Buses, Beaches, and Bidding Farewell

We all slept in, and the hotel had some of the best blackout curtains of our entire trip.  With the sun rising so early, they were a necessity everywhere we went.  We had a late check-out from the hotel, and went down for breakfast at 10:30, not too long before they stopped serving.  Everyone else had the same idea, and you could tell who had enjoyed the night before more than others, if you know what I mean.

After doing our next-to-final suitcase pack, we checked out and loaded everything into the car, which was in a covered garage next to the hotel.  We then Uber'd back to the wharf area and picked-up a hop-on/hop-off tour.  We had not yet really seen the sites of Auckland, and figured this would be a good overview.  The bus ran two routes, one of the central city and another out to the zoo and botanical gardens.  It was a good tour and the buses were not full.  The sun kept trying to burn though, but clouds prevailed for most of the day.

On the Hop-On/Hop-Off Bus

The New Zealand War Memorial Museum

The All Blacks' Rugby Stadium

At the conclusion, we debated grabbing lunch downtown or driving to one of the beaches on the western side of the island.  We mutually agreed on beaches, and Uber'd back to our car.  Auckland sits on an isthmus of land on the north island, sitting on the eastern coast.  Driving westward, one hits a series of beaches on the west coast, famous for surfing and black-sand beaches.  I had wrongly assumed it would be a straight-forward drive to the beach area, probably along highway, given that we had read how many people from Auckland "pop" to the beach whenever they can.  Instead, we had about an hour-long drive along a very narrow and winding road, which snaked up from Auckland, crossed the continental divide, and then switchbacked down to the ocean on the other side.  The road was more more narrow than we'd seen before, and it was a little hairy at times.  I had envisioned a little seaside town, with a central area, restaurants, surf shops, etc.  Instead, we drove down into a small town, almost entirely residential, with multi-million dollar glass-ensconced hillside villas next to mid-century cottage homes.  As at Milford Sound, the road dead-ended in the small beach parking lot, which was overflowing with cars.  Unlike Milford Sound, though, these all appeared to be local families, who had come down to the beach for picnics.  We were unsuccessful in finding a spot, but the scenery of the drive had been the true draw all along.  Lunch, however, eluded us.

Driving Toward the Beaches

The Western Coast

As our flight did not leave until 8:20 pm, and knowing that we had a 30+ hour trip ahead, I had booked us a room at a hotel adjacent to the Auckland Airport.  I thought we would like the opportunity to rest and shower before beginning the long flights back.  We drove to the hotel, checked-in, and unloaded.  There were airport luggage carts in the lobby.  We grabbed two, loaded up all our stuff, and ultimately used the same carts to walk to the airport several hours later.  I then drove the car back for return, and took a shuttle back to the hotel.  We all showered, finalized packing, and just relaxed until around 6:00 pm, when we made the two-minute walk over to the airport terminal. We watched the local evening news, too, and saw a story from Queenstown, where smoked from the Australian bush fires had turned the sky orange and was blocking out most of the sun.

The Auckland Airport

Check-in was easy and without incident, and we had about 45 minutes to kill in the Air New Zealand lounge before boarding.  We all ate something in the lounge, but knew we'd be fed multiple times on each upcoming flight.

Our Plane for the Return to Beijing

Killing Time in the Lounge

We had the exact same seats as on our inbound flight, though this time I sat next to Anna, and K took the seat across the aisle.  We actually left the gate early, and all of us voiced how much we did not want to leave, as the plane started down the runway.