Clan Haley

Auckland

With 3 short days left on our trip we tried to make the most of what we had left. We arranged to meet Angela and Daniel for a walk around downtown Auckland as we hadn't made it there at the start of the trip. We started by walking around the docks. I spent a fairly significant amount of time ogling the rather lovely boats in the harbour. After a short play in another amazing play park (with water mister to keep us cool) we made our way through the shopping area towards Auckland University. We met Jamie for lunch and he gave us a tour of his physics lab. It was really cool with lots of interesting experiments setup for the students. Next we hopped on a bus to ride over to the Museum. James was looking forward to seeing the dinosaur bones, but I enjoyed the stuff about moas and other birds of New Zealand. After a bit of ice cream we said goodbye to Angela and Daniel before going to catch a bus back to our accomodation.

The next day we headed out of Auckland towards the Waitakere Ranges. We stopped at the Arataki visitor centre which was really cool. From there we went on a nice walk through the bush that took us from new growth gradually to the Kauri Catherdral where you end up surrounded by trees more than 500 years old. The change in undergrowth was very noticable and pretty interesting to see. After that we went back to the park we visited on the first day in Auckland (Waterview park). James enjoyed a bit of downtime and joined some local kids playing in the splash pad. His confidence around water (and in particular getting splashed) has come on leaps and bounds this holiday. Fingers crossed it continues.

Our last day in Auckland started quite slowly. There was lots of sorting to do before our flight this evening. After we were done we went for a short walk up One Tree Hill. From the top we could see the hospital I was born in. From there we drove past the house my parents lived in when they had me. I obviously don't remember living there, but it was kinda cool to see. We met Angela and Daniel in the lovely Mission bay for lunch before heading to Kelly Tarlton's Aquarium. James loved seeing the pengiums and they had some very cool jelly fish. The most impressive thing for me was the enormous crayfish they had. We had a brief play in the park next door before saying our final goodbyes to Angela and Daniel. Its been so lovely seeing them and they have made the trip super special. We made our way towards the airport with a brief stop at Ambury Park. I managed to snap a few more birds before we headed to the airport. Once the car was dropped we checked in and are now waiting for our plane.

I can't say I'm looking forward to 26 hours to get home, but I'm sure it will be over before we know it.