Last days in Auckland

We really wanted to be good and tired for our flights home so we decided to walk ALL over town. That's just what we did!

They kill rabbits here! The nerve!

We took an Uber out to the suburbs to a local park and then walked back into the city. We stopped in at places we'd read about and just kind of took in how real people of Auckland live. It was a good day! We covered over 10 miles.

Cows. In a city park. Interesting.

One Tree Hill

Views of the city from One Tree Hill

More views

Petefish.

Hiking amongst the sheep

They don't mind people at all

We climbed up to One Tree Hill and looked over to Mt. Eden which was the next stop on our list. We strolled through Cornwall Park (just a popular, large city park), took in a cricket match for a couple of minutes before I nearly died of boredom, and just kept walking towards the city again.

Cricket aka the worst "sport" ever

It was a warm day and parts of the walk felt like a death march. We climbed over 200 stairs to reach the top of Mt. Eden.

Another climb

"Let's go!!!" 

Luckily, the climb was worth it. This was one of the more awesome places I'd ever hiked to.

Looking back to One Tree Hill from Mt. Eden

A dormant volcano 

Views

An accurate photo of how we felt about hiking that day:
exhausted and jazzed, respectively

How cool is this look into a volcano's pit?!

It would be a great place to sled! 

We loved the skyline

Pointing out the tower...where our hotel was! UGH!

One final view before heading back to the city

We eventually had to call it a wash on walking back to the city as we were a little lost and grabbed a train. Whoops. Life is so much harder when your phone doesn't work to bail you out of situations like that! We saw plenty of the city, though, and were pleased to have a seat on the train for a few minutes! We spent most of the evening packing and just getting things ready for the long journey home.

On our final day we had to do some shopping to get MacKenzie's new sheepskin bed (successfully found one on sale!) and to get Tim Tams (a down under delicacy) for all of our friends to try. We got to the airport with plenty of time and spent through the last of our Auckland currency on a final frozen coke for Jackson (all the rage down here, much to Jackson's delight). While our flight to San Francisco was a mere 12 hours (cakewalk compared to 15 hours 40 minutes from Vancouver to Sydney) it was still a long haul. We just couldn't sleep on this flight due to the mid-afternoon departure time so we watched movies (Snowden was EXCELLENT, as was Equity) and just kind of hung out.

I'm the Oprah of Tim Tams! 

We finally made it San Francisco and took about an hour clearing immigration and customs. That was no problem since we had a 6+ hour layover. LAME! We got our first American food at an airport diner that I'm convinced tasted far better to us that it normally would have. We still had a couple of United Club passes so we checked in there to wait out our flight. I eventually took a nap in the lounge, but poor Jackson just couldn't sleep. I don't even remember the flight from San Francisco to Indy as I just slept right through it! We got to Indy, got our rental car and made it home by 10 p.m. on Sunday night. By that time we'd lived Sunday, January 15th for about 46 hours so it was very strange. Due to the International Dateline we just kept reliving Sunday! We were in Fishers so much earlier than we expected that we even stopped in at Kroger for food before going home. It was so nice to be back at our own grocery store! Everything was familiar and fairly priced! Hooray! After we made some quick food at home (which again tasted amazing) and unpacked our bags, the loads of laundry began and did not end for quite some time. I ended up sleeping for a solid 11 hours that night. Jackson actually worked on MLK Day and I just did some cleaning up of my inbox and housework. It was a nice surprise to have an extra day at home to catch up on things.

We had the trip of a lifetime and I feel so fortunate to have all of these rich experiences to look back on. We are truly blessed!