Going Out The Door

After Ahipara we headed down to Auckland to spend our last few days of the trip in New Zealand’s largest city. And large it is, with nearly 1.7 million people – more than a third of the nation’s entire population.

The evening of our arrival started the last leg off right, with dinner at a nearby pub and quiz night with some locals. We had a opening round (the only team to win beer!) but didn’t have a strong finish. It didn’t really matter because we had a blast hanging out with the rest of “Quizteama Aguilera.”

But our first day was spent on Waiheke, the Island of Wine. We took a ferry over, and went across the island on a hop-on hop-off bus to sample wine, craft beer and oysters. Needless to say, it was a lovely day!

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The next day was mostly just wandering around downtown Auckland, with the aim of having a decidedly non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner at a place called Depot. Clams, charcuterie, bone marrow, heirloom tomatoes, and a great blue cheese and sugar pie for dessert.

I have to admit that by the 3^rd day, our focus was more on coming home than being tourists for another day. We had a late start to the day and walked over to the Auckland War Memorial Museum, where we toured the museum and watched a Maori song and dance performance as well. Wandered the neighborhood a little more, and finished our last full day in New Zealand at an Irish pub.

There will be a few more posts after this–some general observations and videos of the sights and sounds–but this is the last of the day-to-day entries. Seems like our time in Australia and New Zealand was both short, and long. We met a lot of really great people, and got to see and do a lot of really cool things, and yet there is still so much more to explore. But we’ve been on the road for what feels like quite awhile now, and we’re looking forward to getting home.