Kia Ora, welcome to New Zealand!

 

As we picked up the rental car, I had my first experience with driving on the left side of the road. It's weird, especially when approaching the roundabouts and have to give way.....you're expecting the traffic to come from the other side!! Not to mention putting on the windowwhipers when trying to give directional signs! :)

Just ten minutes from the airport we found our temporary place to stay, at family in Auckland. After having an early lunch (we had breakfast on the plane and arrived NZ at 7 in the morning) and did some freshing up we were ready to explore Auckland City.

We drove around town and decides to go for the All Blacks shop, to get ourselves a official shirt from what says to be the best rugby team in the world. After that we decided it was time for a look from a higher perspective, the Sky Tower.

This tower is 2 meters higher than the Eiffel tower, only thing is you can only go up for about 240m.  From there we had an excellent view over the widely spread-out city, the bay area and the ocean. After that we had a tour around Mission Bay, to look for some great scenery.
We were starting to feel tired, so we went 'home' to get a nice sleep before we had a BBQ (although it was freezing cold outside) We slept a little longer than expected, but we were just in time to grab some meat, play some pool, watch some rugby and have a great family evening!

Went to bed at about 1 o'clock, trying to get the right rhythm. At about 7 next morning we woke up, and decided to stay quiet for a few hours, as our host had the right for a sleep in on his b-day.

We were up and ready to go at about 10 to see North shore of Auckland, where there was an excellent lookout point at Davenport, and after that go to a great surfing place, Piha Beach and had lunch there. The view was amazing, and the drive to Piha was exciting (starting to get used to driving on the wrong side of the road!) After a walk on the beach, where they've got black! sand, we went to vist another cousin, in South-east Auckland. Had some catching up to do, so chatted, made some family pictures and had fish and chips for dinner.

Got back to our host in Auckland, got access to a computer to what some news, lottery results (Damn, still no millionaire!), do some mailing and ofcourse writing this blog and upload some pictures.

Hope you like my first real NZ travel blog on the go, tomorrow morning we're off to Coromandel and Tauranga/Bay of Plenty, and after that Palmerston North.

Get back to ya then. No worries!

Kia Ora,

Robert