I flew into Auckland, New Zealand a couple of days ago. We came in from the North which is unusual as majority of my approaches (98%) have been from the South. Could only just see the coastline then there was a noise which sounded like the landing gear coming down. I looked at the airshow time which showed 6mins to landing. It just seemed a bit early to have the landing gear down. Then at 2mins there was another noise which was similar but shorter but I looked out the window and saw the front of the wings flap things were forward so I figured that must have been noise number 2.

I can't really remember when the landing gear comes down (I don't think I take any notice) and I think the only reason I noticed it this time was because we had a different approach. It was a 777-300, not the more obvious prop planes but even those I think come down closer to the approach.

Of course I'll never be sure when the wheels came down, but what would have been the likely noises at those times prior to landing?

We had no problems with our landing, just a small amount of sway.