Sam's Climbing Blog: First days in New Zealand: Welcome to Camp Nightmare

Call it how you want: nightmare, horrorshow, hell, mental terrorism or god being in a sadistic, or rather cynical mood, or just a bad day. This is just OVERKILL. Three days ago I arrived in Auckland after a grueling 30 hours flight, playing in-flight black jack, tetris, and something with a worm crawling around on a cube eating coloured dots. Soon I found out the kiwi's are pretty strict on what to bring into the country. They cleaned my shoes with water (poor guy) because there could be a horrible lifethreatening deseaseon the soles, and my tent for the same reasons. Failing to report this can end up in a 400 dollar fine. I was told a girl forgot she had an apple with her, and they found it out. That makes you a 400dollars poorer. As soon as I gotto the hostel, I went checking out for transport. After checking the bus rates, which are also not that cheap, I went looking on a nearby car fair, where everybody, mostly travellers, can sell their cars. And I got seduced by this really good looking Mitsubishi Mirage, owned by a dutch guy from my age. I checked it a bit and we drove around a bit. No problems and we fixed the payment and the ownership transfer. I've got really excited. Ok, it's definitely more expensive then a buspass, but if you can sell your vehicle afterwards, you can win your money back. I headed up north first to what's called the Northland. After like 120km I notice the temperature was raising up pretty fast and pulled over. An other guy stopped to help me, and we put some extra water in the almost empty boiling (or vulcanic) coolant box and radiator. Strange because that one was just replaced. I barely made it to Waipu, where the local mechanic told to, come back next morning. So I had to wait 24hours experiencing my own In Bruges in the boring Scottish founded town of Waipu, and putn my tent behind a bush in the little townpark. Next morning the mechanic discovers a leak somewhere in the system and adds a kind of liquid to fill the gaps. I soon found out my Visa wasn't working. I didn't hav enough cash left to pay and my card was declined all the time. The people of the gas station thrusted me enough to send me to a bank in the next town of Ruakaka. There I found out I exceeded my monthly limit, which I totally had forgotten when buying the car back in Auckland. We tried to contact the bank but with the time gap there was no response in the middle of the night. leaving the bank after a couple of hourses I couldn't start the car, because my battery run flat. Forgotten to turn the lights off. After 5 minutes I found out the butcher boy had a pair of cables in his krot-pickup. he had to stay in the shop, so he just gave me the keys of his car. The gears were like located at the steering wheel, like in american movies. Not easy to find out how to move forwards and backwards. Bon the guy came out to help with the battery and everything was solved in a minute. On the way back to Waipu and after driving a bit around on smaller going up and down roads, the temperature was tending to have its occasional ups and downs every now and then. I just feel fucked, with a fucking cat in a sac under my ass, about 20dollars left in my wallet, fucking rain all the time, and nothing to do but to play Hartenjagen with a lifeless pc, this is not what you can call a fun chill start of a trip. Going to call the bank in a minute, and if they can't solve it, I'll have to open a new zealand account and transfer my money. Meanwhile I can try to sell this bitch. And if I run out of money,this will be the start of a new diet, and an intro in the world of begging. Hails from Waipu

Central business district Auckland with skytower in the back. Almost a second Vancouver harbour city with a lot of Chinese and Japanese immigrants and tourists.