Day 2 - Mt Mangonui to Auckland - L&P and Shopping

On the way to Auckland on day 2 we passed through some interesting places, one of them being almost a pilgrimage for a lover of L&P such as myself. The first stop, however was a small gold mining town which had a huge open cast gold mine just outside. It was so deep that you can't see the bottom when you'r standing on the rim of the pit. we spent a short time there before heading onwards to Paeroa, which is the birthplace of the world famous (in New Zealand) soft drink, Lemon and Paeroa, more commonly known as L&P. I love the drink, which is like lemonade, but it has just something which makes it taste superb. The whole town is covered with the L&P brand, it's even on the 'welcome to Paeroa' sign and, pride of place in the village square is a giant L&P bottle. I posed for a photo (in my kilt, of course), before we moved on to the cafe, affectionately known as the L&P cafe, featuring another (not quite as big) giant L&P bottle, and selling such delicacies as L&P milkshake and L&P icecream (I didn't try these, settling for just L&P instead). We then climbed back aboard the bus for the trip to Auckland, I was sitting up front, next to the driver, Rangi, who kept tossing me Turkish Delight sweets from his pack of Cadbury favourites, which pacific Coast had given him. I was too polite to tell him that they weren't exactly my favourite, and ate them anyway. We arrived in Auckland about midday, and we got deposited at our various hostels. I was staying at base ACB again. After dumping my bags, i decided to go shopping for a rash top, for swimming. I found very little success in the CBD, with masot of the shops' stock peing either prohibitively expensive, or prohibitively small. In the warehouse, however, I did find a top, which was too small, but I was informed that the warehouse in parnell had one. I took a bus over, and I was really tempted by the top, which was on sale, but it was just that little bit too small. I then decided to go shopping, and found that there was a New world in Newmarket, and so I hopped on another bus to there. I got off at the Victoria park market on the way, and took a look around before deciding that I could have easily blown my entire budget there on one item, and I left shortly after. I popped into New World and picked up the essentials for a good dinner before heading back to the hostel to eat. After tea i decided that, having placed my watch somewhere in my bag in mount mangonui, andf that it wasn't going to appear for some time to come, that I would go out and try to find a cheap watch. i scoured all of the souvenir shops to no avail, before deciding to have a look in the warehouse. i found a very cheap watch for $15, and used one of my christmas presents to pay for it, a gift card (thank you Amy(or is it Amie or Ami)). I then headed back to the hostel to chill for a while longer before heading to boed, only to find that my phone (which doubles as my alarm clock) was out of batteries. I ran down to reception to be told that I could get an alarm clock from the shop donstairs. I bouth one for $4, and I really should have spent more, because it managed to lose 15 minutes in the course of the night, and I nearly didn't get up in time the next morning.