New Year's Eve in Auckland (New Zealand Part 14)

We wanted to celebrate New Year's Eve in a bigger city, so we spent an extra night in Auckland on our way from the far north to the south.

At the campsite, we wanted to do our laundry, but then unfortunately found out that only cold water was available on this one and the previous one. We doubted that anything would get clean, but at least the laundry got wet and perfumed with detergent...

Then we drove to the city center. Since the sky was quite cloudy and the bus driver ignored the stop signal at our stop, we got off in the city center and spontaneously decided to go to the cinema. So we spent the afternoon watching "Aquaman".

Afterwards, the sun appeared in the sky and we made our way to the Skytower, where we had booked a table for dinner.

We were able to go up beforehand and enjoy the view of the city. There were also glass floors where you could look directly down into the depths.

We had dinner while enjoying the view of the evening Auckland.

The restaurant slowly rotated, so you could see the whole city from your seat.

However, the storage on the side did not rotate with it. After a few minutes, we noticed that the bag with our car keys inside had disappeared. Unfortunately, we didn't find it again when we walked through the restaurant.

The waitress said that we would have to go back past it in about an hour...

Only a while later, a guest a few tables away stood up with our bag, so we didn't have to look for a new place to stay for the evening after all...

Afterwards, we went to the harbor to watch the fireworks that are fired from the Skytower. It only lasted about five minutes.

Now the city center was a complete traffic chaos, as everyone wanted to drive home in their car.

After waiting in vain for a good half hour for the bus to arrive at the scheduled departure time, we took a taxi when it still wasn't in sight.

Unfortunately, the taxi initially only drove at walking pace, while the meter kept running... After an hour, 9 kilometers, and $100 less, we finally arrived.