We've Gone Too Far
22-March-2010
I think we may have walked a bit too far yesterday. No, let me rephrase that. We definitely walked way too far yesterday. I’m exhausted. And unfortunately, Dore’s come down with a cold. (At least, we really hope it’s just a cold. Fingers crossed!) So now we’re working on doing whatever we can to mitigate that. Toward that end, we’re taking it easy today — just taking a ferry over to one of the other areas of Auckland and a nice easy bus tour on the other side. We’ll see how that goes….
[Four hours pass.]
Well, that was exhausting. After the ferry, we had a bit of time to check out the little town of Devonport before our bus tour was to begin. So what did we do? We hiked all around the town, of course. D’oh. And, as it turns out, we managed to take about 32 minutes of our allotted 30, so we missed the tour bus. Bummer. Luckily there was another tour an hour later, but it still put us off a bit. Dore was feeling pretty tired by this point, so we went and crashed on a bench for a while. Then, silly people that we are, we got and and started walking again.
This time, however nature stepped in to make us stop. First we felt a few drops, and then the rain started to pick up. Dore and I started walking briskly back to the cover of the ferry station, making it just in time to miss the rain.
The storm was pretty short-lived (a regular thing in Auckland, I’m told), but we decided to stick around our bench until the tour started.
The tour itself was very nice. We were in a small bus with about six other tourists and a guide. Our guide was a local who had lived in Devonport all his life, and his perspective on the town was really fun. At one point he pointed out a set of trees that he had climbed as a kid, and told us how the lady whose tree it was would try to get him out with a long stick.
We wound around the sleepy little town for a while, finally coming to the top of a small volcanic cone, where we were presented with a beautiful view over Auckland and the surrounding bays. It was really beautiful, with dappled sunlight here and there. Tons of sailboats dotted the water, including a huge yacht under full sail.
The tour wound its way back down to the ferry terminal, and Dore and I headed to lunch at the Stone Oven Bakery, which was recommended to us by two locals as the best place around. I’m happy to say it lived up to its reputation. Dore got a great chicken and vegetable soup (perfect for her cold), and I had a great grilled chicken sandwich with bacon, brie and cranberry sauce. That’s a combination I’m definitely going to have to remember.
Full and tired, we headed back across the harbor. Looking up the hill we realized that we were too exhausted to make the full climb, so we hopped in a cab for what I think may have been the most expensive per mile ride I’ve ever had. The fare ended up being NZ$15, or about US$12. For one mile. At about a walking pace. Blech. Never again.
Finally home, we went up to our room and crashed for a couple of hours, completely exhausted.