Saturday, August 25, 2012

8/24 thru 8/26 - Exploring Auckland and Beyond

The last post occurred today... 8/26, before I changed the date and time on our laptop.  Apparently, the blog is on US time.

8/24/2012 - We awoke to ANOTHER beautiful day and decided to drive up to Goat Island Reserve and do the glass bottom boat tour - it's way too chilly to snorkel.

We drove north on the 1 to Warkworth and then East on Matakana Rd and Leigh Rd to Leigh, then north to the Goat Island cutoff and car park.

The views from the car park were fabulous and included some nesting birds with the Pacific, some resting birds, a fisherman, and Goat Island.



We were a tad late to the 11:00 am sailing - we had trouble knowing whether we were in the right place so we headed off to find some lunch in Pakiri (PACK-er-ee).  It was a fascinating drive on a mostly gravel, nigh on one lane road with a couple of escaped cows chowing down on the 'greener grass' outside their fences.  This road had spectaculars views, too.  
 The pictures are not showing Pakiri!





What we didn't realize was that Pakiri had only a campground with a camp store... so we each had a large chocolate covered ice cream bar on a stick.  They were nummy!

We drove back past the cows and got on the boat.


 It was a good tour...  they don't have the brightly colored fish due to the water being cold, so I'm glad we didn't snorkel.  Goat Island's geologic features were intriguing and somewhat scary when the boat got close to the rocks.





We hiked back out, drove back to Auckland and basked in the good experience of the day.

08/25/2012 - Today we decided to do a city hike called the "Coast to Coast Walkway" (Tasman Sea to Pacific Ocean).  The good thing was that we knew we didn't have to do the whole thing and could get a bus if we pooped out... the bad thing was that we already did 3/4 of it when we found the bus.

We started out taking the bus to Onehunga (Oh-ne-honga), printing maps at the library since Lee forgot his phone, and having lunch before taking off toward Auckland.  
The normal hike would be about 10.6 miles... and it was NOT mostly level!


The route went through one of the most beautiful parks ever, Cornwall Park.  They have cattle and sheep in fields throughout the park - and the babies were SO CUTE!  And there were warnings... don't mess with the sheep or you could cause 'mis-mothering'.  Some of the mothers didn't get the memo and were close to the fence.


The trees were gorgeous and different.

We didn't go up all the way to One Tree Hill, but we were close.

We wove our way through the rest of the park, a number of neighborhoods, and part of the University over to Mount Eden.  Then we started climbing... this felt a tad like a hike in France.
 You can see the One Tree Hill in the distance... this was when we decided we needed to find a bus!

We still had to hike over the shoulder of Mount Eden, but we did it.

Sitting down on the bus was heaven - or felt like it.

Take away Chinese was dinner and that ended the day,

08/26/2012 - Chris, Hilary, and Franca returned from LA.  We had breakfast with them, gassed up the car, wandered to the Queensferry Hotel Tavern for the "Best Fish & Chips in Auckland", and spent the afternoon blogging and packing.

Chris was selling one of his vehicles... quite a classic convertible.  Couldn't resist a picture of it.

We will miss New Zealand - it is comfortable!




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