For the fourth instalment of our series ‘Laus and Holls in the Wild’, we visited Auckland. In true Laus and Holls style, it was consistently comedic due to our mutual lack of sense of direction.

Day 1 | Saturday 21 Sep, 2024

With an early departure booked, Holly picked me up on the way to the airport and we got there with plenty of time to go and grab a coffee before heading through to our gate. Craig had mentioned that our friend, Zoe, was also to be in Auckland for a work dinner, which we had no idea about but were excited for, and even more so when it turned out she was arriving at a similar time to us (so we were able to jump in her Corporate Cab) as well as staying at the same hotel as us – what are the chances?! We found Zoe on arrival in Auckland, following her cab driver who was wheeling her bag, and we all headed to the cab which turned out to be a new Tesla… Holly and I hadn’t experienced one before and made sure to sufficiently embarrass Zoe when we weren’t sure how to open the door, and were then quite excited by the see-thru roof… sorry Zoe, I know you were having regret at this point.

On arrival at the Voco Hotel, we headed up to Zoe’s room (which was ready to check into, while ours was still being cleaned) for a chat and to get changed into our activewear, ready for the second activity of our day. But first, after catching up with Z, we needed brekkie. I’d been looking at the Neat Places website and had come across Ozone in Grey Lynn. Now, my plan was that we’d take public transport everywhere, and had even noted the bus numbers however, after figuring out that the bus we needed was an “outer city” one, and finding our way to the first bus stop we could see on Wellesley Street, we realised you need a special card to use the buses. Given our short stay and lack of willingness to persevere with finding out how to get one, we instead called an Uber to Ozone. After a nice chat with a lovely man from Fiji, who wanted us know that there are a lot of guns in Auckland these days and that while it was okay to go out for one drink, it was best that we then went back to our hotel for any further drinks, we arrived at our destination. Ozone is a large open-plan warehouse-style cafe, which apparently has other locations in New Plymouth, and London (of course). Doggo friendly, there were plenty of cute furry friends to watch, and the food was yummy – I had chilli cornbread and eggs, and Holly had mushrooms. Delish. After our second coffee of the day, we jumped in another uber to make our way to Mt Eden with plans to climb the maunga. Turns out if you just put Mt Eden in as your destination, you just go to the suburb… in hindsight that makes sense, and I probably should have pointed that out to Holls who didn’t know much about Mt Eden (sorry Holls), so that required an edit in the Uber app and an extra $10 – FYI you need to put in “Maungawhau/Mt Eden”. We told the driver that we were planning on walking up it, but he drove us pretty much as far as you can go… we probably should have stopped him at some point, but the energy just wasn’t there for that conversation. So we got out with a walk of around 200m left. That said, it was very cool – we loved the walk way up and around the crater (which is tapu, but I still couldn’t help but imagine rolypolying down into it), and the 360° view at the top. Although it was raining when we landed, by the time we got up the maunga, it was beautifully sunny and warm and we got some good photos.

The next destination on our list was New Market. Seeing as we didn’t get the exercise we were thinking we would, and it’s only the next suburb over, we decided to walk. So, after a quick refreshing sparkling tea at Friend and Whau kiosk (very kiosky), we found our way down to, what I knew was, Mt Eden Road, but I thought we were looking for Clive Road, and Holly thought we were on Clive Road and looking for Mt Eden Road… anywho, after a few rechecks of the map, we were on our way and even got to view Mt Eden Prison, which I have to say was quite fascinating (and creepy). I also find it odd that it’s right next to Auckland Grammar School. Anyway, we crossed State Highway 1 into New Market and went to Recycle Boutique first, where Holly had a credit and found some cool pants. We then went into, and straight out of, Westfield, and wandered around a bit before going into Duck Island for an Icecream and then finding the train station to head back to Britomart.

When we arrived back at Voco our room was ready for us. I noticed during check in that Bar Albert was booked for a private function for the evening, which was disappointing as it was one of the reasons I’d chosen the hotel, so I was quick to book us a seat at Sunset Bar for after dinner instead. Heading up to our room, we found that it was on the second highest accommodation level, which was a nice surprise as it had a great view of the Sky Tower. Craig had also arranged a surprise cheese platter for us, which was lovely, so we had Zoe come to our room this time and ordered some bubbles to go with our cheese and chats.

