Landed in Auckland, airport around an hours bus ride to the centre where we found our hostel - just off the main street which was handy.
Stayed in an 8 bed dorm, although 3 of the beds were never used. Stayed in this hostel for 1 week, whilst looking for work both in Auckland itself, and surrounding parts of the north island. The only work to be found was door to door sales on 100% commission, all farm work out of the city had been taken by locals to the area due to the recession.
So decided to book into a long term place in Auckland whilst still persisting with looking for work as it was much cheaper. Found a nice 2 bedroom apartment about 30 mins walk to the centre, dble bed which is more than you get in a hostel, own kitchen etc and a lot cheaper than paying for bunkbeds in any hostel.
This was nice, 1 flat mate called jodie, she worked random hours so didn’t really see her much. Spent our days scanning the internet looking for work and fiddling about, found a very cheap asian supermarket where fruit & veg were upto 1/3 the price of a normal supermarket and meat around ½ price. Cooking became a focal point where we paid a lot more interest into our meals than normal, coming up with some good combinations and lots of trial and error.
Walked up an extinct volcano which was only a 30 min walk from our flat, out of town, which gave the best panoramic view of the city, and was free.
Again work was hard to come by, applied to all bars down on the harbour - spoke to management at a number of places and all seemed promising but not one of them called me back. Hannah also lacked in the luck department when it came to jobs, with both of us having no leads at all, we came to the decision to leave Auckland after the 1 month minimum tenancy was up. With work scarce to come by, and pay being low, we decided to rack up a debt to pay off upon our return to England which we could then pay off much quicker than by working over here.
After looking into trains, coach tours and different rentals, a camper van seemed to offer us by far the cheapest deal, with the most amount of freedom to travel NZ.
Trains not practical to get to the small random places along the way, coach tours expensive, around $1800 each - campervan costing only $2016 between us which includes our accommodation too, at $40-$50/night in a hostel for the 2 of us - a campervan it is!
The last few days in the city we tried to make productive, visited the New Zealand museum. To my surprise it was all pretty much Polynesian history not Maori. This is where they derive from, but still not New Zealand history itself - but still interesting.
Went to a shopping mall and invested in some warmer clothes, Hannah fitted into a 12 year olds rain mack which was in the sale, so saved some money by buying in the kids department . Lots of walking places, then the final day came, when we picked up the van. A BEAST! 2.45metres tall, with a queen bed in the roof, has mains plug sockets, running water for the taps, fridge, storage cupboards, gas hobs, dinning table and 2 benches in the back. Sounds a lot, but fits nicely into a small space, only a bit longer than the average car, the end only just sticks out when in a normal parking space.
To save money, decided to spend every other night in a campsite, the others just parked up in nature reserves, car parks, road side - wherever is free (but relatively safe)!