Days 2 and 3 (July 14-15, 2016): Stolen Time!

There is something quite weird about losing a day of your life to the International Date Line! It's like flying into a Stephen King novel, somehow.  We left LA on Wednesday night and arrived Auckland Friday morning, right on time at 5:20am.  Our time-clocks were so messed up that it didn't really feel like a horrible hour of the morning.  We bought tickets on the SkyCoach service and enjoyed a relaxing, no-traffic ride into the city.  Although we fully expected the hotel not to let us check in until the afternoon, they gave us a room at 7:30am, allowing us to freshen up before heading out.  By 8:40am, we were on our way! 

That's Maori for welcome!

Sunrise was at 7:30am, and the day started completely clear.  We decided to go up in the needle-like SkyTower, once the highest building in the Southern Hemisphere. The views of Auckland were wonderful.

The iconic Sky Tower: our first stop

The oh-so-scary glass floor, looking down 51 stories

View of the city from the Sky Tower

View of the bridge to the north shore from the Sky Tower

View of one of the city's many volcanoes from the Sky Tower

By 9:45am, we had soaked up the views and descended to street level to start a 4km walking tour, suggested by Lonely Planet.  Highlights are shown below.

City Hall

Aotea Square had - of all things - a temporary skating rink. $20 for a skate, though!

Mural to the women who fought for the right to vote - NZ was the first country to give its women the right 

The impressive Auckland Art Gallery

University Clock Tower

Imagine such blooms in the dead of winter!

Every city needs one of these!

Viaduct Harbour is a large waterfront development of hotels, cafes, museums, and the ferry terminal

The hull and stabilizer of a sailboat from the 27th America's Cup Race.

The rejuvenated Wynyard Quarter of the Auckland waterfront.

Innovative architectural design in the Wynyard Quarter

We ran to catch the 12:30pm ferry to the north shore of Auckland, to a community called Devonport. It boasts a nice beach, lots of shops and cafes, and a couple of dormant volcanoes.  One of them - Mount Victoria - we climbed up after lunch in a café. 

"The Cloud", as they call it, houses the passenger ferry terminal.

Devonport Beach.  Too chilly for a dip, but nice all the same.

Mount Victoria is one of two volcano cones on the North Shore

The view of Rangitoto Island from Mount Victoria

From the heights of Mount Victoria, we saw a nasty rainstorm moving in over the city, so we made a quick escape back to the Devonport ferry terminal.  

It was 3pm when we got back to Auckland, and were we ever dropping!  St. Patrick's Cathedral was the last item on our list.  We hunted it down and, after a quick look around, took a rest in the back pew.  

St. Patrick's Cathedral

On the way back to our hotel, we saw this 'group bungee' apparatus.  Basically, three people get sprung up into the air in a cage.

This is the tower next to our hotel.  The Sky Tower's reflection was captured so well in it!

After having been up for over 40 hours at that point, we dragged ourselves back to the hotel, where we promptly fell asleep for a few hours.  As Auckland had turned rainy and cold during our long cat nap, we were tempted to skip dinner.  But in the end, we went for Japanese and really enjoyed it.

This was our second time in Auckland.  The previous trip was over a dozen years ago, so it almost felt like a new destination experience.  We were able to squeeze a lot of sights and walking into the day here (over 23,000 steps according to my Vivofit).  "Kiwis" were friendly, engaging and sincere, and we quickly remembered why we enjoyed NZ so much the last time.

Tomorrow we catch a flight to the island country of New Caledonia.  Meanwhile, I'll put a finishing touch on this blog and post it before my eyelids require toothpick props to stay open!