Alan New Zealand Trip

I visited New Zealand recently for work, and took the opportunity to visit Auckland and the surrounding areas.

I booked a personal tour with Paul from Toru Tours.  We visited quite a few locations,  Mt Eden is the highest natural point around and is an old volcanic crater..

There are a lot of these craters dotted around the landscape.

From here  you can see the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere Sky Tower which is just over a thousand feet high and featues a revolving restaurant..

From the skydeck I saw a big building and didnt know what it was, turns out that it is the Auckland Museum.

Also took the chance to see one tree hill, which no longer has one tree, but does have a song written about it by U2...

Along the way to Piha we also took in a rainforest and the best cafe (it used to be a library built by Carnegie) in OneHunga !! 

There are 50 volcanos in the surrounding area, and I also visited the newest one Rangitoto, this allows for great views of downtown Auckland as well as a lot of lava fields.  The volcano is dormant now and basically uninhabited...

Downtown Auckland !!  (only kidding, downtown Auckland is a lot more busy than this...)

Lastly took the opportunity to do a couple of geocaches close to the hotel and eat NZ lamb !!