Weather looked promising when we woke up this morning, but by the time we were getting ready to go out it clouded over with heavy rain. The rain stopped and the skies cleared and for the rest of the day it was warm and sunny (25C). We headed back to the harbour and booked a ferry crossing to the island of Waiheke. The crossing took about 45minutes with us getting good views along the way. Once on the island we transferred to a minibus taking us for a short ride. The island is a very lively place with over 30 different wine producers, some of them on a very small scale. The bus was taking us to do a series of zip wires which gave us some great views of the Forrest beneath us as well as looking back to the city of Auckland in the distance. At the end of the zip lining we had a 25 minute walking climbing back through the bush to get back to our staring point. Returning to Auckland we treated ourselves to ice creams (a sour cherry and rich dark chocolate combination). From there we went to the Sky Tower, we were taken up in a lift to the main observation platform at a height of 610 feet, giving us some stunning views of the city and harbour. It is possible to jump off the tower and we had seen someone do this from our vantage point in our room on the 32nd floor of our hotel. We weren’t tempted to do the jump- which is actually a slow controlled descent. A second lift took us higher up the tower to a height of 722 feet, but the view was not much different. By now it was time for a meal so we went to Auckland’s oldest brewery pub. The pub dates back to 1898 and it’s been brewing its own ale for about 50 years – tried the ‘Old Bastard IPA” and hope to return to sample other brews. An early night tonight after all this.
