My shuttle to the Bay of Islands airport in Kerikeri picked me up at 10:15. I had said goodbye to Sassy the cat with some good head pets and chin rubs while drinking my tea. Said goodbye to Siegrid as well and got a lovely hug from Suzi the motel owner as I got into the shuttle. I had a lovely stay at the Outrigger motel.
Just a short flight to Auckland and got a shuttle to my bed and breakfast -- the Great Ponsonby B&B. It's a great place. A wooden villa built in 1898, it is in a great little neighbourhood about a 20 minute walk to the harbour/downtown area. My room is quite nice and cozy with french doors going out to a little veranda looking out at the garden. It is called the "Dunedin Room" as it has two paintings of the Dunedin area by the B&B's owner's grandfather. (I like that for my last night on kiwi soil as I liked Dunedin so much.)
I dropped my bags off and headed out for a late lunch. The B&B recommended a place just up the street called Bambina so I went there and had the seared rare tuna salad with green beans, avocado and capers. Very tasty along with a glass of Rochford Rees savvie from the Marlborough Region (Val G. -- this was a very nice one).
Then I walked down to the harbour. I will explore the Ponsonby area a bit more tomorrow but it looks quite nice with treed streets and old wood houses.
Got down to the harbour and it is a pretty amazing harbour. Lots of sailboats and restaurants and bars filled with good-looking yachting types. (The Louis Vuitton Pacific Series yacht race started today.) But it is also a working harbour. So nice when a city makes good use of its waterfront and the city goes right up to the water (in other words, isn't separated by a big expressway like in Toronto.) Lots of modern hotels and apartment buildings but old buildings as well like the old ferry building.
I walked around the harbour and downtown and it was definitely strange to be back in a big city. Auckland has a population of 1.3 million -- which is 31 percent of the country's population. When I planned my trip I thought about spending a few days here but I decided to stick to smaller places as I was looking to relax. Next time (and there will be one!) I will definitely spend some time here. Although a big city it has a nice feel to it.
The clouds had rolled in by late afternoon so I headed back to my B&B. I had a late lunch so just picked up a bottle of savvie (Mt. Difficulty "Roaring Meg" savvie) and am staying in having some wine with some nibbly bits of pepperoni and nuts. I have my veranda doors open and the garden is lit with floodlights so it's a lovely last night in New Zealand. Tomorrow I plan to just walk around some more before heading to airport for my late evening flight.
Okay -- here's an interesting cat fact I just read in the New Zealand magazine "North and South". New Zealand has the world's highest number of households with cats -- 51 percent of kiwi households have at least one cat. (Canada is second with 38 percent and Switzerland is third with 35 percent). In the shuttle from the airport today there was a young girl with her father and the shuttle driver dropped them off at their house first -- the young girl jumped out of the shuttle van and ran up to the front porch and picked up her cat and gave it a big hug. No wonder I feel so comfortable here -- cat country. To end today's post here is photo of the cat here at the B&B (and, no, I don't know why it is wearing a blue bib...)
And I liked the looks of this burger joint on Ponsonby Road...
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