Final days in New Zealand

Left Napier early morning for our 5+hr drive back to Auckland. The route takes us on many of the same roads we have traveled during our time in Napier so we probably won’t be doing a lot of photos along the way. Still, Collette is at the ready if we spot an alien spacecraft.

Me and Monsieur Gerard

To us Auckland is like most big cities, lots of people, crowded, lines for everything and major construction woes. Auckland, however, has magnified this by digging up the entire downtown area to install a subway system. Add that to the massive building boom that is going on and you have a real challenge in driving.

Our hotel is located just off city centre but unfortunately right in the middle of road and building construction. We’re not too worried about noise but quite worried about getting there! Carmin the Garmin has trouble finding her way out of the driveway let alone in a city with total chaos.

We managed to find the hotel, Barclay Suites, after only 4 times around the block. Another 4 times around to find a parking garage and then off walking to find the front door. Not too bad, only about an hour of our time and we’re checked in.

OK, now I need to bash those TripAdvisor folks. We booked this hotel based on the pictures and reviews from TripAdvisor. Something must have happened because the hotel we checked in to was a little different than the “amazing” hotel they wrote about. For instance, ours didn’t have central air conditioning, just a portable air conditioner in the sitting room, nothing in the bedroom. Ours also had a few tears in the carpet and a couple of stains that looked like they had been there for a while. TripAdvisor gave this hotel a 4.5 rating, sorry but it’s more closely a 3.0 if anything. Not a big deal, just reality versus TripAdvisor.

Road construction in front of hotel

The entrance to Barclay Suites hotel

Note the portable, white air conditioners

Settled in and started off on our walkabout. Dinner was getting close so we needed to find a restaurant as well as see some of the sights. Fortunately our hotel was just about 3 blocks from the Sky Tower, Auckland’s most notable attraction, so that was first on the list.

The Sky Tower is very similar to Seattle’s Space Needle in that it is a dominating structure in town that has a restaurant and observation deck. The Sky Tower has a bit over on the Space Needle, it’s 722’ tall where the Space Needle is 605’. The Space Needle was built in 1962 for the World’s Fair, the Sky Tower in 1994 to house Harrah’s Casino. And one other interesting thing about Sky Tower, you can jump off it! SkyJump and SkyWalk are the two, pardon my opinion here, crazy-ass things you can do in Auckland that Seattle tries to stop. SkyWalk is just strolling along a glass floor looking down at the cement 630’ below. Whereas SkyJump is “controlled” base jumping at the same altitude. Apparently you strap into a harness, snap it onto a wire, and jump off. Simple, and quite stupid! Collette and I decided that the $30/per to ride the elevator was too extreme so we moseyed off to find another place to eat.

The Sky Tower

After a short walk, we arrived at the marina where there certainly was no shortage of restaurants. There was a shortage of reasonably priced restaurants so the search continued for about an hour. We ended up at Danny Doolan’s Gastrobar which was both reasonable and tasty.  

Ferry Building

The Wharf Area

The Wharf Area

Well, days about over so we needed to head back to the hotel to repack for one last time. Been a great trip here in New Zealand, definitely recommended. Now to start our trip back home.