Weather - Fine and Sunny 25C
After an early night last night, we awoke fairly early following a sound sleep. It was a beautiful day so we showered & went out for breakfast, locating free Internet so I could check emails & upload yesterday's blog. Even at 8am it was warm & humid. We returned to our hotel and collected our paperwork with details for the next stage of our holiday. We are meeting our tour guide and fellow passengers tonight for a drink at the roof top bar here at the hotel at 5.30pm before dinner.
We then rearranged our luggage, deciding to place all clothes/items we are unlikely to use for the remainder of the holiday, in one suitcase & leave it on the coach for the entire trip. We have placed the remainder of our clothes etc in one large suitcase, plus 2 smaller carry on bags. Hopefully this will make loading & unloading easier. Our formal clothes, shoes, Xmas decorations are not likely to be needed during the next 17 days.
Once the luggage was sorted we took a walk to the Ferry Terminal and purchased tickets to Waiheke Island. It is a 30 minute trip each way & very scenic. Once you reach the island there is a large terminal with little I side except an information centre & coffee shop. There were lots of wine tours offered but sooooo expensive. We just strolled around for a while but was getting too hot so we headed back on the next ferry to Auckland. Just to give an idea, the ferry tickets (2 adult return) cost us $70. I think a 2 hour wine tour was around $150 each. Makes the Manly Ferry seem cheap! When we returned I needed to find a pharmacy, so we located on in a large shopping complex. I picked up a packet of Nurofen Cold & Flu (yes I have been fighting off the dreaded Flu for 2 days). When I took it to the counter they charged me $39 NZ. I know the NZ $ is worth less than the Au $ but that is still a hefty price.
We then decided to avoid the tourist areas around the harbour as another large cruise ship had docked (HAL Oosterdam) and found a pub in town for lunch. We discovered they had Speights (brewery in Dunedin) Cider on tap so ordered fish & chips to go with it. Best Fish & Chips we have had in a long time. The cider was pretty awesome as well. And the cost more reasonable than previous purchases. On our walk back we found a little liquor store near our hotel (remember it Jan?)& purchased a 1.25 litre bottle of cider in a plastic soft drink bottle which looked like Mountain Dew. It fits nicely in our little refrigerator and will be prefect for afternoon drinks. The hotel sells only 300 ml bottles for $8 each, which is the same amount we paid for 1.25 litres!
So after all that activity we came back to our room for the now compulsory afternoon nap. It is now around 4 pm & we are taste testing the cider ..... Very nice actually!
We attended the meet & greet with fellow passengers and our tour guide. Lots of fellow Aussies plus quite a few from UK. Would you believe there is a lady from Bathurst & a couple from Portland?
Time for dinner so will attempt to send this when out.
I will add a few photos taken from the Ferry this morning and one of the cider bottle.
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