You don’t think jet lag is going to effect you, then you’re in bed at 7:30PM on a Saturday night and you think to yourself, this isn’t jet lag, this is a normal decision for a very tired adult that’s just had a long flight and is adjusting.
I did the rational thing in that situation, set my alarm for 4:15AM, wake up and watch the Liverpool match. They won. The trip can continue being fun.
Today we’re checking out of hostel number 1. The kitchen talk of hostel number 1 laments that hostel number 2 makes hostel number 1 look like that one more wealthy kid in your friend groups house that has all the brand name crisps. Words to describe hostel number 2 used by some people in hostel number 1 “Dirty” “A party hostel” “its good that you’re only staying a couple of nights”. Think about Tilly and I. Think about the term “Party hostel”. Think about Tilly and I. In a party hostel. I can’t stress this enough when I say that unless your idea of a party is when you sit around and read some really good books and then talk to each other about how good those books are, then I do not want to be involved.
We’ve got time to chill out after we pack our stuff and clean our room. We relax in the kitchen and lounge area of the hostel, silently dreading, yet outwardly feigning optimism whilst waiting to move to hostel 2.
It’s a 20 minute walk to hostel number 2. Most of this walk was uphill and with a 20 kilo backpack on. It was not pleasant, unless you’re one of those personality vacuums that enjoys self inflicted stamina based pain challenges (like me considering I’m going into marathon training when I get home).
I wouldn’t want to indulge in hyperbole here but as we arrive at Hostel number 2, we see one of our soon to be fellow residents, he looks, not hyperbolising, worse than people I’ve seen carried into the back of an ambulance at a music festival, and not just because it was insanely hot at Glasto this year and he didn’t have enough water.
Everyone else looks a little less battered but fairly blonked. We check in our discover our room has a flashing light that DOES. NOT. STOP. FLASHING. It’s giving Tilly, who is already feeling ill, migrane vibes and when we mention it to the check in guy, he politely lets us know that it’ll be fixed tomorrow. So we’ve not really got a chill out space, because we don’t want to sit in a room with a light flashing more than your uncle after a pint at a wedding.
Anyway we’ve planned to go up Mount Eden so we do. Its a half an hour walk to the bottom of it and then about 15 minutes to the peak. We’re greeted with picturesque views of Auckland, the most concentrated group of tourists we’ve seen – about 20 – and wind. A chap asks me to take some photos of him and 200 photos later, I think I’ve done an alright job so we part, only for the fella to ask someone else to take some more. SO CHEERS MATE. I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW I TOOK A PHOTO OF CAITLIN PLIMMER’S SOLO PERFORMANCE THAT GOT USED FOR MARKETING AT CHICHESTER UNIVERSITY YOU PICKY TART.
We come back down and actively drag our feet because we don’t want to go back to the acid-house tent at Creamfields that we’ve booked in for the night. Eventually, we pull up back at the hostel with our dinner for the night and I check to see what the price of changing rooms is. Turns out $12 got us two beds in a 6 bed, previously we were in 8, for 2 nights. So not bad. That room also came with two bonus French women that give us good tips on what to do on our trip.
We are to sleep in bunk beds. You know how most top bunks are slightly caged to stop roly poly boys and girls from a midnight fall to the cold floor below? Well mine doesn’t. So I go to sleep that night, slightly pleased with the success of our room move, and clinging desperately to the cage on the other side, hoping not to go splat in the night.
Denny and Debbie's Little Big Adventure 