Today is the day where we start planning what we want to see while we are in Auckland. We head into the city by bus nice and early and go straight to the visitors centre at the harbour and start grabbing leaflets.

We know that we want to do the Sky Tower, and decide that there is no better time to do it that now, so make our way up Queen Street and across to the Tower. $28 gives us access to the main observation deck at 610 feet up, and to the Sky Deck at 722 feet.

The first lift goes to the Observation deck, and it's only when you are up here that you gets a sense of how high above the city you are, with 360 degree views of the whole of the surrounding area, easily viewed from the full windows, and walkway around the inside, complete with sections that have glass floors, and prove to be a bit much for me at times. Standing on a sheet of glass, 610 feet above the traffic passing under your feet is a bit too far.

From there, we move up in the next lift to the sky deck, a narrower area, just over a hundred feet higher. I take a quick walk round up here before making my way down, my head for heights isn't great, especially in man made structures, so take in all I can and head back down to solid ground.

We decide on a walk in the afternoon and head for the fan trail, a marked route that takes you from the city centre to the stadium where the games will be played, in this case, Eden Park. The route seems to be all up hill, going through parks, shopping areas, and some areas that I wouldn't like to walk through at night, and is marked at 4.5km. We reach Eden Park and take the pictures we like while trying to soothe our feet and decide on a train back into the centre, rather than walk the same distance back, although in theory it should have been all downhill on the return. The train is cheap and quick, and by far the better option, although I would imagine that doing the fan trail on the way to a game with hundreds of other fans would be quite an experience.

Exhausted, and ready to relax, we get the bus back towards the hotel, although even that isn't incident free as I manage to misjudge the height of the bus, standing up and putting my head through the roof, and my sunglasses through the top of my head, not realising how badly until we get off and I'm asked if I realise I have blood running down my face, so it's a stop at the supermarket for medical supplies and then a night watching rugby from the comfort of the hotel room where no further injuries can occur