A weekend in Auckland

This last week Wendy has been working in Auckland so at the weekend I decided to fly up and we could do some sight seeing.
Wendy is staying in a serviced appartment in Newmarket so we got ourselves a hire car and headed off to Devonport which is over the harbour bridge to the north of the city centre.

The hire car was very nice and I was enjoying driving a manual again after such a long time!
This was the view from Devonport looking back towards the city centre.


We then headed up to North Head to check out the view. The big gun was part of the old gun battery that was stationed on the head.


It is now a DOC site so we went in to have a look around.

Wendy was released later for good behaviour

We went through the tunnels and came out on the other side to see these sailing boats, it was a perfect day for it.

The view from the top

We then headed a little way up the coast to stop for lunch, as it was such a nice day we headed for a beach and had a paddle.

I don't normally do paddling in rock pools but the water was so warm it was like stepping into a bath!!
After having something to eat we went for a drive to see what we could find. After getting right out in the wops we realised we were heading over to the west coast so decided to stop at a cafe. We went down a little road and arrived here.

After settling in for a tea and a muffin we just relaxed and soaked up the view.

This poor guy wasn't having the same relaxing time we were. It was well and truly stuck.

Then we went to Bethells beach, and it was deserted.

On the way back to Auckland we had a great view of the city laid out before us

But before we went back we went to Piha, just beacuse....

So that was Saturday. In the evening we went to Albert Park for the Chinese New Year celebrations. They had organised a lantern festival but more on that later.

Sunday was the last official day of summer and with tsunami warnings being broadcast on the radio and TV following the big earthquake in Chile we decided to head for higher ground.

Auckland's Sky Tower is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere, Wendy wasn't keen but agreed to give it a go.

After we had paid for our tickets to go up the tower we hopped into one of the express lifts, thats when I noticed Wendy was stood on a glass panel floor!!! This was going to be an interesting visit.

The view from the top was great, and we could see nearly all the places we had visited the previous day.

The harbour bridge

The NZ navy, both boats!!

Here the cruise ship that was tied up, went out to sea incase the tsunami was a big one. Thankfully there was no big wave and it returned to port shortly after this photo was taken.

Wendy was much happier being near the centre of the tower and sitting down having a cuppa

One thing that you will not have Wendy doing is the sky tower jump. Here you can see the wires that 'guide' jumpers down

Here was one of the many people queueing to jump off. My back probably wouldn't be up to the forces involved so I decided to give it a miss. Maybe next time I visit Auckland.............?

On the way back to our accommodation we saw this mini bus. It was the shuttle bus for the aquarium, check out the number plate.

(If you can't read it... it says "SHARK2")

And that was the end of my time in Auckland as I had to get the plane back to Wellington.