This is my last post for my New Zealand trip. Its going to cover my last three or four days in New Zealand.
After Waitomo we drove up to Auckland (the largest city in New Zealand) and said goodbye to the majority of our tour group. Only nine of us would be continuing up to the Bay of Islands together. We had some time to say farewell to the others before we had an afternoon of shopping and Indian food for dinner.
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| Auckland Skyline |
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| Auckland waterfront |
The next morning we got into the bus and started our drive up to Paihia, in the Bay of Islands region. Our first evening there we had the afternoon to ourselves to just sit on the beach and then we went for Fish and Chips at the local Retired Servicemen's Association (similar to a legion).
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| A random little reminder of home in a small town on the way to the Bay of Islands. |
Our full day in Paihia featured us going out on a catamaran for some dolphin spotting, island hopping, and sailing. It was a great day out on the water. We unfortunately were not able to swim with the wild dolphins because they had a number of babies in the pod with them and when babies are near no humans are allowed to swim. It was still an amazing opportunity and I finally got close to the animals I have loved most of my life.
Here is a quick video of the dolphins showing how close they go to our boat with a baby at the very end.
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| Nap time on the boat. |
After sailing around the bay for a few hours we headed back to shore and our last Contiki night.
The next morning was back to Auckland for the end of the tour. We had one last activity which featured us going up the Auckland Sky Tower (the tallest building/tower in the Southern Hemisphere).
In turns out even though the tour was finished a lot of were still spending at least one more night in Auckland before heading home. We all decided to get dinner together somewhere and came across a White Event - where everyone was dressed up all in white and we sitting down for picnic dinners in a close street.
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| We were recommended this place for dessert about a twenty minute walk up from our hotel. When we got there the line was the entire sidewalk in front of the store front. They only had a handful of flavours but the cones and cups could be made deluxe. |
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| This is mine, featuring a flavour called Hokey Pokey. The yellow looking icing is actually peanut butter and there are chocolate flakes and honeycombs throughout the ice cream. This place puts the toppings on that they best matches the flavour. It was delicious. |
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The next morning I had until 8pm for my flight to Wellington. So Lisa, Ryan and I (they also didn't fly out until late that day) decided to visit the Auckland Maritime Museum and then go for a nice long walk around the harbour front.
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| We even got to watch a canon go off. |
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| Team New Zealand's America's Cup sailing vessel. |
After a quick lunch at Subway we climbed aboard the bus and I said goodbye to the others as they went onto the International Terminal and I got off at the Domestic.
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| Beautiful sunset from the plane on the way to Wellington. |
I arrived in Wellington around 9pm and I proceeded to spend the night in the airport since my next flight was at 7am and I really didn't want to pay for a hotel when I was only going to be sleeping there for tops five hours. I probably would have gotten a better night sleep if I had but I saved money and it was kinda cool to with this image when I closed my eyes and woke up in the morning. I should mention that Wellington has been nicknamed the Middle of Middle Earth ever since the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies came out.
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| And from the front. |
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| Last pic of the trip...Smaug sleeping while I check in for my Sydney flight. |
This was an absolutely amazing trip. I'm so glad I decided to do this, unfortunately it makes me want to visit the South Island and Australia in the future...maybe next year.
