Choice Motel Takapuna Auckland

... has 'weather’; NZ has ‘weather’ as does the UK. Whether it is the weather entirely depends on your perspective and for me constant sun, hot temperatures and an absence of rain is not my idea of fun. Give me rain, snow and wind now and again and keep me guessing.

And so to the airport and the next leg of the journey. The trip to Auckland went without hitch and for the first time in my visits to NZ I had a clear view ...

... really - they are on a kind of guide wire system that halts them right outside the window so we can see their naked fear for a few seconds before resuming the plummet. I don't fancy it myself, in fact it takes me a while before I am braving the lift back down.

And that was the first full day in NZ. It's nice. I just hope the weather picks a bit soon.

Before I go, I have to say something about the TV here though. It seems to consist entirely of:
1 ...

... on a Saturday night!).

The next morning we got up and wanted to explore the city a bit more! We firstly headed down to the harbour which is a max 5min walk from the hotel, where we had a good view of the Sky Tower (the tallest building/structure in the southern hemisphere) and the Auckland Harbour Bridge! We then headed up to the Sky Tower to go up and see the city from there! We bought our tickets and headed up the Tower, the lift took 40seconds to take us up ...

... we headed straight for the shores of the lake, where we were told you could dig your own hot pool in the sands!!

We tried a bit of digging but it wasnt very easy and the water was pretty horrible so we didnt exactly want to bathe in it! So, we then headed back to our campsite which had 3 proper hot pools just waiting for us to relax in...


And, as you may already know, it was whilst we were ...

... find this area as up until then I'd found the rest of central Auckland to be quite (too) industrial and disorganised...which was disappointing after such a lovely drive from the airport.

After Parnell I kept on until Newmarket, which is where I finally found the museum (which took two hours of walking in light rain - perhaps not the most direct route...). The building was really lovely and the cityscape backdrop, punctuated by the Sky ...

... live there. Whatever, it's their choice and I have accepted that. I made sure that night I was in a cleaner room, that ended up being all to myself.

The next day I made the ferry crossing to Picton. It usually takes 3 hours, but because of delays, it took 4.5 hours. No matter, I was stoked when I saw snow covered peaks of south island get closer and closer. The Marlborough Sounds were amazing too, with leaves turning orange and red for the ...

... Ansonsten bin ich im Februar fuer ein langes Wochenende in Queenstown gewesen und dann kamen auch Sven und Tanja (mein Burder und seine Freundin, ...fuer diejenigen unter euch, die sie nicht kennen!) fuer eine kurze Stippvisite nach Christchurch. ...am besten war das Kajaken mit den Delphinen in Akaroa! Am 1. Maerz sind Claudia und Melanie (aus Hamburg!) gekommen und wir sind die letzten drei Wochen auf Reisen gewesen. ....manchmal kommt es mir vor ...

... with owning a multimillion dollar yacht ;-)) The viewfromth Sky Tower (tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere) is great, especially at night. We bought a phone and minutes that we can use in New Zealand and Australia, if you need to reach us in an emergency. I've emailed this to several people.

... here walked to the Victoria Markets, which we discovered weren't only a weekend thing but 7 days. It was actually rather dull. A relatively large building but very little inside. Whilst predominantly souvenir shops there was nothing new that I hadn't seen throughout the rest off NZ. Paddy's Markets are so much better! Traipsed up hill, (up the volcanic remnants) to the Auckland domain via the university and hospital (don't think we took the most direct route but I enjoyed the look ...

So I got back on the Magic Bus and headed south back towards the drearyness of Auckland, and it really was dreary too - it was throwing it down with rain the whole way... but I don't have a lot to say about the journey back as it was really boring and the driver we had this time wasn't exactly the most talkative person you will have met... he never even told us any thing about anything. Tara and I decided that we were going to stay in ACB again as we enjoyed it last time ...