After a very smooth flight across the Tasman, I was itching to get back into Auckland, driving into the city, I could see the ominous Sky Tower, another opportunity to walk around the top of the building at 300 meters, you have the chance to jump off it, if you so desire.

After staying in some lovely, “quaint” budget hotels in Australia, we were ready to live it up a little in New Zealand. A little honeymoon treat..

We checked into the Langham and were advised that they would be taking part in the Earth hour at 8:30 pm and that there would be a champagne toast in the lobby, what they did not say the the hotel would be illuminated with 1800 candles, this was an amazing experience. It all began a few years ago, when Sydney started earth hour, last year the Langham was the first hotel in Auckland to take part, so they take it very serious.

Before the Earth Hour we had a quick run around the city, a little bit of shopping, and a walk down the trendy, cafe culture Ponsonby Road. Auckland City itself, does not have a huge amount to offer, (with the exception being the viaduct area) most of the nightlife, and shopping areas are located in the suburbs of Ponsonby road and Parnell. You could spend hours in these areas and the public “link” bus does a circle of all the top areas of Auckland. Having lived here for over a year, I was very interested in visiting the places I had worked and bars that I may have frequented over my time here. Pog Mahones, is no more, and turned into a absolutely fantastic restaurant and bar called Prohibition, a classic old style speakeasy, staff wore the classic uniforms and a very talented lady singing “Georgia” backed by a bass and cello. While it was very odd to be in the building I spent so much time in, looking completely different, I was very excited about the transformation, and I highly recommend it to any future visitors.

The rest of the street also went through a little transformation, I was sad to see that the infamous Ponsonby Pies was no more, no doubt they out grew their space, the pie in an Australian and New Zealand institution, and surprisingly good at any time of the day.

The restaurant and wine scene is really after exploding in this region and its beautiful to see, the place was buzzing. It is such a personal thing to find a nice place with the atmosphere that matches what you are looking for.

Another early start awaited us on Sunday morning, this time we were picked up at 0645 and were heading north to the Bay of Islands, normally I would recommend doing this over two days, and perhaps continue on up to Cape Regina, Cape Breton and the down 90 mile beach, this area is said to be “winterless”. Being so far north, it avoids the chilly winter that they experience down south. The forecast is excellent (so far we have been very lucky with the weather)  there is so much to do in this region and but we opted for the Dolphin swim experience, this is unlike most dolphin swims, because first you have to find them, these are all wild dolphins and conditions have to be absolutely perfect. It took almost 4 hours to arrive at our destination, but you really don’t notice as you look out over the breathtaking landscape, rolling hills, sheep and a variety of cows. Our driver seemed to have a great passion for any farm related topics; ranging from the difference in milk quality from the main three breeds and the modern, automated methods of extracting milk from them, fascinating, I hear you say!!

The boat we went out on normally holds forty passengers, we were lucky to only have twelve on board and the adventure began, your captain brought us in through many coves and then out to open waters, scanning the ocean for any activity, we were laying on the front enjoying the sun and crossing our fingers that we would get to experience what we had set out to do, a couple of hours into it, a sighting!! the gannets were giving away the location of a  pod of Dolphins, soon we were up close and personal. There are many rules about what you can and can’t do, only three ships at a time and up to a max of thirty minutes per vessel. The swim was looking unlikely from this point as they were playing rather aggressively, this could be due to the fact that they may be protecting a calf. Either way, they were moving too fast to swim with. Unfortunate, but to watch them play and jump, sometimes completely out of the water, right in front of the boat it was truly beautiful to watch.

After that, we took a look around the islands and disembarked at one, for a look around. I wish that we had more time to explore this place and do a little more island hopping. But we are shuttled back to the mainland for our shuttle back to Auckland.