Day One - Kia Ora Auckland

Early start waking up at 5am for a 5:30am departure from home. Pretty good run to Sydney with a couple of short pit stops. Arrived at the airport at 9:30am and the traffic was mayhem. Eventually found a spare drop off space and after a hasty farewell to Mum and Big Sis entered the international departures terminal. There were people absolutely everywhere, it's the busiest I have ever seen an airport! After a little confusion, we checked in at the Air NZ self-serve kiosks and got rid of our suitcase at the bag drop.

We got through security pretty quickly despite the hordes of people and headed for gate 60 hoping to find some escape from the hustle and bustle. No such luck, there were people absolutely everywhere there too. We managed to dive on some seats as soon as a couple of people got up and left though.

We didn't have to wait long before our flight was called for boarding. The plane was reflective of the rest of the airport, also chockers! Blue sky and fluffy white clouds all the way. We landed right on time and were given the movie star treatment, exiting the plane via stairs and bundled onto a bus to be shuttled to the terminal.

After quickly claiming our baggage and going through customs we collected the keys to our car and were off to a roaring start by getting lost in the tiny car park for hire vehicles and cutting an extra lap. With the aid of our trusty printed directions from Google Maps we headed north towards the city centre and after a slight detour found our hotel.

Upon checking in we discovered we were on the 21st floor (eek) but a nice perk is that Sky Tower is just out our window. Following a five minute break to collect ourselves we hit the town.

The view from our hotel window

So as we are only a block from Sky Tower we bought our sun and stars ticket to go up the tower tonight and tomorrow morning. Then we walked down to the waterfront for a look. It looked very pretty just coming on dark with a purple sky and lights starting to appear. On our way back we bought pizzas and ate them under the magnificent Sky Tower. By the time they were polished off it was dark enough to go up the tower and that's just what we did.

The view of the city lights was as spectacular as ever. We cut a lap and sat for a while enjoying the view before returning to the ground level.

On the way back to the hotel we watched some people in the reverse bungy and decided that it wasn't for us.
And that's about it for day one! Time for bed before more adventures tomorrow!

Lil Sis

View of Auckland harbour at sunset

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