Happy New Year!

I have a few posts queued up and for some reason they were not publishing. whoopsie daisy. anywhooo… a happy belated new year!

After a far more glamorous ride on our return trip from Waiheke to Auckland, I was very much surprised by the city. As we approached the harbor we saw massive container-lifting cranes, cargo ships, and freight; totally not the image I was expecting. The city was also much larger and more urban than I imagined. There is a ton of construction, mostly due to the metro expansion, so the city has a lot of barricades and blocked streets. The shops are crammed tightly together NYC style – vodaphone stores mixed in with high-end retailers like Chanel. It’s easy to forget that Auckland is a buzzing metropolis when the image of NZ involves mainly sheep and hobbits.

Having arrived early, we dropped our luggage at the hotel and walked to SkyTower, NZ’s tallest building (1,070 ft. tall). The kids loved watching the people jump from the top and drop past the windows. It takes 11 seconds to fall 192 m.

We walked down to the Harbor for an accidentally fancy lunch, followed by baked goods before the Aquarium. Ben filled you in on the aquarium details.

Although it was New Year’s Eve and we thought we could party with the rest of Auckland, we were very much mistaken. We ate dinner on the waterfront and were all asleep by 9:30. I woke up for a moment at midnight and caught a few fireworks.

            

  

          

                  

                     

We decided to kick off 2019 with an extra special day of culture and went to an amusement park outside of the city. Harry and I both had the idea to do this, which is incredibly strange considering we’ve never had the inclination to visit an amusement park in the past. The creepy characters at Rainbow’s End must have compelled us. After a nearly 5 hour excursion, we were spent and recuperated at the hotel before dinner in Viaduct Harbour. Coming up next up – campervan adventures! This should be a doozy.

Here’s Ben’s account of Rainbow’s End: We knew it would be cool when we saw the 200 ft. tall zero-g fall. While, Luke and Paula went on a ride that apparently showed you how to drive, I went on go-karts! Then we went to kidz kingdom where we went on roller coasters and those pedal rides where you pedal to go higher. After that, we did bumper boats and bumper cars. Finally, we paused for lunch. Soon after we went onto a ride, which was a mine-cart roller coaster. Then Paula, Luke and Dad went on a log flume, while Mom and I went to go-karts. The line was really long so by the time I got off the ride Paula and Luke had already won a rugby ball and a poop emoji pillow. Then we went on a 4-D movie ride which was basically a rip off of Hotel Transylvania. Then I won an emoji and traded it for Luke’s rugby ball. On our way out we stopped by an arcade and won a lot of candy. We took a train home (when we got home we found half the candy was gone). Created and edited by Ben.