Auckland - How much for a sleeping bag?!?

So after travelling through time and space we arrived in Auckland on Sunday morning, although it should have been Saturday, feeling slightly odd, sleepy and a bit rough. We slept most of the 12 hours from LAX to Auckland with brief interludes for dinner, breakfast and for Jen to do a little bit of sick.

We picked up our shiny blue Subaru Legacy at the airport and drove to our hotel in Auckland where they told us our room wouldn't be ready for another 90 hours. It was actually only about 3 hours but Jen was tired and cross so it felt longer. For both of us. So we went for a bit of a wander around Auckland and tried to buy a tent and a sleeping bag for Jen as we will be camping for the rest of the time in NZ. We originally went to some kind of specialist camping shop where they wanted at least $100 for a sleeping bag. If you remember Jen was tired and cross so this went down like a sack of shit.

We returned to the hotel where the room still wasn't ready so we stood at the desk looking sad till it was. We then had a sleep for a few hours and showered and went back out into Auckland, down to the harbour for some delicious steaks that they served raw and you cooked them yourselves on a very hot stone. Would never happen in the UK - ooh it would be a health & safety nightmare (!). We then remembered that we're supposed to be travelling on a shoestring and we can't really afford steaks but they were bloody delicious so we don't care.

We went to bed dead early because Jen kept saying that her head didn't feel like it belonged to her body and Chris was worried she was a bit mental.

On our second day in Auckland (city of sails but not sales) we felt much better so got up early and went up the Sky Tower where we stood on the glass ceiling thing. Chris was a bit terrified and Jen found it very funny. 

It was a lovely sunny day so the views were awesome and we took a ridiculous amount of photos of stuff and buildings that were far away and we won't remember what they are later.

We also watched people bunging jumping from the top of the tower and mocked them for their foolishness.

Then we went to some cheaper shops we had found online and got a tent, an airbed and some pillows. We also went to another shop to get Jen a sleeping bag and after looking at more that were around $200 (!!!!) we had a conversation with the woman that went like this:

Jen: "How much is your cheapest sleeping bag?"
Shop woman: "What thickness do you want?"
Jen: "The cheapest one"

Shop woman: "What season?
Chris: "The cheapest one"
Shop woman: "We have this one for $49.95. And it has 10% off today."
Chris & Jen: "Sold."

We then had some lunch and came back to the hotel for a lie-down and some blog posting. In a bit we're going to the IMAX to watch Avatar and then maybe more steaks... I mean, more food that is dead cheap and affordable and doesn't use up all our money in the first week. Honest.

Tomorrow we're making the 2-hour drive to Chris's Uncle Alan & Auntie Pam's farm near Tauranga. We're staying with them for 2 days before the camping fun begins.

We hope you enjoyed this awesome blog about sleeping bags.