Hendrik and I went on vacation to New Zealand or Aotearoa (land of the long white cloud) in Māori.  We took the bus from the airport to centre city, and the first thing that stuck out in the outskirts of town were cows on a hill. It was a pretty steep hill and it was a curiosity that the cows didn’t just fall off, but they looked as agile as mountain goats grazing on the steep hill. Once we entered the city I hardly knew we were near centre since it seemed like suburbs all the way to Queen St. then when we were on Queen St I saw a Wendy’s, which I pointed out to Hendrik since they don’t have Wendy’s in Australia or Europe so it was odd that it was here. Auckland was the only place I saw a Wendy’s and there was only one. Right next to it was an Oporto, a few steps down was a McDonalds, and then a Burger King, all on one block a few paces away. In all I counted about 5 Burger Kings (which were called Burger King and not Hungry Jack, like in AU) on Queen St alone not to mention all the other burger places and Queen St. really isn’t that long. In conclusion I figured that the Kiwis must really love their burgers and needed the grazing cows to fulfil this need.

We stayed at Hendrik’s friend’s apartment who lived smack in the centre city, and she complained that the nearest grocery store was quite far, but at least she was always only 5 steps away from a burger so she never had to fear starvation. She told us to get off the bus at the giant Santa Clause, that we couldn’t miss him. We were sceptical, but really you can’t miss him. He was huge and creepy. Not only did he look like someone you wouldn’t let your children near he also has one automated finger which moved in a beckoning fashion. Whoever thought that was a good idea for Santa had some issues, but Lissa, our friend assured us he’s there every year.

Then I met Hendrik’s other friends Beata and Simon who would also be travelling with us and we had a wine night. Definitely a bit too much. What we did see of Auckland we came to a one word conclusion, underwhelming. It was way smaller than I thought it would be and nothing that would stand out and be the landmark for the city except for the Santa and possibly burgers. Then of course there is the sky tower which is the most prominent building of the city, but we decided not to go to the top to save money. I didn’t mind because it seemed that the tower was the only building worth looking at anyway. Lissa decided to take us to her office building where she claimed to have great views but as we stood by the door she had forgotten to take her keys, so we had to postpone and wait in anticipation to gaze at the Auckland Skyline.

Wine night in a red bar.

We left Airlie Beach and headed south to Rockhampton. The roads through Australia are long and boring with unchanging scenery. No wonder they needed signs every 5 KM telling you to stay awake, “Stay awake, take a break,” “Power nap now” or “Stay alive, revive.” Some rest areas even offered free coffee for drivers, of course it was only instant. There are also lots and lots of dead wallaby carcasses along the roads.  We haven’t seen a living one in the wild but we sure did see lots of dead ones.  Along with them we saw lots of big black birds hovering over the highway or enjoying a roadside meal. I heard that in Australia it is illegal to move the road kill or use it for other purposes. I don’t know whether it’s true or why that law would exist but it would explain why there was so much road kill.

The typical roadside scenery

Rockhampton is the self proclaimed ‘beef capital of Australia.’ Every business seemed to have a statue of a cow and a ‘witty’ pun as their name which I can’t think of at the moment. So how disappointed was I to later learn that Rockhampton was home to six big things, all cows? These things weren’t any bigger than regular cows and far less spectacular than any on a CowParade. We decided to go hit the town and have dinner and possibly have a drink, since we hadn’t really done that yet on our trip.

Every town in Australia has the same layout like any town in the US. Chain stores, your typical McDonald’s and Kmart, around the roads leading into it and then a nice wide road running through the town centre with a town hall, a church, and what we were looking for a nice pub. I felt like I could have been in any mid-western town in the USA. Granted it was Sunday but the place was totally dead. It would have been like a ghost town if it wasn’t for one pub which was jam packed with people. The whole town must have been there.  I kid you not when I say that some of the people were dressed up as cows. It could have been a cattle festival, but in a place like Rockhampton every day was a cattle festival.

We didn’t want to go to that pub since there was hardly a place to stand with people crowding even the sidewalk, so we tried to find another one, but the town was literary dead. After wondering a bit we just agreed to stop by a bottle shop and just go back to the campsite and drink. It was easy finding a bottle shop on the road full of chain stores and we got a bottle of wine and a Bundy with ginger beer. I had never had a Bundy before and since our next stop was Bundaberg I thought it was only appropriate.

Needless to say Rockhampton was a total flop, and the worst city we visited. At least then we had something to fall back on if we didn’t like something further on in our trip that, “At least we weren’t in Rockhampton.”

Notice the statue on top of the sign (Yeah it's a bad pic since it was taken from a mooving (j/k) vehicle, and we went around the roundabout 2 times to get it)