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| Approaching Auckland |
Today was a traveling day. We woke up early in Sydney, took a shuttle bus to the airport and then took a 3 hour flight on Air New Zealand to Auckland. The flight went quick, we had a good choice of free movies at our seats, and before we knew it we were getting ready to land. (The also provided us with some pretty good food.)
Anyway, New Zealand looked beautiful on approach and sure enough that proved to be accurate. But before finding that out, we had to get our rental car and negotiate a bit of freeway traffic, getting from the south part of Auckland (which looked beautiful and clean by the way) to reach the Northland Highway. Our goal was Paihia, a small resort town on the Bay of Islands. (More about Paihia later.)
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| Downtown Auckland from the Road |
Shortly after passing downtown we pulled over for some coffee then hit the road for another 3 hours to reach our destination. It was our goal to get there before dark, so we pressed on. And the views, during the entire 3 hours, were fantastic. The countryside was so beautiful – green, rolling hills, rocky outcrops, tropical vegetation mixed in with non-tropical plants… and occasionally a beautiful turquoise bay in the distance. Around every turn we just kept getting blown away. Although it was a longish drive on a fairly curvy road, it was a fun and enjoyable ride.
We finally reached the Aloha Sea View apartments – our home for the next 4 nights – just as nighttime fell. We checked in, and found out that they upgraded us to a 2 bedroom unit. We’d have to wait until the morning to see our view, but I can tell you now (spoiler alert) it is awesome!
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| Now is New Zealand Beautiful or What! |
We then went into town to buy a few groceries and some spirits to hold us over for the next few days. Finally got back to our place for the evening, and enjoyed a couple glasses of Port – a tasty and relaxing nightcap to a long but beautiful day!
