We have successfully passed through the Auckland airport security and are now awaiting our flight’s gate assignment, I dare say – we’ve done it. Last step – stepping on the plane, then stepping on another plane in Houston, then home.
The last few days felt like a great coast out of our trip. We wrapped up our time in the central area of the North Island with – take a guess – rock climbing! And glow worms and site-seeing the largest city in New Zealand – Auckland.
This rock climbing trip took us to an area known as Waipari, which featured ignimbrite rock aka a sharp, prickly rock. It wasn’t the greatest feeling on the hands. BUT! This climbing area featured some special guests…
We also had the pleasure of meeting an experienced local climber, Bryce, via his climbing rental store. Turns out he knew of a climbing area in Alabama (Horse Pens 40) that Asa has frequented. I’ve come to learn that is one of the appeals of outdoor climbing. The routes you climb have been climbed hundreds or thousands of times by people all around the world, it’s a very connective sport in that way.
As we departed Piarere, we made a couple of stops along our way to Auckland. The first being a tour of glow worm caves located in Waitomo. They were so interesting to see!
We started with a walk down into the limestone caves, learning of the history of the location and how it came to be discovered. They were first explored by a Maori chief in the 1880s with an English surveyor. The caves were quickly opened up to tourists and have been visited by millions.
Now, that’s what our tour guide told us. But to be honest, we’re not sure if we can believe everything she was saying. Now, maybe she was just having an off day. There was a point in our tour when we arrived at “The Cathedral”. It was at this point in the tour that we started to wonder about fact vs. fiction. Here’s a paraphrasing of what happened…
Tour Guide: This is what is known as The Cathedral. It has very tall ceilings, reaching 15 meters high. It creates a wonderful acoustic setting. Many famous singers have even sung here, such as Kenny Loggins, The Beatles, and Khalid.
*audience murmurs and some small “oh wows”
Tour Guide: Are there any questions?
Guy next to us: What song did the Beatles sing?
Tour Guide: Oh I don’t even know if they really sang here. They just tell me to say that.
So you can see why we might have had some doubts start to arise. Nonetheless, we did get to see some really awesome stalactites, stalagmites, and most importantly, glow worms.
Post cave tour, we took off towards Zealong Tea Estate in Hamilton to see our first and New Zealand’s only tea estate. We enjoyed a tea tasting AND Asa experienced his first high tea.
After our lovely tea stop, we headed to our last destination. Auckland greeted us kindly with some nice rush hour city traffic. Something we haven’t seen in three and a half weeks. But all good! Navigated to our AirBnb and took an afternoon’s rest.
That evening, we took a walk around our neighborhood and down to the waterfront.
Auckland is roughly the size of Phoenix or Philadelphia but has the feel of San Francisco. A lot of hills and a mixture of Victorian-era historical homes with modern city skyscrapers, plus a lot of Asian influence in their cuisine.
For dinner, we went to Tanuki’s Cave, a lively izakaya with delicious meat skewers and cold Asahi Super-Dry. We shared some plates and pints, reminiscing on all the adventures we’ve had on our trip.
Wednesday arrived, our last full day! We drove out of the city for a rock climbing gym and spent the morning there. It was well worth it, probably the best bouldering gym we’ve ever been to. We followed our climbing with some well earned wine at Westbrook Winery and spent the afternoon enjoying the sunshine. We are so grateful for the trend of fortuitous weather we’ve had on this trip.
Back in Auckland, we spent our last night laughing til our stomachs actually hurt at a sold out comedy club show. We saw 12 comics give about a 10-15 minute set each, totaling for about a 3 hour show. We thoroughly enjoyed the varying comic levels and types. America’s healthcare (or lack thereof) even made an appearance in a joke.
And that brings us to today. Our final, final day of our trip. A slow morning where we strategically rolled and folded our clothes into our suitcases, charged all of the necessary travel devices, and double, triple, quadrupled checked that we had our wallets, phones (!), and passports. We said goodbye to the final Airbnb, loaded up the car, and made one final trek around the city.
We visited the Auckland Art Gallery, which featured some interesting works by New Zealand and international artists, like Picasso and Dali. I say interesting because truthfully Picasso is still just weird to me. FYI, I know below is not Picasso, I just didn’t take a photo of any of the Picasso work, because again – weird.
Our final meal was a classic – fish and chips, and probably the best we had the whole time. Oh yeah – Asa got pooped on by a bird, so we’re hoping that’s the good luck we need as we’re about to board our flight.
Speaking of which, they’re calling for our flight to begin boarding. See you soon, America!
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