Bit of luxury before home
Trip Start
Feb 19, 2010
1
32
Trip End
Mar 20, 2010
Where I stayed
Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
In Auckland we finally found our first bit of NZ motorway and some serious traffic. After dropping the camper van off and having a lift back to the centre, we checked into our accommodation for the next couple of evenings - Quay West apartments.
We paid slightly more to ensure we got a room above the 20th floor so that we'd have good views, and we weren't disappointed. The apartment was large and comfortable and well equipped, but we resisted the urge to just relax and take advantage of it to the full and headed out to the harbour to meet one of Gavin's old university friends.
A short ferry ride later and we were in Devonport. A world away from the modern high rises of Auckland centre, it had a homely feel and was the perfect spot to while away a few hours with old friends.
18/03/2010
There were really one a couple of things that stood out as things we simply had to-do today according to our guidebook. One was to go up to the top of the Sky Tower and the other was to wander around a few of the main shopping areas. We managed both. The views from the SKy Tower were excellent and the revolving restaurant near the top was fun, although seeing people drop past your window as you were eating was a strange experience.
After reading about K'Road, we thought we'd wander there for dinner. I think it would be fair to say we didn't think that much of it - there wasn't as much choice as we had expected - but we eventually found somewhere suitable and then headed back.
19/03/2010
One thing about having flights at a reasonable hour is that you suddenly end up with extra time to do things. The problem was we seemd to have run out of things to do... In the end we settled on a visit to Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World, which filled the time beautifully.
Slight delay on departure form the airport, due to an undisclosed minor engineering fault (1.5 hours) but we made up most of this time in the air and still made our connecting flight from Dubai with time to spare.
