The next morning we woke up about 10am and it was so nice to have a lie-in! We had a good breakfast (a good cuppa and jam and banana on toast - my new fav!) and then got out into Auckland - it was chilly! I was in jeans and a t shirt with a jacket - this was on and off every 2 minutes as it is warm in the sun but cold in the shade.

Our first port of call was the Skytower and we got a backpacker's cheap rate to go up to the Observation deck. We decided this was going to be the best (and laziest) way to see the city so we whizzed up in the lift which had a partial glass floor - it was cool but a bit scary to see the cables getting us up to our level! The doors opened and the view was immense, really amazing. It was a 360 degree observation deck and we could see the whole city, which covers more land than London (can you believe that?!). The skytower claims to be the highest tower in the Southern Hemisphere (but the ones in Sydney and Melbourne also claim this so we aren't sure!) but it is as tall as 37 double decker buses end to end! We took loads of photos, I chanced the walk across the 38mm thick glass panels - it was a long way down to the street below!

We treated ourselves to a drink up the tallest building in the Southern hemisphere, then decided to get going down the tower. We shopped pretty much the rest of the afternoon! It was a bit of retail therapy! We went that evening to the Ice Bar, called Minus 5, and it is the first ice bar in the world ever! It was brilliant, we got all togged up in a really big sleeping bag style coat with thick ski gloves. We went through an airtight freezer door and were immediately in a small room, much smaller than we had imagined and there were ice sculptures everywhere! Some of animals, a boat, a heart, a bench, brick walls round the edges, and Diego and Scrat the squirrell from Ice Age! Those two were my favourites. We weren't allowed to take our cameras or phones in because the condensation would damage them so we had some photos taken by the bar. We each had a cocktail in a glass made of ice - I nearly dropped mine, it was quite slippy! We were in there for about 40 minutes and got so so cold. It was a really good experience though and we got to smash our glasses once we had finished our drink!

We left happy, and found on our way back to the hostel an AMAZING salad shop! It was brilliant, so yummy and it felt good to eat something healthy! We packed up after tea and got an early night as our Kiwi bus was picking us up at 7.10am! There are not many lie-ins for us backpackers!