This year, for the 3rd time, linux.conf.au was in New Zealand, and conveniently in Auckland which is a nice direct flight for us. We arrived 2 days before the conference started, which gave us 2 days to visit Auckland. While 3 or 4 would have been better, I feel that we got the highlights in 2 days :)
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:
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the entertainment system was top notch
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The flight was almost over too soon, I'd have happily slept there a bit longer :)
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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:
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happy bee :)
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heavily loaded bee
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Finally got to the auckland museum
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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):
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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:
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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 :)
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The next morning, we took a ferry to Rangitoto, the youngest volcano around Auckland:
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Rangitoto
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we took the easy way up :)
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you can still see that the island is volcanic
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that's the volcano crater, but you can't really tell with all the trees
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After getting back to Auckland, we went to MOTAT, the museum of transportation:
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After MOTAT, we went to Auckland Sky Tower:
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you can walk around the top, tethered
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war museum
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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:
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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