An Unexpected Journey - Part 1...

New Zealand was AMAZING!!!  It is by far one of the most beautiful countries I've ever had the opportunity of visiting.  Both Marius and I were blown away by all that it had to offer.  And we only visited the North Island - everyone we spoke to said the South Island is by far the prettier of the two halves of NZ.

We're finally starting to get back into the swing of things.  I've managed to catch up on work and Jake starts his first exams on Thursday, so there's been no easing back into it!  Although, with jet lag, your body forces you to stop and now know what it feels like to be so exhausted you can't see straight.

My goodbye with Jake was an emotional one, as expected.  I did it quickly, but still managed to cry my eyes out - 12 days is a long time to be away from a child!!  But he was fine and, once he was in a little routine, he was OK.  We chatted on Whats app plenty, which was amazing, but always seemed to make my eyes leak.  I missed him!!!  Coming home was amazing and Jake was thrilled to see me again, we hugged and hugged and I cried some more.  Poor Marius...

It's been weird getting home again and not seeing Marius every day.  We had such an amazing time together and it was also good for us to have time without the kids.  We did a lot of driving and saw so much.  Marius is a wonderful travel partner and we have the same ideas about things.  We spent so much time laughing over silly things and just generally enjoying each other's company.  We are both looking forward to planning our next trip together, although perhaps one with the boys first.

 The flights were long, with stops in Johannesburg and Sydney.  We flew SAA to Johannesburg and then Qantas the rest of the way.  What an amazing airline!!  The long flight from Jhb to Sydney was empty and I had 3 seats all to myself.  3 blankets, 3 pillows, 2 bottles of champagne, ice-cream and hot chocolate and I slept like a baby.  I can't even tell you what I had to eat on the flight, I think I just slept through the whole thing - it was fantastic. 

 

 Flying into Sydney...

 I landed at midnight, just going into the 20th of May.  I was tired, but excited to finally have reached my destination.  I bumped into Gimli from the Lord of the Rings at the airport...

 And Marius was there to fetch me - boy was I happy to see him...

That day, Marius had work to do and so I decided to do a hop-on-hop-off bus tour of Auckland.  I'm really glad that I did, it's such a gorgeous city and it was a great way to learn more about where I was.  That or sit in a hotel and wait for men... not me!!   so, this is where the bus collected me.  The building in the background is the old Ferry Building and the harbour is just the other side of that red fence...

Pretty metal work... nothing's chipped or peeling - it's like its' all just been freshly painted...

Heading out of the city - phew, it already seems so hard to believe that I was there.  Auckland is HUGE, but feels very much like Cape Town...

My bus route took me past our hotel...

I did make one mistake on the tour, I got off at the museum for the Maori cultural performance and only realised once I was inside that a) the tour cost about NZ$ 65 (R650!) and that it was b) a war museum, which was of almost zero excitement for me.  The museum itself is very pretty and so I spent my time taking photos outside.  There was also a cute gift shop, where I spent the rest of my hour till my bus came back to fetch me again...

I sent Jake a postcard here too.  It still hasn't arrived - at least I know now that postage is slow globally and not just here...

They've got this pillar up in memory of "The Glorious Dead"...

And I only realised after I'd trampled all over it taking photos, that it's actually on holy ground... whoopsie...

Roadside graffiti...

 Next on my route was Eden Park...it seems that most All Black supporters would rather lose to South Africa than Australia.  Funny how we'd also rather lose to them over the Aussie's too.  Wonder which the Australians prefer.  This statue is of Michael someone or other and I was riding in a bus, so sorry, but I cut the name of the grounds off a bit...

  A Maori carving guards the entrance to the grounds...

 Pretty houses in Eden.  Property is unbelievably expensive over there - they told us on the tour that you can't buy a house for under NZ$1,000,000.00 (R10,000,000.00) - that's a lot of zeros...

One stop I knew Marius wouldn't really want to do with me was visit the Auckland Zoo.  I think I mostly wanted to be able to take photos for Jake of animals that we don't get here.  I was most excited to see this Red Panda, which is completely unrelated to a Panda Bear, besides that they both eat bamboo.  He was hungry and his feeder was in his pen, so he was all smiles for the camera...

An Emu with a funky hair-do...

And a little Tasmanian Devil.  I thought these guys would be bigger and more vicious-looking, but he looks cute enough to cuddle...

I am really bad at remembering the names of things, like this bird, which I knew Jake would like...

So I have lots of photos of name boards to remind me.  The correct name for this Spotted Shag is Parkareka (with a rolling "r").  Maori is a difficult language...

The Little Blue Penguins are the smallest of all penguins - this little brown job was trying to chase them off the beach and the penguins were standing their ground...

A Tuatara...

Teeeheehee - totally unlike the baboons we get here, this one looks like he got a shock...

And on to Africa...  this part of a museum always makes me sad, especially since I know so well where these animals really belong. King Julian was there though, so that was exciting...

Just about the entire zoo is magnificent, but this cage for the zebras was awful!  I don't think the Kiwi's realise that we do actually have grass in Africa.  It might be brown grass, but it's better than hard sand...

Pretty flowers line the walk ways...

I could've taken a thousand pretty pictures - no idea what these are even called...

Maori totems...

Once everyone was finished working and playing, we met up again for more fun in the city...

This time for a trip up the Sky Tower, which stands at 328m - exactly 4m taller than the Eiffel Tower!  The pretty lights nearer the bottom are the exclusive Sky City restaurant...

Yep, that's a long way up.  51 floors up, to be exact.  I had a heart failure when a body fell down outside the window in front of me, only to be told that they were bungee jumping - phew...

Marius and I looking out over Auckland...

No, don't be ridiculous, I didn't walk on the glass floor... Only Marius was brave enough to do that...

Sunset over the city, with Auckland Bridge to your left...

I didn't have a tripod with me, but I'm quite chuffed with how these evening photos came out...

Pretty, hey??

We went off to pizza hut for supper and had the most divine chocolate caramel cheesecake for dessert.  Needless to say, it was a long day and I was exhausted, but running on an absolute high.  I was finally in Auckland!!

I'll share more photos as soon as I get a chance, hope you enjoyed part 1.

I have missed everyone, how are you all???

 Love Sue XXX