Auckland New Zealand

Arrived safe and sound and heading to hotel!

Just got back to our hotel after a busy day! We arrived at the hotel around 7:30 a.m. NZ time (which is Friday Nov. 16th) and the earliest they could get us a room was noon! Left our bags at the hotel and took off on foot for the next 5 hours to explore the harbour and Quay area, which is beautiful. Had coffee and shared a breakfast sandwich at a little cafe on the waterfront, then walked up into the city.. New Zealanders are very friendly people, as we found out when we were curiously looking at an interesting modern building, and a man asked us if we’d like to go in and have a look! He explained to us the bank (which we found out it was) was modelled after the Google workplace style with open concept workspaces for any employee to use, and we ended up chatting to him about that and other things for over 20 minutes! We then walked up to Auckland’s famous sky tower and bought tickets for that as well as for the hop on/hop off bus. Went up the tower right away and the views were spectacular - so much so, we’re going back to see it at night! Had a bite to eat and by then it was noon, so we could check into our room! Since we’d been on a plane for 14 hours, and walking around Auckland for another 5, we needed to get cleaned up, so did that then headed off to take the hop on bus, and ended up doing both routes, and finding out some interesting facts about the city. We have a 48 hour pass on the bus, so tomorrow, will take it again, and actually “hop off” this time at the places we found interesting! Relaxing for a while now before heading out for a bite to eat (and maybe a New Zealand Chardonnay) and another trip up the sky tower! I think we’ll sleep well tonight!!Read more