M-whY

I woke up early and walked down to the wharf, getting a better shot of the skytower along the way. The ferry departed promptly at 9:15am (no more Fiji time) and took half an hour to reach Rangitoto. I was to meet Don back at the hostel in the afternoon, so I had to catch the 12:45pm ferry back. That gave me about three hours to explore. Most visitors take the obligatory one hour hike to the summit. The trail is not too steep and well marked, but can get rough in certain parts. After relieving myself of some excess weight, I started hiking. Along the way, I passed field after field of the black lava landscape. Everytime I stopped to take a picture, thinking it couldn't get better, I'd pass an even more impressive patch of patch of lava. Moving at a quick pace, I found myself near the summit in half an hour, so I took a detour to hike the more time consuming Wilson's Park trail and visit the lava caves. Supposedly it's great fun to explore the lava caves, but unfortunately, I didn't bring a flashlight.

A great view of the city and Hauraki Gulf could be seen from the summit. Also impressive was the large crater. I was running out of time, or I might've done the walk around the crater as well.

Back at the hostel, Don and I started calling car rental agencies for price quotes. Don was leaving New Zealand from Auckland on the North Island, and I was leaving from Christchurch on the South Island. This gave us some flexibility when shopping around for the best deal.

Car hires from Auckland to Auckland is generally cheaper, as most visitors take one-way trips to Christchurch and drop the cars off there. That leaves car rental companies with the task of transporting them back to Auckland. Also worth noting was the cost to ferry a car between the North Island and South Island. It's $110 NZ ($1 NZ = $.70 US) each way. Auckland-Christchurch car hires generally ranged from $35-$45 NZ a day, while Auckland-Auckland was priced around $25-35 NZ. After a bit of shopping around, we found an agency willing to rent to us, Auckland to Christchurch, for $35 NZ a day, with pickup in Auckland, drop off in Wellington (where the ferry departs from the north), a pickup in Picton (where the ferry drops off in the south), and drop off again in Christchurch. Considering we were still in high season, this was a great deal.

The one catch was that our car is manual.

If it wasn't already difficult enough to remember driving on the LEFT side of the road, I now had to operate a stick with my LEFT hand. They sent a car at 3:30pm to pick us up from the hostel and bring us to the airport where they were located. We filled out the paperwork, made them take note of every scratch and defect to avoid trouble in the future, and then started back downtown to pick up our stuff. As luck would have it, we ran into rush hour traffic on our way back. Stop and go traffic on hilly terrain the entire way.

"At least this gives me some practice working the clutch," I said to Don. I stalled the car a few seconds later...

Back in town, we both checked out early from our hostels. We had both paid for one more night, but since there was not much else to do in Auckland, decided to head north that evening. I tried to get a refund, but they wouldn't give it to me. Oh well. Before leaving, I went to get another Oporto burger. Mmm... On the way back, I passed Niwa again.

Soon we were on the motorway, making good time to Whangarei.

"I don't know what they were talking about, taking three hours to get there. We should be there in an hour and a half." Don remarked.

But soon the roads became windy and twisty. We were no longer going 100 (km/hr), but averaging about 70. The landscape became pretty very fast. But night came just as quickly.

We arrived in Whangarei at about 9:30pm. Using my Rough Guide to New Zealand, we located the YHA and tried to get a room there.

"Sorry guys, we don't have any rooms available. You should've called ahead, especially if you were arriving late," the guy said.

Crap. We drove down throught town to another hostel listed in my guide. We rang the doorbell, and a guy came down after about five minutes.

"Do you have any beds left?" I asked.

"Sure." He led us upstairs and indicated two empty bunks. "Good night!" The guy disappeared. We didn't even check in or anything.

At least we didn't have to spend the night in the car!

Thanks to everyone for their support and comments! Knowing people are reading keeps me motivated to continue the updates!