A couple weeks ago I had the unexpected opportunity to travel to New Zealand. While a majority of the trip was spent working in an office building, I was thankful to see a little bit of the country. I spent most of my time in Auckland but I did venture out a little and was really fortunate to be able to do a family session (which was amazing).

One of the most visible parts of their skyline is the Sky Tower. There’s a Casino at the bottom and it’s the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. You can go to the top (I have some photos of my trip to the top) and they have bungy jumping from it…crazy!

I stayed in an area called Parnell. The closest comparison I have is either Cary Street in RVA or South Tampa in Tampa. It’s cute with trendy/boutique shoppes, restaurants, etc. 

This image is from the car as we went up Mount Eden. There are over 60 volcanoes in Auckland…this being one of them. 

From the top of Mount Eden. You can’t see the top of the Sky Tower because of the clouds but it’s down there and if you look far out to the left side of the photo, you can see the Harbour Bridge. 

Volcano crater. They don’t allow you to go in this area. It’s crazy deep.

Eden Park from the top of Mount Eden. This is where there infamous All Blacks Rugby team plays. 

Fun pics as I was walking around. 

I took a super short trip down a hill from my hotel to get this shot. 

These next few are from the top of the Sky Tower. In the distance, you can see Rangitoto. This is another volcano —  it last erupted about 500 years ago….not that long ago in “volcano-years”

More from the top of the Sky Tower. You can see a few more of the Volcanos. It’s hard to point out “One Tree Hill” from the U2 song but it’s in the image on the right. Unfortunately, an activist cut down the one tree so there’s just a monument there now. 

From inside the Sky Tower…Rangitoto in the distance.

Harbour Bridge from the top of the Sky Tower. They say that it’s a hammerhead breeding ground underneath. Oh, and they offer bungy jumping of it too!

And here’s my very favorite part…Piha Beach. This is a gorgeous black sand beach on the West Coast (about 45 min from Auckland). I mean, come on….how amazing is this?!

The surf can get crazy here. Fortunately, we had a great day but there are typically a good number of surfers. 

Black sand. This comes from the iron in the water. But it sparkles and is really amazing!

Fun shells.  The rock on the left is called Lion Rock. I have more pics of it…we climbed it.  As we were climbing Lion Rock…

The image below is a view of Piha. The rock at the bottom is Lion Rock. The one we climbed.

This fern is the symbol of NZ. It’s on the All Blacks jersey and very well known. It looks like a normal fern but when you turn it over, it’s silver underneath. 

This is proof I was there. You’ll see more of these beautiful girls in another blog post but we had the BEST time together talking about differences in our vocabulary. Examples: jandles = flip flops, lift = elevator, take away = carry out

And these are iPhone pics but I took the ferry over Devonport (where Lourde is from) to grab fish & chips with some friends. Aside from the beauty of Piha, this really gave me a taste of feeling like a local Kiwi. 🙂 It was a little chilly but honestly, could have been worse considering it is winter there!

Although it was a quick trip, I’m grateful for the opportunity to have seen this part of the world. It’s so beautiful and I can’t say enough about the people I met there.