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Baa Baa Auckland

Posted on 25/01/2012 by MrFoggJanuary 25, 2012

Early rise, breakfast at Gloria Jean’s again and then off to find our hire car.

Auckland is a pretty city with very diverse cultures but as Mrs Fogg says, very small in city sizes. Chatting with Mrs Pastie online last night (Ginny Kiwi bird) she found Mrs Fogg’s comment amusing stating that to New Zealander’s this is the largest city they have, oh well tiny towns here we come. To be honest we love the small backwater places, more interesting (and less chance of museums too).

The picture is of the Auckland skyline, which is up there with HK and Boston, very beautiful.

looking forward to the next few weeks, narrow roads and nutter US drivers having to come to terms with left hand drive, km/h and roundabouts (which in isolation is enough to befuddle, but altogether, oh boy).

Last Brekky in Auckland here.

Devonport

Posted on 25/01/2012 by MrsFoggJanuary 25, 2012

Recipe for a good day:

Great sleep – check, must have slept at least 8 or 9 hours yesterday

Great company – check. Mr Fogg was on full form, nutty as hell and bouncy! And only with two coffees too!

Great weather – check. Twenty four degrees, deep blue sky and no clouds.

Nice location – check. Auckland is tiny but cute with incredibly friendly people.

So it was a choice today of going to the museum and the planetarium or doing something that did not involve trying to drag Mr Fogg around historic things. No museum then……

Off instead on a ferry ten minutes across the bay to a tiny island where Devonport is. It is a small village dating back to mid 1800s and before that was a Maori settlement (see that Mr Fogg, got some history in there too). There is a long dead volcano on top called Mt Victoria which was converted into an underground fort to repel Russian attacks and apparently the island is riddled with old military tunnels.

The best thing about Devonport is that you go to buy fish and chips ( the fish here has a choice of three but we opted for Hoki) and then go sit and eat them out of the paper on the beach. So we did. The portions were huge, the fish great and the view across the bay back to Auckland spectacular.

We went and annoyed the local Tourist office ( Mrs Helpful clearly decided the pair of us were mad after chatting to us for 20 mins and smiled indulgently at us after a while), before catching the ferry back and bagging seats right at the front of the ship.

Great day, tired feet. I’ve loads of brochures of things to do next and can feel something historic around the corner…..watch out Mr Fogg, might sneak a museum into the itinerary yet!

Last night in Auckland before we go collect the hire car in the morning.

[Posted from Mrs Foggs super cool iphone]

Campgrounds of Auckland

Posted on 24/01/2012 by MrFoggJanuary 24, 2012

Ok so it isn’t a campground but one of the many “anti capitalist protest camps” setup around the world that few seem to care about and sweet FA happens on the back of. The difference here is that it’s a warm climate unlike the ne’er dowels in London who have foolishly sat in the freezing cold, here it seems more like a happy campground. I can tell you we have camped in much worse places (Georgia with the tent burning incident and Scarborough with the “no potty for the kiddies so we’ll use a saucepan”). Still whatever floats your boat (obviously you won’t have any smart phones or laptops to talk to the world on, or free wifi to access the web since that would just be buying into “the man” wouldn’t it).

Mr Fogg Rant over, Grrrr (oh was I supposed to warn about my ranting first, dam).

Sipping a Latte in Gloria Jeans Coffee House here.

I’m Home

Posted on 24/01/2012 by MrFoggJanuary 24, 2012

Nuff said really, forget all this ponce and circumstance of giving some a key to the city, the good peeps of Auckland obviously heard I was coming over and decided that a key was not enough and I needed my own building.

Yey Me!

My Precious

Posted on 24/01/2012 by MrFoggJanuary 24, 2012

Auckland Skywalk City houses a rotating restaurant with glass elevators so you can watch the ground disappear beneath you and in the basement they pay homage to Peter Jacksons WETA studio (the one that made those little Lord of the Rinky Dinks movies). Not bad for a guy who started with his first feature called Bad Taste (cracking little Alien movie too).

Wandering around we bumped into a fish eating monster with bad breath and hair stood next to Gollum (gonna get a slap for that).

Since we only ate 4 hours ago we decided to have steak and champagne in the Skywalk tower served by a Harry Potter lookilikee (poor kid), whilst watching people free fall off the tower (on a line of course), or for the princely sum of 140NZD (about 75 in UK monopoly money), you can put on a harness and walk around the top of the tower without any handrails, personally think I’d rather use the dosh on the fizzy falling down water.

