Only about one hundred people in total had registered for the seeded start strangely, and as the start drew closer we did some final warm ups on the course in front of the start line. There was two timing mats set up at the start, one that all of the crowd was behind and then a gap of about 10 metres before the next mat. As we were told to head to the start line by the staff we all assumed this section between the two mats was for the seeded runners, but then a couple of minutes later we were told we had to get behind both mats, so we had to push the crowd back and squeeze in behind the other mat as well - hardly an ideal start to be squashed in worse than a Metallica concert. What was more confusing was that they had two lanes for the start, and all of the seeded runners were put into the outside lane.
The gun went off and everyone raced away too fast for their own good like usual. Because we were in the outside lane a number of runners who just turned up early were also off to a good start from the inside lane, so it was a little hard to keep count of what position I was in - I figured about fifty were ahead after the initial madness had subsided. I was feeling pretty good through the first three kilometres and overtook a few more people as we went along the twists and turns of Tamaki Drive. The organisers had done a terrible job with the placement of the drink stations, as successive stations at about three and five kilometres were placed on the wrong side of the road than all the runners were on, and it would take too much time to go across and get a drink, so we all just had to keep on running. Another station was also handing out sliced oranges, which sounds like one of the worst and stickiest things you could try to give to a runner.
I finally got a drink station at six kilometres, as I was starting to desperately run out of energy and hydration - I'd overtaken a few more people but a couple had come past me as well, and Jason was still somewhere close behind as well. The drink station actually did about as much bad as good, due to the loss of oxygen while trying to run and drink at the same time, it took another kilometre to get back into your normal routine, but I felt that my legs never really recovered.
I was really struggling for the last kilometre as my legs just didn't want to keep going, but I just managed to hold on and not lose any more positions. The website eventually said I finished 29th out of 26,816 finishers (and 33,726 entrants) with a time of 31 minutes and 0 seconds exactly, which was also equal to the runner in 28th place too. Jason came in fifteen seconds behind in 32nd place.
After a warm down jog it was on to a shuttle bus back to the city. I figured the eight to ten kilometre trip should only take fifteen minutes on a Sunday morning, but the route went all through the suburbs and took more like forty minutes. It would have been quicker to just jog back in the opposite direction.
After stopping in at the hotel it was quickly back out for the afternoon adventured. I picked up a Demon energy drink from the New World supermarket (which generally seems to be a bit better than Countdown) to have with my lunch, it was great and similar to a Monster energy drink, I'd give it a 9 out of 10. With lunch finished it was time to board the ferry for a quick trip across to Devonport, which only takes about ten minutes.
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| Devonport. |
Devonport looks like your typical beach side town, we walked up Victoria Road which mostly consists of cafes, restaurants and arts & crafts stores. At the top of Victoria Road the real hill up to Mount Victoria begins, again it wasn't too long or steep and only took a few minutes to reach the top. The view from the mountain was quite good, you can see the rest of Devonport and Rangitoto Island to the east, and all of Auckland to the south. Other parts of New Zealand that I don't know are in the other directions as well.
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| Victoria Road in Devonport. |
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| Rangitoto Island again, about as close as I got to it... |
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| The big city. |
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| Me and the big city. |
Back down the hill and then it was across the beach road to North Head at the easternmost point of the island. At the end they have a free Torpedo Bay Navy Museum, so we stopped in for a quick look. The museum was quite good as it detailed some of New Zealand's involvement in most of the wars of the twentieth century.
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| Who knew they had a navy? |
After getting the ferry back to Auckland we had to find a regular bus back down Tamaki Drive to Kelly Tarlton's Aquarium. I wasn't too sure about going to any such wildlife centres but this one seemed to be receiving generally positive reviews so I went against my better judgement. We just missed the free 2:30pm shuttle bus, and they have a stupid schedule for these free buses, e.g. 2:20pm, 2:30pm then 3:20pm. Instead we just got a regular bus, and I noticed at the other end that the last free bus back is at 3:30pm even though the place doesn't close until 5:00pm, pretty stupid.
The aquarium was very expensive at $36 so I was expecting good things, but we walked through the whole place in under an hour, without going too fast, all they really had was:
- Penguins
- Rays
- A tunnel with sharks overhead
- Some fish
I found a $2.50 magnet at the gift shop at the end, only the stupid woman gave me $37.50 change back from $50. She claimed that the register still had an old charge of $10 on it, nice job...
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| High hopes before entering the aquarium. |
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| Some penguins, not bad. |
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| Rays don't do much. |
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| Hard to figure out how big the sharks were from inside the tunnel. |
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| Enjoy the colours, because your trip is about to end. |
The aquarium exit leaves you on Tamaki Drive in Mission Bay. Just a little further down the road was the MJ Savage Memorial Park who I think is (or was) a former prime minister of New Zealand and no relation to the Macho Man Randy Savage. The park is a pretty cool massive open space overlooking the bay and the city, but otherwise there isn't much to see and do for adventure seekers or sightseers (not sure which one of those best describes me, if either), other than a centrepiece called Bastion Point. The exit at the other end of the park leads down to the Mission Bay beach and shops, still quite close to the city. I didn't have time to look around as the next bus was coming down the street and I didn't really want to try my luck and wait for the next one after that. The bus prices are quite ridiculous for these short trips too, you can't buy a return ticket so a quick ten minute trip each way costs $3.40 per person. Perhaps it's cheaper with the transit card or there's some form of bus transfer you can get, but I didn't know anything about that.
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| Bastion Point. |
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| MJ Savage Memorial Park (ooh yeah). |
Back in downtown the race and the long day was finally catching up, and I was starting to break down with one form of leg pain after another. Finding a good rubber magnet lifted my spirits as did dinner at Burger Fuel! I got the V-Dub Vege Burger (without beetroot) and it was an instant 10 out of 10. If it's not the best burger restaurant I've ever been to it's definitely in the top two, but I don't recall the one in Hong Kong (Triple O's By White Spot) that specifically anymore. Another funny observation with fast food restaurants is that they have both the American and Australian version of Wendy's.
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| Burger Fuel, the new king of burgers. |
With a bit of time to spare in the evening and not much planning to worry about for tomorrow (other than getting to the airport before the plane leaves) we went down to the nearby (and possibly only) cinema in the Auckland downtown area. The best option was Non-Stop, a plane hijacking movie with Liam Neeson which was quite conveniently timed given the Malaysian Airlines incident that began around about the same time. The movie was entertaining but hardly a classic, the script was quite questionable and there was a number of plot holes, 6 out of 10.
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| Civic on Queen Street. |
So that was the end of a quick stay in Auckland.
Auckland: 7/10
Good
- Coloured money
- Downtown was alright, although mostly consists of Queen Street
- Lots of hills and parks
- Lots of stores selling frozen yoghurt
- Mild to warm weather
- Some different food, drink & fast food options
Bad
- Combined crosswalks
- Fairly expensive
- No calorie charts in most fast food restaurants
- No trains running all weekend (the train network doesn't really cover downtown even if it was running)
- Poor free to air TV options (I'm now very thankful for all those extra digital channels we have)
- Shopping options were pretty limited
Missed Out
- Auckland Domain
- Cornwall Park
- Mount Wellington Domain
- Newmarket (new)
- Orakei Basin walkway
- St. Heliers Bay
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