New Zealand Holiday 2014, March 15 (All These Things That I've Done)

Sadly all ferries were cancelled on Saturday due to the uncertainty of weather from the cyclone, which meant the trip out to Rangitoto Island was off for the day. Stepping out of the hotel in the morning there was an incredible amount of wind and rain around, so we had to wait for a while for it to die down. When a window opened up we made it down to the train station and headed off to Onehunga at the end of the line.

Heavy rain.

They look electric to me.

I walked down Onehunga Mall (the main street) before reaching the Dress Smart outlet shopping. I was certain this one was going to be better than the one in Wellington because it has a lot more stores, included a Nike Factory Outlet! The Nike and Quiksilver stores were not bad, and I bought a few things but not too much. A minor problem is that the RRP in New Zealand is quite crap to begin with, a hooded jumper at Quiksilver for example was $79.99 AUD and $99.99 NZD. Just like we get screwed compared to the USA all the time, it seems like NZ might suffer from the same problem too.

The town even has it's own logo.

The train to and from Onehunga only runs once per hour, so it was lucky that I had taken the time to research the departure times. About half a dozen people just made it to the station as the train was boarding, but still had to buy a ticket so missed out on getting on, meaning they were stuck to wait another fifty nine minutes out in the cold until the next train showed up!

What a great name for a station, not related to Te Papa museum.

The city Rebel store also had a sale on, 25% off everything in store. As I have complained previously about the prices in the city, the 25% off made their prices just barely competitive, so I was able to buy another few items.

We stopped in back at the hotel to get dry clothes and prepare for a late afternoon rugby league match at Eden Park - NZ Warriors vs. St George Illawarra Dragons. I've never been to a rugby league match so I wasn't sure how good or bad it would be, but the tickets only cost $20 each and of course it was also a stadium I'd never attended a game at before. When we arrived the juniors match was already in progress, which takes me back to a good time when the AFL (VFL) had reserves matches before the main game, but these guys looked more like under 21 than juniors.

There was a short break before the main game started, which included a Red Bull sports car coming out and driving around the field - apparently the groundsmen don't have a problem with that. The seniors game was entertaining enough, the basic rules of rugby aren't hard to follow except for:

• Not knowing what the tackle count was (they don't seem to show it on the scoreboard either)
• Not knowing what all the weird penalty rules were

There was about 14,000 people in attendance, which is very low compared to AFL matches, but the crowd was fairly vocal for the first half. In the second half the Dragons started to take control of field position and the match, so the crowd lost interest a bit. We also got lucky that the rain only came a few times for a few minutes each, otherwise it might have been quite miserable since we weren't undercover. My favourite thing about the game was that the clock keeps running almost all of the time, it only stopped a couple of times for a score review. This is great because it means you always know an eighty minute match will actually finish in less than ninety minutes.

Pre game.

There's a car on the field.

He. could. go. all. the. way.

For dinner we went to Sal's Authentic New York Pizza where they sell massive whole pizzas. We decided to only take half each, but other people seemed to have no problem going the whole lot. One guy eating in the store was just beginning to eat a whole pizza with a plastic knife and fork - he would have been there for hours! The pizzas were pretty good, the bases were very thin like you get in New York and the toppings were tasty, 8 out of 10.

So that was the end of the trip, but for the insane early flight that left at 7:30am the next morning.

Auckland Part II: 7/10

Good

• Burger Fuel burgers
• Trains running again

Bad

• Cyclones
• Highway traffic

Missed Out

• Rangitoto Island
• Waitakere Ranges (and Piha Beach)

New Zealand: 7/10

• Days: 9
• Cities: 2
• Flights: 4
• Taxis: 0!!!
• Expenses: $660 each approx (plus flights and hotels)
• Bucket list items if I had a bucket list:
• Attended a rugby league match
• Completed an international running event (since the one in Singapore got cancelled)
• Drove a car in another country without getting into an accident (half points for being on the same side of the road)
• Photos: 400 approx
• Report: 8000 words approx