I’ll keep it short since overall Auckland wasn’t that exciting. My first day was spent at Waiheke Island, a 40 minute ferry ride from the CBD. I had hoped to go to Rangitoto Island, but there were no ferry tickets left. I found a map of Waiheke, including it’s hiking trails and headed off down one of the trails straight from the ferry wharf. The trail followed the coast and was quite pretty with coastal views and even views back to Auckland.

I walked for about an hour and a half and it got quite hot so when I arrived at a bay with a gravely beach, I decided to take a dip. The water wasn’t too cold, but it did the trick to cool me down.

Once I’d dried off (I hadn’t thought to bring a towel), I walked on to the main town and had some gelato before walking on a bit more and eventually ending up at a winery (the island has quite a few). I did a wine tasting and ended up buying a bottle of the rosé and then it was a short walk back to the ferry terminal.

The following day, I did a free walking tour and learned some more about Auckland’s and NZ’s history and landmarks. Then I went to the art gallery/museum and browsed their standard exhibits. My third day was a bit of a dud, I missed out on the Rangitoto ferry again and ended up checking out a market in the suburb of Devonport. The market wasn’t very exciting and although Devonport looked like a nice place to walk around, it was quite windy and not very pleasant to be walking about. I gave up and just went to a cafe and chilled for a while. In retrospect, it was probably a good thing that I didn’t go to Rangitoto since the only activity there is a walking track. My last day, I met Elsa for breakfast and then went to the main city museum. The exhibits that I visited focused on Maori culture, Pacific Island culture, natural history (they have a replica of a 3m tall moa) and volcanoes (the Auckland area has 53, with Rangitoto being the youngest at 600 years old). It was a nice museum, but I didn’t have the stamina to see all the exhibits. From there, I picked up my bag and headed to the airport for the looong journey home!