5:30 am, we landed in Auckland, the "city of sails" and the population center of New Zealand. It's also the largest Polynesian city and posesses the tallest building on the southern hemisphere, the Sky Tower.

After resting a bit, we headed for the tower and made our ascent. They fastened us to harnesses, dangled us over the city at 1000 feet, and "dropped" us at 60 mph. They even let us go again for free!

Auckland is a beautiful city with parks everywhere. They have free hybrid busses, and the streets are clean. We checked out a few of the parks, the Ferns Fernery, and Botanical Gardens.

One of the parks had a Chinese cultural festival with stilt dancers, very cool. Our hotel room was on the 11th floor with panoramic city views, helpful for orienting ourselves.

We took a 4wd tour of Rangitoto Island, which erupted from the sea 800 years ago. We got to walk around on the lava fields and hike some trails through the new forests there.

We spent three nights in the city, before packing up and heading up North to the bay of islands and the next leg of our adventure. We would spend a total of 22 days in the country, and see much of the North and South islands. Next page...