Day Eleven and Twelve: Auckland and Then Home

When I was booking our trip, I debated back and forth if I wanted to do something in Auckland.  Our flights weren't until 7:45 pm so we had a whole day there, but I wondered if a slow morning and a peaceful, slow breakfast might be preferred to an early morning rush to another tour.  When I realized how far away the hotel was from the tour pick up spot, I even considered cancelling the tour Tuesday night when we arrived in Auckland.  It was going to be expensive to get ourself to and from the downtown tour location.

But--with the idea of never passing this way again, I decided that we should do the tour, take the hit of the cost, and see parts of Auckland.  I had chosen a tour that focused on the interesting geographic aspects of the city.  

It turned out we were the only two on the tour and it was a perfect way to spend the morning and to learn a bit more about Auckland and New Zealand.

We were the only two people on the tour so the tour guide took us around in his personal car.  He was from Korea and had immigrated to New Zealand after falling in love with another Korean woman during a long summer vacation to New Zealand.  She had been raised in New Zealand which has a large immigrant population.  Especially in Auckland, there are many migrants from South Sea Islands, Asian countries, and India. He loves New Zealand and we so enjoyed our time with him as he shared some of the sights of this city.

Auckland is built on 53 volcanos and you can see many peaks as you drive around.  Only one is considered still active.  It impacts building and land development throughout the area.  It is a large port city as well and provides supplies for much of New Zealand through shipping.

We ate dinner Tuesday night after our arrival at the restaurant in the hotel--we were sat at table 33 which I loved because we were married on March 3 and "3" is an important number for us.

I had more New Zealand salmon

Even in the hotel, you are encouraged to recycle.

The outside of the hotel has some interesting plants in the gardens. 

The taxi got there about 20 minutes early so we walked around the docks and enjoyed the boats and ferries coming in and out.

You have to love the signs.

Downtown Auckland---construction is ever present issue in cities.

Good luck pronouncing those street names....

The Auckland Bridge

We headed to Mt. Eden which was the highest point in Auckland and built on a deceased volcano.  They have built a walkup and boardwalk which allows 360 degree views of the city.  Very cool!

A close up view of an interesting tree as
we were walking up Mt. Eden.

The mounds are old volcanos.  You can see
them off every view point if you know what to
look for.

One of the other volcano tops in the city

It is always interesting to document silly things like bathrooms.  This was one tight bathroom.  You can wash your hands sitting on the toilet.  It reminded me of an RV bathroom but it was inside the museum.

We were at the  Auckland War Museum

After the museum, we headed to the nearby botanical garden which was a set of three very large green houses with different climates in each one and amazing flowers from all over the world.

Between two of the greenhouses was a fernery. It is a collection of all sorts of ferns.  They are incredible and so beautiful.

Look at the difference between the green on the top
of the leaf and the silver on the bottom

Aren't these flowers amazing???

Our last stop was at Mission Bay for ice cream and a walk on the beach (in the rain as it turned out--just at the very end.)

Of course, I touched the water.

The wind was picking up as you can see by the beach fountain.

Our tour driver took us back to the hotel which was great.  We had a quiet afternoon waiting until time to head to the airport.  We had a bit of a drama as we checked in as they said that we didn't actually have reservations.  Fortunately, they found some (somewhere) and we were able to get on our flight (with another message sent to our travel agent to make sure our flight was confirmed from San Francisco to Salt Lake since they couldn't confirm it at the Auckland airport.  United Vacations offered us some travel coupons for future travel because of the problems we had with our flights.  We decided not to take them since we didn't plan to use United Vacations again within the next year.)

A robot preparing fast food at the sirport.

We are home!!! Snow had following the day before we got back home and you can see the snow on the mountain (after that long day where we left Auckland at 7:45 pm on Wednesday and arrived in Salt Lake on Wednesday at 7:35 pm. We got a lot of steps on our phone for that double day.)

And this is what greeted us when we got home--a poster from Jena.  (She actually sent us a picture of this poster two days after we left, so she was prepared.  She also texted us frequently telling us how many more days we had until we got home. She missed us "a little bit.")

It was a wonderful vacation and really perfect for us.  We loved being together and the easy pace we could set, the food we could enjoy, and the quiet or the talking we shared.  It was fun to spend time with the Carters and we look forward to traveling with them again in the future if life allows it.  We loved New Zealand and feel so blessed to have been there for a vacation.

And sitting on a train during one of the days of our trip, we even started discussing our next trip---that is how much fun we have traveling together.  Plans for 2025 include an extended family trip to Oregon and a trip to Arizona.  We will see what else happens!  We are moving into retirement mode so who knows what is ahead.