New Zealand

Hello from the land of the long white cloud. NEW ZEALAND
We stayed Friday night at the Mantra Close to the airport and were up at 5am to get ready to catch the shuttle bus. We were at the airport and checked our luggage in by 6.30 so went off to have some breakfast. We had another breakfast on the plane.

We touched down at 1.30pm( NZ time)Sat 27th October and I declared some biscuits and nuts so got to go through straight away  but Owen had a  British passport and had to go through the long queue. Didn't matter in the end as the cases took ages to come out.
We went and got a couple  of sim  cards, one for the phone and one for the ipad, then got the shuttle bus to our  accommodation. It is good although a front unit so gets road noise although not too bad.
Went for a walk to Sky City and went up the tower to see the great view and an overall pic of the city. Found an Italian place for dinner which was nice And strolled back to our accommodation ready for bed.

Day 2 we went back to Sky City to pick up the hop on hop off bus. Unfortunately clashed with the city marathon so couldn't get down to the wharf area and the Sun Princess has arrived early that morning. It looked quite large against the buildings.
Stopped and got off at the museum and did a very quick look as we wanted to catch the satellite  bus to do a different circuit.
 That took an hour then back onto the double decker  and by this stage we were able to get off at the wharf area. Walked around there, had some lunch and then walked around till was time for an early dinner.