Exploring Auckland – Day 1
New Zealand has always been near the top on our list of travel destinations. We always assumed we would do New Zealand and Australia in one big trip, but had resigned ourselves to waiting until we could somehow manage to take 2 or 3 months away from Edmonton and the business.
Luckily we found some amazingly cheap ($950 per person round trip) and convenient flights from Edmonton to Auckland with Air New Zealand during a time when we had a break between weddings and could take 2.5 weeks off!
We only had one stop in Vancouver, and even though we had a 2 hour flight delay in Edmonton due to weather, we still had a 2 hour break in Vancouver to get ourselves ready for the 14 hour overnight flight.
We landed in Auckland Saturday morning around 5:30am. After picking up our rental car from Aerodrive Car Rentals we checked into our AirBnB around 7, napped for 2 hours and then headed downtown to explore.
It was pouring rain, so there wasn’t a lot of outdoor stuff we felt like doing, but we still managed to spend most of the day out and about. After stopping at Brick By Brick – a coffee & breakfast cafe close to our AirBnB, we made our way downtown to visit the Auckland Art Gallery. We paid $20 admission and wandered around inside for around 2 hours. No bags are permitted inside, but they have a free coat/umbrella/bag check at the entrance. It is a very nice, modern, large art gallery with exhibits ranging from traditional Maori culture to modern art to Renaissance paintings.
After the Art Gallery visit we walked around the core a little bit until we found the The Occidental Belgian Beer Cafe.
We had lunch and a few drinks before walking around Albert Park and then driving across the bridge to Devonport.
We visited a chocolate shop and walked along their pier and ocean walk.
We made our way back to the AirBnb by 6pm, had a light snack, watched a movie and were asleep by 10pm.
You can see the rest of our trip here:
