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January 2025 (Part 02)

New Zealand Trip - Day One: Aukland and Waiheke

We took an absolutely amazing trip to New Zealand over three weeks in January.  The trip allowed us to both see Uncle Dave and celebrate Andy's graduation from the Orthotics and Prosthetics Program at Northwestern University.  Yes, it was a painfully long flight, going through San Francisco, with the a six-hour first leg from DC to San Francisco and a fourteen hour plus flight from there to Aukland.  We left Dulles at 6 PM on Friday and arrived in Aukland at 9 AM on Sunday, where the time is 18-hours ahead.  We actually flew out on Andy's birthday.  In the middle of the flight to Aukland, the flight attendant came by and gave us ice cream sundaes to celebrate.  This was so sweet, and really delighted Andy.

We had arranged to join Adventures by Disney (ABD) for a 12-day trip through the North and South Islands, starting in Aukland and ending at Queenstown.  Uncle Dave would then fly to Queenstown to join us for a couple days, then we would all slowly make our way across the south island to his home in Christchurch before heading home a whopping 21-days later.

As we were traveling with ABD, they arranged transportation from the airport to our hotel.  We soon found our driver and were dropped off at the Park Hyatt Aukland right in the harbor.  While we couldn't get into our room yet, we were able to change in locker rooms off the spa and gym, allowing us to get shorts on and head out to explore.  Loved this Maori shield carving in the entryway.  Also had to capture this picture of pavlova meringue in the store, where we stopped to get some granola bars and other snacks for the week.

We walked to a nearby ferry and headed out toward Waiheke, an island just outside Aukland Harbor.  Once on the island, we rented ebikes and took off to explore.  We soon discovered the difference in the UV index, as we all got varying degrees of sunburn.  Nancy had used the sunscreen we brought, while Steve and Andy took advantage of a pump bottle at the bike rental counter.  This made a difference, as Nancy got a lot more burned than the boys, who unknowingly used a higher SPF sunscreen.  It turned out that the ozone hole over the southern hemisphere and the fact that the Earth is closer to the sun near the winter solstice meant the UV index was much higher, 10-12 while we were there, compared to 8-10 in the summer back in DC.

Based on advice from the bike rental, we headed around a pre-mapped path roughly clockwise around the island.  After some fun with Google Maps dropping out of the route partway through and phone batteries dying an inopportune times, we wound up biking a bit over 15 miles (we started the tracking app a bit late, so it only shows 13.77 miles).  Really glad for the ebikes, as the island was really hilly.  The electric boost saved us on several of the uphill sections.

There were some stunning beaches and rocky overlooks along the north shore.

We roughly headed toward Alibi Brewing Company, stopping there for lunch.  From there we headed back to the north shore to spend some time at Onetangi Beach.  We found a nice public bathhouse to change, allowing us all to go swimming for a short time.  The water was pretty cold, but felt really nice.

We also stopped to admire Palm Beach as we made our way back to the west end of the island to catch the ferry.  Andy captured dad taking the other pictures.

We wound up toward the south side of the island as we made our way back, and took an impromptu detour to Surfdale Beach along the Esplanade, where Andy soon discovered a rope swing he had to enjoy.

Some interesting foliage along the shore near the ferry terminal as we waited for it to arrive.

Pretty tired when we made it back to the hotel.  A quick dinner and time to enjoy the view from our room before a well earned sleep.