Landing into Auckland on June 14th, we were excited to be back in New Zealand - and for the first time entering through the Resident lane as we passed through immigration. River had failed to sleep more than two 30 min naps on the 8 1/2 hour flight so we were looking forward to getting to our hotel and getting him to sleep. We arrived to The Grand Hotel - part of Sky City, a complex which includes Auckland's famous Sky Tower without issue, and upon getting to our room the boys, especially River, enjoyed sitting on the window sill 18 floors up . . . clearly he has no fear of heights.
After a much needed night of sleep we set off on foot to explore Auckland. Because we would only be in the city for two nights we didn't rent a car, knowing there was plenty to see and do in the downtown and waterfront area where we were staying.
Our walk around the city took us through Albert Park, past the University of Auckland, and up into the the 185 acre Auckland Domain one of the main green spaces in the city, and home to the Auckland War Memorial Museum. The vast park included a statue of Robert Burns - always the sign of a classy place - and tons of cool trees, including one the boys spent quite a while climbing with a bunch of other kids.
We then headed down to a cool area of town called Britomart, which had come recommended by our friend John. The area has tons of great restaurants, shops, and is next to the Spark Arena where many shows and concerts happen in the city, in fact just three days earlier Hamilton had wrapped up two weeks of performances in the Arena. We met up with our friend Ann for lunch at Amano, which to no one's surprise had exceptional food - though it was a bit swanky for a two year old. From Amano we made our way along the waterfront - stopping for ice cream with Ann on our way back toward the hotel. That night we hit a burger joint in the hotel which used Robots to serve the food - the little robotic carts would drive around with food trays - stopping at your table with your order, the boys loved it!
The next day we went up the Sky tower (Reef & Sharyl had actually gone up the day before during River's nap as well), and we watched people doing the Skyjump, a leap from 630 feet in the air, and free fall in a controlled decent all the way to the street below. Reef was interested in doing it, so we asked what the minimum age was and, unfortunately he needs to be 10 years old before he can jump - though he would undoubtedly do it tomorrow if given the chance! Sharyl's relief was palpable.
Next stop was the Auckland airport to board our 45 min Air Chatham flight to Whakatāne! The 18-seater plane provided the rare opportunity for ever family member to have both a window and and aisle seat at the same time. River was the only family member who didn't need to bend down to walk down the aisle to take his seat. Despite cloudy and rainy conditions the flight was surprisingly smooth all the way into Whakatāne.
The Whakatāne airport is a thing of beauty - the "baggage claim" is simply a gate in the fence onto the tarmac where the baggage cart pulls out into the parking lot for people to collect their belongings. We had a bit of a challenge getting our rental car, as there was no one at the single rental car desk and the baggage handler said the keys might be in the lock box for us - just try our birth year as the combo. Turned out that didn't work so we managed to get Hertz to contact their local agent to come down to the airport - she had apparently been their when the flight arrived, but after waiting for what clearly couldn't have been more than 1 minute, she decided we hadn't been one of the 18 people on the flight and she drove home. As we waited I measured the terminal by walking it's length in the parking area - 25 strides (or roughly 75 feet) to get from one end to the other. One of the airport workers was headed home for 30 min, but offered to make us tea when he got back if we were still there. Thankfully the agent had soon returned and we were driving down the road into Whakatāne.
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