Day 3 – Wednesday

We wake up and Auckland is turning it on. The weather is as close to perfect as you’re going to get, blue skies and early to mid 20’s. The forecast is for rain but we aint seeing it. I’m up around 8am but it’s not until 9:30 that the kids surface. We brekky up, get ready and hit the road. As we leave the hotel we ask the concierge for some advice on where to head. He tells us about Parnell or Parnell Rd which is about a half hours walk away past some of Auckland’s parks. To get there we need to go via Queen Street, Auckland’s main shopping street. We look through a few shops and keep going. We head up through Albert Park on the very edge of the city which is really nice and keep walking. We find ourselves walking down a bushy track before popping out at Parnell Rd. This road reminds us of walking through Vic Park but smaller. There’s lots of street shops and café’s. It’s approaching lunch so we stop in at “Mink Cafe”, a café on a corner. We grab a table outside and order. The food was alright but way over priced. I overheard the kiwi guy on the next table order the “simun silad” but when it comes out I hear him say to his friend “it’s a bit of a case of spot the simun” so I guess he’s feeling he’s not getting his money’s worth. We continue walking, but this time back toward the city along the waterfront. We stumble on a bunch of funky areas along the way, little squares and malls, some with bean bags on grassed area’s with a band playing. Auckland is quite a cool little city with little vibrant pockets scattered around. We get back to the apartment and rest a while before getting ready to head out in the late arvo. Before finding somewhere to eat we are going to check out the Sky Tower which we can see clearly from our apartment. It costs us $61 for a family pass to head up the tower, firstly to level 51 and then to level 60. It is a great view from up there, you can see a 360 degree view of the city and you can see for miles. After that, it’s back down to the Viaduct area for a drink at a bar called “The Crew Club” which is like an up market Lucky Shag. We move from there and straight back to Portofino (the place we had dinner yesterday) because we are creatures of habit and when you’re onto a good thing you stick to it. This is a very Italian restaurant, owned and waited by very Italian people so it feels very authentic. A bottle of Chianti and some spaghetti bog later we start the walk home. By now the weather has become cold and it’s raining so we head to Countdown (Woolworths) for some ice-creams and the Coffee Club for coffee and back to the apartment.