Day 2 - December 26:
First real day in Auckland after some real sleep in a real bed. The only plan was a trip up the SkyTower. We got another epic breakfast from the Hotel and walked the streets of Auckland towards the tower. Very nice city; clean, quiet, and felt safe. So, if not mentioned earlier, our trip was mostly booked through a travel agent. Normally we wouldn’t do that, but we need some guidance. This time it sort of failed us when the SkyTower didn’t recognize our reservation number and there was nothing we could do about it. Since I didn’t book it, I had no idea who did, what a voucher was, and what to do next. But, small deal because instead of going up the tower to see clouds, Caden decided to jump off the tower instead! As many know, New Zealand is the birth place of bungee jumping. They extended that to free falls of tall things with a cable and pully system. Caden wanted to spend all his souvenir spending money on that instead. So, he got to go up, we got to stay down and watch him leap. Fun start to our trip and Caden had a blast (see the videos below).
Since that was it for scheduled activities, Katy found our next adventure via a wildlife cruise through the bay. At this point, the sun was shining (and it was hot) and going on a boat sounded great. The cruise was 5 hours through the islands around Auckland which was spectacular. I don’t think they use the word archipelago, but that is what New Zealand is; two big islands with many smaller ones around it (some volcanic). Just seeing the islands and how each was different was enough of a trip. But we also saw lots of birds, dolphins and even a couple of penguins! No whales as we had hoped, but it was amazing none the less. A quick note about the temperature, the sun is brutal here and we all got burned even though we wore sun screen. I heard that may be because of an ozone hole above us here, but also heard that has healed itself. Either way, the sun is for real here.
After this lovely boat cruise, we walked to the hotel, took a minute to enjoy our rooms again and headed to dinner. Auckland is lovely.
New Zealand Day 3 & 4
First real day in Auckland after some real sleep in a real bed. The only plan was a trip up the SkyTower. We got another epic breakfast from the Hotel and walked the streets of Auckland towards the tower. Very nice city; clean, quiet, and felt safe. So, if not mentioned earlier, our trip was mostly booked through a travel agent. Normally we wouldn’t do that, but we need some guidance. This time it sort of failed us when the SkyTower didn’t recognize our reservation number and there was nothing we could do about it. Since I didn’t book it, I had no idea who did, what a voucher was, and what to do next. But, small deal because instead of going up the tower to see clouds, Caden decided to jump off the tower instead! As many know, New Zealand is the birth place of bungee jumping. They extended that to free falls of tall things with a cable and pully system. Caden wanted to spend all his souvenir spending money on that instead. So, he got to go up, we got to stay down and watch him leap. Fun start to our trip and Caden had a blast (see the videos below).
Since that was it for scheduled activities, Katy found our next adventure via a wildlife cruise through the bay. At this point, the sun was shining (and it was hot) and going on a boat sounded great. The cruise was 5 hours through the islands around Auckland which was spectacular. I don’t think they use the word archipelago, but that is what New Zealand is; two big islands with many smaller ones around it (some volcanic). Just seeing the islands and how each was different was enough of a trip. But we also saw lots of birds, dolphins and even a couple of penguins! No whales as we had hoped, but it was amazing none the less. A quick note about the temperature, the sun is brutal here and we all got burned even though we wore sun screen. I heard that may be because of an ozone hole above us here, but also heard that has healed itself. Either way, the sun is for real here.
After this lovely boat cruise, we walked to the hotel, took a minute to enjoy our rooms again and headed to dinner. Auckland is lovely.
New Zealand Day 3 & 4
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