We landed in Auckland Airport dead on time from our trip over from Seoul. We were pretty much first off the plane, and first through security. I think we did from aeroplane to meeting Bart, our host in about 6 minutes.
We flew with Air Korea on their “Prestige” class, which is basically their term for business class. Wow! Was truly another world. After doing long haul cattle class to the US and South Africa, this was really a joy in comparison. Fantastic, attentive, service, great food and even better wine (our quote of the holiday so far is the Purser(is that the word for the head cabin crew guy?) as he poured us a glass of champagne “Krug Sir? The finest Champagne in the world… we’ve opened the bottle just for you.. so it’s all yours… enjoy!”).
We are staying for 3 nights at the Ascot Parnell – http://www.ascotparnell.com/ The website doesn’t really do the place justice, it’s beautiful, stylish and the views are stunning.
Today, being jet-lagged to buggery and not really knowing what planet we are on (hence writing this post at erm.. 3.45am local time) we just went for a wander in to the “village” of Parnell and grabbed lunch at Iguacu – http://www.iguacu.co.nz/ then took the touristy bus, that did a circular route around the city to try and vaguely orientate ourselves. Crashed out at about 4pm and slept through til about 3am’ish. I know I should of tried to stay awake till later, but I was fighting a losing battle with my eyes that were informing me that sleep was the only option!
I think the plan is that later err today (what day is it?!) we will wander down to the port and grab a ferry over the water to Devonport for more chilled out wandering around and lunching then another early night.. I am determined to try and stay up late today.. until at least 7pm!
In Auckland there seems to be a pretty decent public transport network, including a bus service called “The Link” which is big circular route, so we may use that to pop into the Auckland Museum and get a taster of the history, which as far as I can tell is the Europeans arriving, giving the Maori’s guns and letting them shoot each other, then joining in later to help with the slaughter… yay for Europeans! 😛
No photos today, doubt that either of us were looking overly photogenic, more like pale and pastey Brits looking like they’d been up for 72 hours or so.
Righty.. it’s gone 4am so that will do for now!
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