Clear of the jet-lag and with stronger painkillers for Em we set out today, starting at the Sky Tower in Auckland which was a short walk from our hotel. We had another jolt of how friendly Kiwi's are when on only our 2nd visit to the coffee shop near our hotel, the chap serving us remembered us from the day before! Very cool!

The Sky Tower in an icon in Auckland, mainly because its the tallest tower in the Southern Hemisphere. It's 328m tall which is taller than the Eiffel Tower. There are 2 viewing decks at the top and lifts take 40 seconds to go all the way up so queue some ear popping on the ride up. Oh yeah, they forget to mention the floor is glass in the lift so Andy practically passed out before we'd even left the lobby! Wimp....

The view at the top was amazing! On a clear day you can see over 51 miles and get a full 360 degree view of Auckland and its surrounding island. Em was giving Andy a heart attack by leaning on the glass overhangs, but Andy did grow some balls at one point when we stood on the glass floor for some pictures, even though it took him 5 minutes to do it! Another cool part of the Sky Tower is a thing called Sky Jump which basically a controlled Base Jump from the tower. Its New Zealand's highest jump at 630ft / 192m from the observation deck all the way to the floor on a cable. Em was thinking about doing it but at $190 for 11 seconds it was a bit steep! Still, watching the other people hanging outside the window was a bit weird....

The rest of the day we just plodded round the city CBD sightseeing general stuff, also catching the free buses (we were surprised too) to save Em who was still suffering bless her.

Oh yeah, one thing we have noticed here is that as soon as the sun goes down it rains. You can set you watch by it so far which is freaky!

Again, the gluten free situation over here is amazing as at dinner we found another restaurant which had a gluten free menu, so that means every shop/cafe/restaturant we have been to so far has either GF food, or tells you what is GF on the menu. Impressive!

Sorry if the blogs go on a bit. As Em is feeling crap still and the weather is wet at night we are spending our evenings in the hotel so not much to do apart from the blog. I'm sure once she's better we'll make the most of it and be partying it up every night so the blogs will become short and sweet.

On that note, good night.