Day 25 - Auckland

This is our last full day in New Zealand. We took advantage of the slow/quiet morning by sleeping in, then ventured out to see what we could see. For the most part, we just hit City Centre and a few of the major parks. On our way back to the hotel, we picked up sushi and ate it in the walking area near the hotel.

Back in the room, Kate took the opportunity to nap while I blogged. Just after 3PM, we headed down to the waterfront to get picked up by Auckland Sea Kayaks for our Sunset Paddle. There were 12 of us. They drove us to Heliers Bay, got us suited up, gave us a quick lesson (for those who hadn't kayaked before), and we set off. The crossing was nearly 5km. The seas were nearly 2m at some points, so we got a bit wet. This was not a problem as the water was bathtub temperature.

When we landed, they made us tea/coffee, and we had time to read some of the island info while the guides cooked the steaks and pulled out the rest of the food. We the steaks, we had salad, pasta salad, juice, and apples. After eating, we started the nearly 3km walk up Rangitoto Hill, from which we had great views of Auckland and the surrounding area.

We clicked some pics and walked down again. There were some talkative girls in our group who talked all the way up and back down again. We got muffins for dessert before heading back out on the water. It was a bit rainy on the way back, but the silence was golden.

We hopped back into the shuttle buses, and we got dropped off back near our hotel. We got back in time for another moving in our room: Captain Fantastic.

When we got back to wifi, we got the notification that our flight the next day was going to leave at 5:00PM instead of 3:10PM. I wrote to our shuttle service and asked if they could come 2 hours later.