Because I did the Tongariro Crossing yesterday, I only had one day to explore Auckland, so I needed to prioritize. I was also exhausted, so I wanted to sleep in a little. I woke up around 8:30am and quickly departed Lylo and headed to Mount Eden, a dormant volcano whose summit is the highest natural point on the Auckland isthmus. The crater is also tapu (sacred) to the Maori because they believe an important deity lives there. There is a parking lot not far from the top, which was nice because I was still in a lot of pain from the hike the previous day. It is so interesting to see a volcanic crater right next to a large city, and views of Auckland from the top are fantastic.

In lieu of breakfast, I went to the supermarket and grabbed a small bottle of Lewis Road Creamery Chocolate Milk, which is absolutely delicious. Famously, in 2014 right after this milk first hit the shelves, there was a nationwide shortage of this milk because it is so delicious. It hit the spot, but I'm not sure it lives up to the hype compared to some upmarket chocolate milk you could buy in Michigan. Unfortunately I think comparing chocolate milks from around the world would be a lot of work.

I next headed to the Auckland War Memorial Museum, located in Auckland Domain (a large park). The museum contains a war memorial on the top floor, which has lots of exhibits related to all wars involving New Zealanders, including the Boer Wars, the Maori Wars fought between the Pakeha (European settlers) and Maori, the 1st and 2nd World Wars, and lots of post-WWII conflicts.

The lower floors of the museum have exhibits related to New Zealand's indigenous fauna, and Maori culture. All of the exhibits were very interesting, but I think are comparable to the National Museum in Wellington, which is free. The Auckland museum normally costs NZ$28 for non-residents to enter, but there was some kind of Eftpos (payment processor) outage, so they let me in for free; I would have still paid, but I am not sure it would have been "worth it".

I next headed downtown to the Ferry Terminal. My plan was to take a ferry across the harbor to Devonport. The ferry only costs NZ$4 each way and runs very frequently since it is a less than fifteen minute journey, and you get great views of Auckland along the way. I took the quick trip to Devonport, grabbed some fish and chips, and ate them on a bench outside the library. I was harassed by lots of birds while I ate, as per usual. I then headed back to the Ferry Terminal to return to Auckland and explore the harborfront some more.

The views are nice, but there is not much to do at the waterfront besides go shopping or eat at a restaurant. The exception is the New Zealand Maritime Museum, which is located on one of the piers. The museum tells the history of sailing in New Zealand, from the maritime traditions of various pacific islander groups, to the New Zealand Yacht Club that has been very successful in the America's Cup recently. There is even an America's Cup ship and a replica of the trophy on display.

I left the museum and headed to the airport. It was about a 25 minute drive, and upon arriving, I needed to go inside and talk to the rental car people about the crack on the windshield. They had me fill out a form and said I would get an email later. I then went to check in for my Qatar Airways flight to Adelaide. Qatar Airways operates an Auckland to Doha flight with a stop-over in Adelaide, and they have been given fifth-freedom authorization to transport passengers between Auckland and Adelaide.

After checking in I went through security, and my bag had to be searched separately because they saw my power bank and thought it was big. It is big, but it is within the allowable capacity restrictions. I then headed to the Strata Lounge which welcomes Priority Pass members. The lounge was spacious with plenty of seating, and was not very crowded because there were not many international flights departing at this time. I had some chicken cacciatore and gnocchi to eat, which was quite good.

I went to the gate, and got "randomly selected" by the woman standing there who was randomly selecting people to swab. The flight boarded on time, and I went to my seat, 42A. There was an older Italian couple boarding right in front of me who happened to be in 42B and 42C. The woman immediately sat in my seat, and I pointed out that no, I was there. Upon boarding it became clear that there were tons of open seats on the plane, and I have no idea why they were in the two seats right next to me on the 3-4-3 aircraft when they could have had more space elsewhere. Before take-off, I used Google Translate to tell them that I would get up and move so we could all be more comfortable, and went over to 43D, since 43E and 43F were both unoccupied. After I moved though the woman in 42B never went to take my window seat, which I found odd.

A full meal was served on the flight. There was a choice of beef, chicken curry, and vegetarian stir-fried noodles. I opted for the beef, which was delicious. It was served with some mashed potatoes, a couscous salad, hot bread, and some chocolate cake with raspberry sauce.

I landed in Adelaide and it was time to go through customs. My customs experience in Adelaide could not have been any more different from my experience entering Australia through Sydney a couple of weeks ago. I was profiled by the officer to go to the super-extra screening area, where they first sent all my things through the x-ray and hand-searched all my belongings. It turns out I forgot to mark and declare that I had medication with me (to be fair, each question on the form is a long list of stuff that I don't have, then one thing I do. I expect most people have some kind of medicine with them, I wonder how many actually declare it). I also had laundry powder in ziploc bags which I'm sure looked suspicious. I had a nice long chat with the woman about all my travel plans, because I'm sure that a guy traveling by himself to all these countries seems suspicious. After about half an hour she was satisfied, but I also declared that I had been to a "wilderness area" since I'd gone hiking in national parks, and so I was sent to also be screened by the biosecurity official. He sent my bags through the x-ray again, and saw that the bottle of pepto bismol I had looked strange on the x-ray. It turns out pepto bismol is radiopaque, so the x-rays don't travel through it, and it looks weird on the scanner. It also turns out the pepto bismol isn't sold in Australia, so none of the officers really knew what it was. They decided they would swab my pepto bismol for something (explosives? drugs? I don't really know), and it set off a false positive on the machine, so they had to swab it again and run it through a different machine. This whole process took another half hour, so I chatted with a different customs officer while I waited. Luckily they were all friendly the whole time (unlike some experiences I've had in the US), and after about an hour in customs I was finally sent on my way.

Next step: getting to the hostel. I was so sore that I wanted to just take an Uber to the hostel instead of taking a bus. I went to the rideshare area and called an Uber. I was matched with a driver, but he then cancelled, and then I got matched with him again and he cancelled again. After searching for a while, the app just stopped searching, and when I went to book again, it told me that the price was now 2.5x as high because of surge pricing. I tried downloading a different ride-share app, Ola. After making an account and trying to search for a ride, it told me my credit card was invalid. I eventually had to link my Paypal account, but then when it was time to search for a ride again, boom, surge pricing at hit. I just took a taxi instead, which was about 50% more expensive than the normal price Uber, but cheaper than the surge priced Uber.

Finally I made it to my hostel, Adelaide Central YHA, and checked in quickly, before showering and heading to bed exhausted.