Zoe had to be at dinner at 6.30pm, so after a bit of a further catch up she headed off and started to get ourselves ready for our 8.15pm dinner at Adano. We walked down to Adano, which is on Tyler Street (or Quay, depending on which part of the restaurant you book) and is a beautiful Italian restaurant… huge but with a lovely atmosphere and lots of dried hydrangeas, which I loved. The food and wine was absolutely delicious – I highly recommend. We finished with a canole each, which was the perfect way to end dinner, and then headed to Sunset Bar for our 10pm booking.

Going to Sunset at night was quite a different experience to going to Sunset during the day… it was much more of a clubby vibe, which wasn’t really what I was going for, and was why I’d wanted to go to Bar Albert, but we had a nice cocktail before heading back to our Voco.

We had a hot choccie (because who doesn’t love a hotel hot choc sachet… there’s something about them) and had a great sleep.

Day 2 | Sunday 23 September, 2024

We started day two with a coffee with Zoe before she had to leave for the airport, and another colleague who was also there for the dinner, Howie, joined us too. We were then on a mission to go to Cocoa Wilds for an infamous hot chocolate, via the Viaduct for brekkie – we had a decent brekkie and then wandered back to O’Connell Street (which is super cute by the way… I’ve never walked along those back streets of the CBD) to find our special drink… it did not disappoint but I’m glad I got dark chocolate instead of milk, as that would have been way too sweet for me. The street is on a bit of a hill and there was a classic car with hydraulics – the owners jumped in and got a lot of positive feedback from the surrounding people, including a man in a very eccentric looking pair of Burberry shorts who shouted “cool car man!!”, then they started it up and it bounced its way down the street… it was like being in an early 2000s hip hop video. Hilarious.

Originally K’ Road was on the cards, but we’d heard about the new Outlet Shopping Mall, Mānawa, opening out by the airport and decided to go and get our bags (the late check out time of 2pm was ideal) and jump in an Uber to the mall. We knew it was opening weekend and was going to be really busy, but we weren’t prepared for how busy it would actually be. As the access is really limited, the traffic was super backed up on the motorway and the Uber driver was not sold on it at all! After we finally got there we made our way, through the crowds inside, with our bags and found the lockers (super handy) and wandered around. There were a few high-end shops, and the discounts of 50% off (mostly) was really good (although I still wasn’t paying $400 for a small Kate Sylvester bag… I just can’t), but we made a beeline for Flo and Frankie, where we both made a purchase. We had a look around a few other places, but the ones with the best discounts had big queues, which neither of us could be bothered with. I did buy a mask and snorkel for Jessie in advance of our trip to Fiji next week, and a couple of other things and then we thought we’d grab some lunch to take back to the airport. Our flight was at 4pm (we could go straight to the gate as we only had carry on) and we figured as long as we left by 3, we’d be fine, as Mānawa is just 1.8km from the airport… right? Wrong! Our donburi bowls took forever… in the words of a dad, I think they grew the rice while we waited. Once we got our bowls (covered in tinfoil, because apparently there were no lids for the size we ordered) we power walked back to the lockers to grab our bags, and then again to the drop off/pick up area to get an uber. By this time it was 3.08pm and my phone was dying. By some miracle, Holly’s phone still had battery, and she was given the stressful task of sorting the Uber. We kind of figured there would already be Ubers available on site, but this turned out not to be the case, so we stood there with blood pressure going through the roof while we watched the Uber on the map, wondering whether we should move to a different area, and tried to message the driver with no response. Finally the driver called to say he couldn’t find us in the pick up area (we were in the only pick up area) and after some back and forth and some more power walking, we got in our Uber. By this time it was 3.30pm, and the traffic was horrendous. 15 minutes until boarding and my phone was almost dead so I managed to (JUST) get Holly to take a photo of my boarding pass. At 3.45pm we arrived at the terminal and had yet to go through Security. Which had a queue. The stress was palpable. We waited for our bags to be flagged like they were on the way up, just to be the straw to break the camel’s back. Luckily we were good this time and RAN to the plane, to find ourselves among the last to board, along with Howie who coolly strode up behind us after leaving the Air New Zealand lounge. Holly showed the ground staff the photo of my boarding pass, which you’d think you could just scan, as it’s a QR code, but she had to manually look up my name… fortunately she didn’t make me show my ID. We sat in our seats and hysterically giggled. I was so relieved, I didn’t even care about the bumpy descent into Christchurch. Just to top it off, I left my coat on my seat, because of course I did. I was able to retrieve it a few days later, thanks to Wayne in Baggage Services… thanks Wayne. My coat is grey, not beige, but you’re a lovely man nonetheless.

We had a great time as always, but we’re thinking about driving somewhere next year 😉