Thursday 9th May, 2013

Our original plan for today had been to visit Waiheke Island and enjoy its beaches and wineries. There were two problems with this. First, the weather had taken a turn for the British and was absolutely chucking it down. Second, I came down with a horrid cold. So instead of braving the wind and the rain we had a nice lie in, went to the cinema, got introduced to Burgerfuel and took advantage of the New Zealand International Comedy Festival.

It was only a quick walk down the hill to Auckland’s IMAX cinema and had superb seats for one of the first viewings of Star Trek: Into Darkness anywhere in the world. Normally we find the premium for films in 3D to be a bit unnecessary but it was the first time I’d felt 3D had worked well.

After that we mooched around town and continued to be shocked by how expensive warm clothing was in New Zealand – naively we’d thought we’d be able to pick up good quality layers here rather than bringing it half-way round the world. We did eventually hunt down some good deals but not before Ben had suggested we traipse round several shops and several more websites. Him and his need for a bargain…

We picked up some lunch at Burgerfuel; any organisation whose slogan is ‘Life’s too short to eat bad burgers’ is not going to disappoint. It was possibly one of the best burgers I’ve ever had.

Our time in Auckland coincided with the International Comedy Festival and although we were tempted by several shows we plumped for the Australian born, British residing Steve Hughes. He was pretty funny but we felt we’d already seen a lot of his best material on Youtube (serves us right for our pre-show googling)

Daily distance travelled: 4km

Total distance travelled: 19,927km