If we had been in Australia longer--we would have loved to have flown up to the Great Barrier Reef. It would have been fun to see Melbourne, Queensland and The Red Rock. As Sydney was an additional trip added to our New Zealand trip (since we were going to be stopping there anyways--we had to draw the line somewhere!). If we had been in Sydney longer, we may have tried to do: Justice and Police Museum and the National Maritime Museum. We would have researched the Power House Museum and the Sydney Olympic Park.
We did stay a day longer than originally planned. Fortunately, before we booked our flights, we found out that no car rental agencies in Auckland, New Zealand (north island) were renting out cars on Christmas Day. They were the following day on Boxing Day.
We had good and bad luck on our flight, which is about 3 hours. We had booked through the discount airline JetStar, but apparently they are partner with Emirates. We had a VERY nice airplane. Unfortunately, the lady sitting in front of Sarah had a minor heart attack. Emirates was very well equipped to handle the situation in the airplane and with constant contact with a doctor from the ground.
We arrived at the Auckland Airport and were out in pretty good time. We rented a Toyota mini-van from Ace Rentals (recommended to us by everyone local) for AUS $508 for 4 days. We did have to catch their shuttle bus to their off-site location (less than a 5 minute drive). We had landed at 2:00. We made it up to a friend's house in Dairy Flat (about a 45 minute drive) by 6:00. We had known the Sloan's in Singapore. They are from Auckland and had just moved back a couple weeks prior. Their oldest is the same exact age as Allison and they were good friends from church. They have a lovely home and it was a great visit. They fed us dinner, let us swim in their pool, took us over to Long Beach to enjoy the view and the playground, found us an ATM and suggested ice cream for dessert.
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