March 9 - More Auckland, Day 2

Another sunny day with no wind in Auckland.  Today's expedition is to Waiheki Island.  We bicycled downtown and hopped a ferry for the half hour ride on a catamaran.  Waiheki Island is about 15 X 8 km in size, and would be the equivalent to Vancouver's Bowen Island in that it is a subdivision of Auckland.  The concessions for over 65 types are better, however, as the ferry is free during the week after 9:00 and all weekend.

Anyway, it is a gorgeous island.  Here's a view of Auckland as we leave and various shots on the island.  We pedaled 10 km across half the island and had lunch.

We walked the sand on this beach.  It is full of broken shells from some sort of shellfish (mussell or ?), clams (look like butterneck) and sand dollars.  The sand dollars looked somewhat like ours, the pattern was 5 lobed, but the lobes were a different shape.

The Waiheki Boat Society yards in one of the island's bays.  The number of beached boats needing paint jobs seems indicative of a "hippy" type community

After we returned to Auckland, I rode around town checking out bike shops.  I wanted to find a water 

bottle with a bike  shop's name on it, but no luck.  However, check out this state of the art bike - no pedals but look at the suspension.  There were lots of other interesting bikes in the collection.

Two more entries in the silly sign contest.  The first one struck me as cute (and reminded me I need a haircut).  The second baffles me a bit.  Anybody who needs the warning this sign gives is probably not smart enough to read!

Last shot is Laura in our cute little hostel caravan, beavering away at the computer.

Hey, it's cheap and once you're asleep you can't see the curtains anyway.

Finally, the last word on the Sky Jump.  Instead of jumping we compromised on having a great Italian 

dinner and a wonderful gelato ice cream cone for dessert.  We're in the "trendy" Parnell area of 

Auckland.  All sorts of restaurants, bars and 'boutiquey' stores up and down the street.

Tomorrow (Thursday) is our day to pedal out to a place nearer the airport.  We fly out of here at 7 pm on Friday and we land in Vancouver 13 hours later, but before we leave here.  Isn't the International Date Line fun?

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