Day 1

Day 1

 Landed in Auckland very early in the morning but felt rather well slept considering I had been on a plane for 13 hours.  After luggage and customs we called the hotel for a pick up.  Wait an hour.  No worries, we sat out side and enjoyed some fresh air.  Once we go tot the hotel we put our bags in the back and headed off to Auckland proper.  We didn’t have a rental car so we took the bus, a suggestion from the lady at the hotel. 

After a 20-minute wait and almost an hour bus ride, we were in down town Auckland.  Where to go? What to do?  It was still early, 10am, but we were hungry.  A crownut and tea did the trick.  Then we went off to the maritime museum.  There we got to walk though the hull of a ship that moved back and forth like it was really on the water.  This was suppose to be like the ships the first western immigrants took to come to New Zealand. We also saw models of a whole range of ships, both in type and age.  The most interesting thing was the hull of the America’s Cup sailboat.  It was a sleek black ship about 50 feet long, maybe more.  It was 30 feet in the air with the ballast boom at ground level. 

After the museum we went to the Sky Tower.  This is a 230 meter tower.  Some people jump from it, attached to cables of course. We walked around and took pictures. After that we were starving.  We walked to a mini mall like place to find a great café.  Some free internet meant we could connect to the world again and tell everyone we made it okay. 

Now it was time to take the bus home.  I thought I knew the way to go, but we ended up in an entirely different part of town and had to walk a mile or two more to get to the bus stop.  The ride home was crazy.  We weren’t sure which stop was our so we kept looking out the window trying to see if we saw anything familiar.  After some anxiety we made it to the stop across from where we got on.  We walked to the hotel, only to see the bus stop right in front.  Oh well, a bit more walking. 

We check into our hotel room.  It was a big room with four beds.  We cleaned up, planned our trip a bit, and walked to get dinner.  After a quick meal from an Indian place down the road it was time for bed.  Day one was done, but day two was when we knew it was all really going to get started.