Our first day was a bit tough since we landed around 05:30, and went directly to the hotel to drop our luggage and start exploring. Thankfully our flight in business was quite pleasant and the lie down flat beds were very good:

the entertainment system was top notch

The flight was almost over too soon, I'd have happily slept there a bit longer :)

Welcome back to NZ!

After arriving at our hotel around 07:00, we did a portion of the coast to coast walk although we only got as far as the War Museum (which is actually a lot more than just a war museum). We stopped by the botanical garden on the way:

happy bee :)

heavily loaded bee

Finally got to the auckland museum

The museum had one display showing you a simulation of what willl happen when the next volcano errupts around Oakland (and that's just a matter of time, we just don't know when):

Oakland is full of volcanoes

The war museum part is the 3rd floor, which actually was the least interesting to us, but we still went through it quickly:

We then went to the art museum before heading back after a quick dinner (actually I went back out to see a couple of movies at the planetarium that were only showing that evening), and then it was time for well deserved rest :)

The next morning, we took a ferry to Rangitoto, the youngest volcano around Auckland:

Rangitoto

we took the easy way up :)

you can still see that the island is volcanic

that's the volcano crater, but you can't really tell with all the trees

After getting back to Auckland, we went to MOTAT, the museum of transportation:

After MOTAT, we went to Auckland Sky Tower:

you can walk around the top, tethered

war museum

That was it for day #2, we were still a bit jetlagged (not just the difference from California, but that we had flown from France 2 days prior), so we were happy to be in bed by 22:00 so that I could get an early start at the conference on monday the next day.
The rest of the week was indeed spent at the conference, but friday night, before leaving, I went to fly a jet auckland to try a 737 simulator again (75mn of flight), and joined Jennifer for dinner at Clooney, probably the best restaurant in Auckland, where we enjoyed a very nice 5 course dinner:

And that was it for our time in Auckland. It's a nice little city that isn't too crowded and we lucked out with the weather