NZ Day 2 – Auckland: Hills, thrills and shopping trips

Image by Ginger DJ via Flickr

After well deserved ten hour sleep I left Kerry to enjoy the room’s comforts whilst I went up the Sky Tower to enjoy the city views. Better views than the Portsmouth Spinnaker Tower but only worth 30 minutes ignoring the bungy jump for another day.

The Lonely Planet guide recommended ‘K’ Road for some unusual shopping so bought a day pass and headed over. It was a mix of sleezy sex shops, tattoo parlours with cool boutiques, a bit like San Francisco’s The Haight. Lunch was a sandwich in a palm tree lined park on the way back to the main town. The day pass tickets also allowed us to use the cities’ ferry service so explored the other side of the bay for Devonport. Not too much to see apart from cute antique shops and a hilled park for more city bay views.

Returned to the mainland and headed for Mount Eden on the other side of the city for more lofty views. Nearly didn’t make it before sunset after stumbling over some really cool clothes shops and offloaded some bucks for some decent threads. The bus journey whisked us past the main university which looked ultra-modern compared to UK places. Mount Eden is like a lot of hills and high places, based on an extinct volcano. At the base was a small park and grazing land for cows. At the very top we were rewarded with sunset views of the city. The evening was a mission to find a reasonable priced restaurant we both liked and walked miles ending up at the very first place we started yesterday, just yards away from the hotel. Again jetlag got the better of us and crashed at 10pm.