Good morning Auckland, where is my coffee?? I am not allergic to morning but instead a morning person, Its just the 8 am in Auckland is apparently too early (around 3 am in Jakarta). Woke up seeing hundreds messages on my whatsapp don't amuse me also, but when realizing I just missed an error ticket, I don't need coffee anymore, it's an error ticket to Lisbon, Portugal. Well, that's life, not every time you have the best one. There is always tomorrow *cross fingers*, maybe?
Check out is 10 am, after quick shower and breakfast sponsored by our travel mate, we are ready to roll on and start our adventure. We took a slow walk since our rent car will be ready at 12 noon.
As mentioned in Day 1 there are a few shops down the road, we also stopped by sushi shop called St. Pierres Presents Sushi of Japan, apparently this sushi chain you will find it in quite a lot of places, and it is with reasonable price, around $5 - $15 depends on what you take from the display, from sashimi to bento, interesting part they even have brown rice options.
Reach Jucy at around 11.45 and start rental processing, it was pretty simple, just a piece of paper that every driver need to write and sign which ask if you have been used to drive in your country, if on the same side on the rules, and while they prepared the car, they will ask you to watch the video on the road rules in NZ. We took stress free insurance covered which is covering 2 drivers so we pay additional $1/day for extra driver, settle the payment. What you need to aware is they will have your cc on guarantee in the case there is any fine due to false parking or against the rules, you don't want to come home with a bunch of fine bills on your cc so please drive safely.
At around 12.30, we are on the road with our rent car, complete with Skoot GPS & Wifi tablet (name of the apps called Skoot on the tablet). Got back to hotel to get our stuff and our road trip is officially starting. First destination will be Waitomo glowworm caves scheduled on tomorrow morning (please check the opening hours on their official web). Since we don't have anything till tomorrow, we took it slow and made a stop for groceries, choice of big supermarket in NZ is Countdown or New World, which are available in most of the cities we passed, The GPS will help you identify mostly New World, maybe because its 100% NZ owned, but we found that it's more expensive than Countdown. And mostly Countdown also attached to shopping center, so sometimes made it better option. We also took lunch which cost $6 - $12 in the foodcourt, and not to forget to try the ice cream. Taste? hmm..... you know the meaning :). Our groceries for dinner tonight is $25.5 divide to 4 persons, compare to our lunch, dinner is around the same price actually, still within budget for today yeahh!!
We booked our hotel last night and looking at the maps it was the closest and cheapest one to Waitomo Glowworm Caves called Waitomo Caves Hotel, one family room for IDR 1,173,380 (not to worry to note down as all the costs will be summarize on the last day story). It's quite difficult drive to reach there, to be honest driving in NZ is not as fun as in Jakarta, the road mostly has no light so you are counting on your car light and your eyes, and some places you won't even got signal, it was quite a long drive (not really if you are an expert) but me with my cylinder eyes, took me around 2.5 hours to reach there from our last stop in the dark. The hotel itself is quite unique (or creepy you may said) but this made the 2nd best hotel of our trips.
"A good day is a good day, a bad day is a good story, at the end it's all good" - Glennon Melton. Good night doesn't mean to bring an end to today, but gratefully being closer to next day to explore Waitomo glowworm caves. Till tomorrow, have a nice sleep. *Hoammmm*
