Travels under way

Wednesday March 23rd 2011
Jeremy’s BD. Lazy morning, climbed Mt Mangere later, had ice-cream, went to Amberley reserve. Left Stu’s at 4, long wait at airport 5pm. Strange display tui etc 2010. Good flight to Melbourne, boarded first. Late meal, about 2 am NZ time! 6.50pm Melbourne, dozed in the night.
We had quite a long day in Auckland, but spent the morning lazing around reading. After lunch we decided to get some exercise and climbed Mt Mangere, one of the many small volcanoes that dot Auckland's landscape. We walked around some of the streets as well. It was warm and humid. As Stuart had to drop us off at the airport early, we had quite a long wait there, but we were entertained for a while by a new ‘sculpture’ that displayed various coloured lighting effects and played music and birdsong in a slowly-changing routine.
Our Emirates flight left about 7 pm and went via Melbourne and Bangkok to Dubai. It seemed a bit crazy eating dinner at 2am NZ time! We had to change planes in Dubai, and were surprised how cool the temperature was (26 deg C). Sometimes when you land it’s in the high thirties or early forties, even in the early morning. We were surprised how many people were at the airport too, it was very crowded.