We landed to Auckland just before 1AM, and then navigated customs and immigration, including the bio-security screening that necessitated someone unfolding and examining our tent carefully for contamination before returning it to us. Hundreds were in line, so it took some time. At 3AM we got in a cab and suffered through our driver’s long-winded complaints about the increases in costs of living (same here as everywhere) and crime (for comparison, New Zealand had 11 gun homicides in 2021 compared to 21,000 in the US) and then got to sleep at 4AM, waking around noon the next day. The rain sounds outside our windows made for good sleep!
A cyclone is affecting New Zealand weather for our first few days, making for heavy rains and strong winds. So we’re happy to be staying in an apartment in the Newmarket area until Sunday.
Newmarket has a charming feel, with many original low-rise buildings with classic storefronts, in addition to a large mall bustling with people, like malls used to be in the US. It all seems like it’s the US a few decades ago, when life was simpler. I remember the feeling from last time I was here! While Brisbane reminded us of the US now, Auckland feels like England mixed with America a few decades ago. It nice.
Our tasks for the day include getting me a SIM card for the trip and picking up our bikes, in addition to doing some shopping for food. We got a SIM card for Chris’ phone duty free at the airport, but somehow my recently acquired used phone was locked to AT&T so I had to resolve that before getting a SIM for my phone. A 3-month SIM card with unlimited data and calls is about $60 US total – really inexpensive!
And bikes! It’s so exciting! I bought the bikes while we were still in Slovakia, worried about supply chain issues and the idea that we might not be able to find what we needed in NZ if we waited. Not sure if my worry was justified, or if we could have just waited until we arrived but I’m happy to have bikes waiting.
The shop I had bought the bikes from is in Wellington and they shipped the bikes to a store in Auckland where we could pick them up. We figured out the bus system and took the bus to the bike shop. Since we had never actually seen the bikes, I had some worries about whether or not they would be the right side but the bikes seem perfect. Chris’, a Surly Ogre, is particularly nice!
Yesterday, we unpacked the bikes and assembled them and left them at the shop. Today, we’ll go back to the bike store and buy helmets and some accessories and then have the tires converted to tubeless by a shop.
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