We made the easy flight from Brisbane to Auckland, New Zealand on July 4. We were all excited to arrive New Zealand, and in fact, Keali announced that it was the one place she was most excited about visiting: a “dream country” as she called it.
It was cold and rainy from the very beginning. We were fortunate to have landed in a fabulous Airbnb located on Ponsonby street. We could get anything within a block or two away. That proved pretty convenient the first few days since I was suffering still with a pretty nasty skin infection on my foot. The apartment was the top floor of a two story Victorian house. Essentially new throughout the inside, it was a comfortable place to stay. Additionally, the views from our living room were amazing day and night.
We managed to make it down to the harbor a few times, wonder around Queen Street, and check out the Sky Tower.
The view from the SkyTower
The maritime museum was also downtown which was an interesting place. The kids learned how to sew, we saw a brilliant exhibit on plankton, and we were able to fully understand how absolutely huge the boats that sail in the America Cup actually are.
The SkyTower gave amazing views. We were glad we did it, but it didn’t even compare to taking the ferry out to Waiheke Island.
Had I written this blog post before we did the camper van tour of the North Island, I would have said it was the most beautiful place on earth. Just getting off the ferry and walking down to the beach was phenomenal.
And even that didn’t compare however to the winery we went to next.
We stopped at a winery while we were there which the kids loved. Between the other children there, the acres of free space to run, the views, and the horses, we almost had to drag them out of the winery.
Another must-do stop we made while in Auckland was the Auckland Museum.
Here, we learned so much about the Maori people. It was hands down the best presented and most interesting indigenous people museum I had ever been to. While there, we were also able to meet some members of the existing Maori’s and observe some of their traditions and dances. It properly set us up for the next leg of our New Zealand journey since we were truly able to appreciate and understand so much what we saw.
Auckland was amazing. We were surprised to learn that there are only about 4 million people in all of New Zealand, and one million live in Auckland. I suppose being an island resulted in the expense of literally everything there being extremely high. As much as we would love to live there permanently, it’s just so outside what we could afford, while still maintaining a single income family that homeschooled and traveled. Outside of the expense, it has it all. It’s beautiful, clean, safe, loaded with arts and culture, and is located in a country with very little corruption in the politics. I guess you get what you pay for. It was nice to see a place that appeared to have little income inequality. (Maybe it is worth the steep price tag.)
After about a week loving Auckland, we went and picked up our camper van for the next journey.
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