Bye bye Betsy, Hello Auckland

J took this lying flat on his back with us stood over haha... Kids were cringing with embarrassment!

So yesterday we bade farewell to our Betsy, (the campervan if you haven't read previous blogs!) it was quite emotional... Although, between a bugger up with the sat navs predicted time of arrival, and us getting blocked into a car park by a jeep parking in a space that didn't actually exist at the end of the row (thereby rendering the whole car park un-exitable to anything bigger than a mini!), our final journey was definitely an unforgettable race to get to Auckland as close to drop off time as possible. (For those that are interested, motorhomes, especially in hilly NZ roads, do not DO speedy.. She earnt her original name of Bouncy Betsy haha!...and we were 1hr 15 late oops!)

Xmas window at Auckland Department store :-)

We are now in Auckland city centre, and have spent out time here visiting the iconic Skytower, doing a bit of shopping, and watching films at the cinema...the latter is not very touristy but with the newest Hobbit film out this week, it only seemed right that the boys should watch it in its homeland. Everything here is beginning to get a little more Christmassy, but nothing like back home, much more relaxed, but it's still very odd seeing santa's grottos when we are in flipflops!

The Skytower is very tall... We got lifts to the main observation deck on floor 51 and had a nosey then decided to brave the upper one on floor 60 (220m up!) You can go higher up the pinnacle bit if you want to put on high heels and eat posh food...we didn't! The views are spectacular, though the edges of the walkways are hard to walk to, (unless you are a kid and you start climbing the glass walls) as are the inset glass panels in said walkways and the lift floors!

Sky tower

We have an amazing view the Skytower from our family room at the hotel. Tonight we watched the sun set over it and then the stem changed, from unlit to half green/half red, it really is quite cool, though does make it hard to get kids to sleep knowing it's just outside their window! It is much closer/bigger than it looks in the pictures....why does that always happen? :-)