city centre. On our way, we walked past another campus of the University of Auckland and at this campus a lot of people were dressed in colourful capes with suits or dresses under. As we got to a park on the other side of the campus, it was packed with more people dressed like this. So, it seemed like there had been a graduation ceremony earlier and these were the graduates and their friends and families. We still don’t know what the different colours of the capes represented.
From the park, we went to the wharf, where we found a collection of shops similar to the Re:start mall in Christchurch. Although similar, there were fewer in Auckland but an interesting concept to have shops in containers. Among the shops, we found a sushi place with good deals. Seated at a nearby table, we rested our legs and ate our late lunch.
We walked along the wharf past the harbour and got to Silo Park, which seemed to be another area they were replanning. This area playgrounds and basketballs courts amidst the old industrial silos and warehouses.
Next to this area was Auckland Fish Market located, Linnea thought that it would be interesting to check it out. After stepping in, she walked the ten meters straight through because the smell was too much.
From there we headed to the nearest bus stop as it was starting to get late. At the bus stop, we concluded that they didn’t seem to have the signaling system as in NSW (where you need to signal or wave to the bus driver for them to stop). But lo and behold, when our bus came it just ran past us because just that bus route required you to signal the driver. In their defense, in the last second before the bus ran past us we could read “please signal driver” on the bus itself (which seems like a stupid place to put that text). We weren’t the only ones annoyed by the bus drivers inability to stop, which was evident by the swear words uttered by one of the other persons at the bus stop.
Twenty minutes later, the next bus arrived, and this time we waved and flared with our arms like our ride home depended on it. The bus stopped, we paid and got seated. The bus had a display that showed the upcoming stops, a map, the weather, the latest news, and a few ads – unlike the displays on the buses in NSW that only shows the video feed from the cameras onboard the bus, which is quite useless.
The bus tour went well, and we got off at the right stop with just a hundred meters to walk to our accommodation. For dinner, we fried the last of our camping sausages and ate them with bread. We spent the evening packing our bags, talking to Latimer and just relaxing.
Our last day in New Zealand started much like the first one with a tasty breakfast and nice company. As our flight was leaving at 5 pm, we had some time to spend before going to the airport. Latimer was so kind to let us leave our bags there until we had to go because otherwise, the check out time was at 11 am.
We went out towards a nearby park called Cornwall Park and One Tree Hill, which is a small mountain located in the park that’s quite famous because of it giving the name to the TV series. On our way to the park, it started raining. We had brought umbrellas, but our shoes were the real problem as they were starting to get wet all the way into our socks.
In the park, there were both sheep and cows. Linnea wanted to pet a lamb, but none of them seemed to be too trusting of humans and started to run away as soon as she got near.
For the most part, there was a path for pedestrians along the road in the park, but when we got to the main road leading up One Tree Hill, there was no path for pedestrians. After walking a bit up the hill on the road, we decided to turn back because of our wet shoes, the lack of a path, and the weather (which also meant that the view from the summit would probably be limited).
Our next stop was a Chinese restaurant called Golden Jade. We ordered noodle dishes with veggies and chicken for Linnea, and pork for Gustav. It was alright, but it was pretty much bathing in a soup of broth.
When we had eaten, we headed back to the house to get our bags and ordered an Uber to the airport. We got a really nice driver that took us on a smooth ride there even though there was some chaos on the highway. We ate some fika (before going through the security check), and checked in with Virgin Australia that was flying us back to Sydney.
Once again we had to fill out a card with information about why we were leaving the country, which was very similar to the form we had to fill out when leaving Australia to New Zealand. When it was filled out, we went through the security control without any problems.
In the duty-free shop, we looked for something to spend our last New Zealand dollars on. We settled on New Zealand’s favorite brand of chocolate and 2 litres of liqueur (Bailey’s Irish Cream and Swedish Absolut Vodka, of course). After shopping, we headed to our gate, which was packed with people. But thankfully, we found two available seats where we could relax before having our rows called for boarding.
For the first time, we were not seated directly next to each other but had the aisle between us. Gustav sat in the middle of a family of New Zealanders. They were a bit noisy and had the weird attitude of feeding their youngest child only candy and soda, even though they had pre-ordered food for all of them. But at least they offered us the child’s ordered dessert when he didn’t want it because he had already eaten two chocolate bars.
The flight was otherwise quite uneventful. We listened to audiobooks or podcasts. Gustav solved a sudoku puzzle in the in-flight magazine. Towards the end of the flight, we had to fill out yet another form. This time it was the same form we filled out going into Australia, so it was easy to fill out.
We landed in Sydney at 5:45 pm, so even though we flew at 5 pm and had flown for almost four hours it was almost the same time as when we left. (Yes, we know how time zones work, it’s just fascinating.)
We got through immigrations and customs easily, but we had brought back a few things that we were required to declare. We had boots that we had worn while hiking, seashells from the beach, and the book with the wooden cover that Linnea had bought. Since we knew about the strict rules, we had washed off our boots and the seashells before leaving New Zealand. The customs officer was very kind, and after hearing that we had cleaned our boots, he only asked to examine the seashells. After his inspection, we were free to leave and bring everything.
We went to the train to Central. When arriving at Central, the next train to Newcastle was the first for the evening to be affected by track maintenance. So, it would only go to Wyong and from where we would have to take a replacement bus.
We were quite tired already since our brains thought it was 9-10 pm. To top things off, the train didn’t arrive at the platform on Central. So everybody was called to go to another platform and get on the train there instead. Everybody was rushing, and it was hard to get ahead with our two big bags. But we managed to get on the train and get seats to sit. After a 15-minute wait, the announcer once again called out. This time he was announcing that the other train had arrived and that everybody should go to it instead.
At this point, we started to get quite annoyed with the circus which is public transport in NSW. Since everybody on the train only cared for their own skin, we were left last because of our bags. When we got to the other train it was completely packed, which wasn’t shocking since it was almost half as long as the other train and at this point, it had been collecting passengers for much longer than it usually does.
So because of this, we were only left with the space in the vestibule of one carriage. To top things off, in the cramped space, we were probably seven people, one of which probably was suffering from substance abuse since he was antagonizing all the other passengers. After a few stations, we hurried to the next vestibule in order to escape his antics.
From there on, it was calm and on the bus from Wyong, Gustav was nodding in and out of sleep. When we got to Hamilton, the last train to Waratah had already gone. Fortunately, the last bus towards Mayfield was just a few minutes away, so we hurried to the bus stop and managed to catch the bus.
We got home at 11 pm and were very tired since it was 2 am in our heads, so it was an easy thing to go to sleep.
/ Gustav & Linnea
