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New Zealand Day 1 - Auckland

Evening lovelies,

I will try and get in all that has happened in the last 24 hours, but this little chicken is a bit exhausted tonight.

We left Toowoomba yesterday with Little Andrew, and we decided that on the way to the motel a trip to the DFO was in order.  Man am I glad that I am not really a clothes or shoe shopper.  I might have had to hock my ticket.  Such a wonderful place if you are after fashion items.


After that and an early dinner with Andy, he dropped us at the motel.  We had booked into the Airport Ibis.  When we got there they let us know that the bad news was they were overbooked, the good news was that they we sending us to their other motel, The Pullman, and upgraded our room for the same price.  They took us over, and got us settled.  The room was beautiful, and it was equipped with Foxtel so Robbie was very pleased.  It was a bit of an early night as we had a 3.30 wake up call booked so we could catch the 4am shuttle.  We look a little like stunned mullets :-)


We did make the shuttle and were safely delivered to the Airport. There we checked in, got our boarding passes and settled at one of the eating areas to wait for customs to open, and yes, I did get tested for explosives again.  I cannot seem to go through any airport without that happening.  It even happens when I go to pick people up.  Obviously I am a suspicious looking character.  ðŸ¤ª


Our flight was uneventful, which is the way we wanted it, and we arrived in Auckland just before lunch.  We did however see a rainbow circle in the clouds.  The entrance from the arrivals terminal has some really interesting wood carvings.  Our beautiful Travel Agent, Sam, had everything organized for us.  The shuttle bus was waiting and delivered us safely to our motel.  We checked in and decided to immediately get walking.  We went and had a look at the Sky Tower.  We did both decide that we had done enough heights today.



We then made our way towards the Queens Wharf Precinct.   It was a lovely wander.


One of the really fabulous areas was the lending library with sitting area for those who wish to spend the day reading in such a lovely setting.





It is also fashion week here.  I think these might be just my style.



We stopped for a spot of lunch around 3.30 at one of the waterfront restaurants.  Andy, you can buy a 3 litre jug of beer. It looked so cool.
   

 Lunch was also the only opportunity that I was able to ditch the shoes today.


 After that we decided we would go for a ferry ride to Davenport.  It was only about a 15 minute ride across the harbour.  It is such a pretty little area.




By the time we got the is was close to 6pm, and some shops were shut, but we did manage to wander through an antique bookshop.  Then back on the ferry and back to the wharf.


We somewhere lost our map to get us back to the motel, but as it was only 1 street from the Skytower it was not too hard to navigate our way back.

Things I learnt today -
The water in Auckland harbour is clear.


There was next to no rubbish in the streets and none in the water.
Auckland looks very similar to Brisbane and Sydney.  It was easy to forget we are in another country.
We also noticed that the seagulls were spotless!


Temperature is cool,similar to Toowoomba on a cool day. Forecast is for rain, hail and snow!,
We head off tomorrow on our camper van journey to meet some real Kiwis.

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