Hello again,
We have just left Auckland, so thought now would be a good time to post about our time here.
On our first day we met up with Frances’ family friends who live just outside Auckland. They took us to the West coast to have a gander at a colony of gannets (that’s an excellent joke for etymology nerds) who are in luvin’ season. There were many gannets, which is apparently called a gannetry of gannets.
Friday saw us visit more of Frances relatives – Baggins’. Our driver decided to kick us off in true Gandalf style by showing up 45 mins late.
It was a pretty glorious day, so we decided to get into the Christmas spirit early by cracking out our best Rudolph impressions by getting sunburnt noses. Hobbiton was busy, but awesome. We visited all of the hobbit holes, and Frances picked which one she’d live in. We then had lunch with pints at The Green Dragon Inn.
comes from the Green Dragon”
The way back from Hobbiton was via Waitamo, to see the Glow-worm caves. This whole experience was a highlight of our time in Auckland. The glow-worms are beautiful. It turns out they are actually maggots, but maggots are too difficult to market (apparently). We were taken around the caves impressive stalagmites and stalagtites and were lucky to be treated to a Maori song by our guide, “to showcase the caverns acoustics”. Sadly though, there are no photos allowed inside the caves because it freaks out the glow-maggots. Instead here is a picture of Frances with a Penguin.
The next day we went for a wander around Auckland Museum to see Maori Art and NZ natural history (see above penguin), as well as a volcano exhibit which included a simulation of what would happen if any of the volcanoes around Auckland exploded – SPOILER ALERT You die, very quickly. After a brief lunch on the museum grounds, we headed up to Mount Eden for some spectacular views of Auckland and to look into the volcano crater.
We decided to spend our last day on one of Auckland’s many surrounding islands. The options were island of nature or island of wine. We chose wine.
Waiheke island is full of vineyards – 30 overall. Waiheke island is also full of hills. We did not realise this when we rented bikes. Half way through a punishing cycle we gave up on our original plan of making it to the furthest vineyard and drinking our way back to port, and instead detoured to the closest available wine.
Kennedy Point Vineyard is the islands only organic vineyard (yes, it turns out we’re those guys). We sampled all of the wines they had, plus a sharing platter – which was all delicious. Then we went for a brief lounge on the beach, and then back to the ferry via Cable Bay vineyard. Also delicious.
We are now on the bus to Paihia, which is to the North of Auckland in The Bay of Islands. The plan is to try and see some dolphins. The next post will be after that. In the mean time we’d be really grateful if you added our Spotify playlist on the front page, to keep us entertained.
There & Back Again 