And now that our room is ready its back to the hotel for a shower and a desperate change of clothes, considering we have been in transit since Saturday and today is Tuesday.

The hotel is not exactly a backpackers place of worship (having seen a few of those this am) however it has seen better days. That said we do have a view of the sea and all the usual amenities.

And now two days to see what Auckland has to offer before we collect the hire car and drive to Thames on Thursday.

Kia Ora – We is Here

Posted on 23/01/2012 by MrFoggJanuary 23, 2012

Wow what a fantastic journey from London via Lala land on Air NZ. Excellent plane, fantastic service, nothing was too much trouble. Can defo recommend Air NZ, simply brilliant.

Through customs, smooth, out to the shuttle bus and into the city, so beautiful and clean.

And here we are at the Quadrant Hotel and Mrs Foggy is happy with a mountain of brochures (geek).

Next stop several hundred miles of trekking.

Downside Up from here.

LaLa Land

Posted on 23/01/2012 by MrFoggJanuary 23, 2012

11 hours on a plane, very comfy and unusual seats and oodles of drinks and grub. Virgin take note, premium economy give you PROPER champagne and you don’t even need to get up for the drinks, you order them from your TV and they are delivered to your seat with a smile (granted they are very nice boys).

And now a 2 hour wait in what can only be described as a dirty Heathrow lounge with 3 women who give you an orange card but don’t tell you were to go or what to do! It’s 7.30pm Sun 22 Jan in LaLa Land time or 3.30am Monday 23 Jan UK time and I have no idea what pose Mrs Fogg is doing or why.

Next stop Auckland.

We have been PROCESSED from here.

SuperShots

Posted on 22/01/2012 by MrFoggJanuary 22, 2012

Oooh only an hour to go before we board the plane to NZ, nice brekky (bloomin expensive), Poottle over to the terminal, smooth checkin and a relatively painless security (heathrow airport is so grubby, what a first impression the world will have coming through here to the Olympics).

Mrs Foggy decided to replace her camera with a slightly better one with a zoom for whale watching.

So 1 hour left, just time enough to buy sleeping pills. We land into Auckland at 7.30am NZ time on Tuesday morning (which is 13 hours ahead of the UK).

Se y’all in a wee while and keep reading.

Leaving on a jet a Jet Plane from here.

AirNZ

Posted on 21/01/2012 by MrFoggJanuary 21, 2012

Well this time tomorrow we will be on a 777-300 winging (geddit) our way to the land of Hobbitsies.

These are the proposed seats for the flight, the romantic “Space seats” where one of the party gets to slob all over the other (lets guess who is gonna be the slobber and who will be the slobberee).

If you wanna see what these seats look like go onto that there uhu tube and search for Air NZ space seats.

The downside, 27 hours of TV entertainment from the early 90s, with films to match. It’s gonna be a long long flight.

Spending the night here.

Step One On the Move

Posted on 21/01/2012 by MrFoggJanuary 21, 2012

All packed and ready, bed for 12.30 up at four and then over to the CaddyFrogs for a brekky.

Timings marred only slightly by Mrs Fogg faffing as women do and having to put a HMRC cheque in the bank (yes I am one of the lucky ones). Now Mrs Fogg has warned me to put out a whinge alert before I start, so here goes, Grumpy Gus rant time (you have been warned).

I got a lovely cheque from Mr Tax Man with a note that stated the details of how we arrived at this figure will be sent under separate cover (efficient use of money there). Well I was quite surprised (err not really), to see the cheque didn’t match the details, so a 45 min wait on the phone ensued (listening a constant reminder that all of my questions can be answered online, I bet not). Eventually through to a Hooman (loose term). “hi sir how can I help”, well it’s about, “let me guess you have a refund cheque”, yup. “and the figures don’t match”, yup, “well you’ll be about the 100th person I have spoken to today”, ok, “the problem is we are sending out information, but leaving some off”, well that’s not very good, “I know, but at least you could tell the difference between a refund and a demand, unlike the 99 others I have spoken to”. Happy then. Cheque duly banked and then I get my payslip which shows a refund from the nice taxman for approximately the same amount. Great so I have gone from being owed money by the tax man to owing money within seconds, oh well.

So whinge over (it was a mini one), we made it to the CaddyFrogs late, to see a fantastic brekky spread (youse guys). Farewells said it was off to the airport, no traffic, empty car park and empty terminal, wow.

Next stop that there Nodnol (Red Dward fans should be able to work that one out), to chill before the 27 hour mammoth flight, are we looking forward to that, Nooooooo.