On their first day in Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, Colin and Melissa didn't know what to expect. Melissa, in order to keep her Visa in check, needed to travel to some other country before returning to Australia again. This was an excellent excuse to visit her niece Shawna (aka DecemberChick on this very blog) who was currently staying in the land of the long white cloud (err, actually she was holidaying in Fiji, but we'll get to that!)
So after a four hour flight from (the soon to be blogged) Brisbane and a comfortable (though rather frigid) night, the two adventurers set off to explore Auckland, have breakfast and await the arrival of the third member of the group from the warm, sunny beaches of Fiji.
Strolling down Queen St in the cool climate, our hearts were warmed by the atmosphere of this place - with its interesting shops & cafes, friendly mix of people, plus in the distance, Auckland's version of Toronto's CN tower the 'Sky Tower' looming up ahead.
Soon we were sitting in the Sky Tower's revolving restaurant 'Orbit', having brunch and staring down at the harbour town below. We were reminded of a term we probably should have learned in geography class: 'Isthmus', because that was very much what we were looking at - Auckland was an Isthmus (a narrow strip of land which sits between two larger areas of land).
The food was great and very soon an 'extreme bungee jumper' thought she might give some base jumping a go (perhaps she didn't like the food or maybe couldn't pay). So, attached via harness to three retaining ropes, she 'fell' rather quickly down to a target below - fortunately she was unhurt and most probably loved the rush.
Incidentally, while we were having our brunch, we were sent a text message from our friends Ben and Kate, back in Toronto - who announced their engagement. Great news from home, and well done to Ben and Kate - Congratulations!!!
Our morning of exploring over, we packed up our things into the hire car and took off to meet Shawna at the same arrival gates that we had passed through just twelve hours before.
She looked great: very healthy and certainly well tanned as she joined the two of us with stories of what a wonderful place Fiji is - check out her blog for more details on that!
A rather tiring three hour trip to Tauranga, we committed the grievous crime of eating the Pizza from Hell, were beaten in cards by a lying, cheating sinner (at Cheat!) and spent the night in blissful purgatory.
Next up: Three's Company in Rotorua
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