Back to Where it All Started, Auckland!

Good bye Pokeno!

After a relaxing morning at our lovely rural Airbnb (we LOVED the chickens squawking and a peacock calling, and a big dog named Meg padding around outside, it reminded me of my home growing up!) 

We met our host Vita and her husband and son as we were packing to leave. Had a lovely conversation with them about their country and their family life. 

For our last day here in New Zealand, we are heading back into Auckland, but had a short side destination we had to visit first…… We found out that there was a Simpson Strong Tie satellite office here in Rosedale, which is a suburb of Auckland! We went by to say hello. Who knows, one day we might be here!?  It could happen…

And maybe THIS could be where we live…

Beautiful Daisy covered lots for sale overlooking the green mountains in the distance… What more could we ask for?

David made plans for our last day which included a 4 1/2 hour Whale and Dolphin Safari excursion on the bay. 

Going on a Safari!

Our beautiful catamaran was leaving the harbor at 1:30 PM. About 50 other people joined us on this adventure, and while it was rainy and drizzly when we left the dock after an hour and a half or so the sky started to lighten and we ended up getting a partly sunny day.

Not too far out we saw a cute Little Blue, or Fairy penguin. They are only about 2 1/2 pounds. They are mainly found in southern Australia and New Zealand. They love to eat small fish, especially anchovies.

I only saw one swimming on the waters and I wasn’t fast enough to get a picture. So here’s a photo from Google… Thank you!

Next, a small hammerhead shark was spotted and it was so so amazing to see that unique animal with its odd shaped head swimming right beside our boat. Thank you Google again for the image.

We spent the next hour or so cruising in our catamaran, looking at the great number of islands, small to smaller, that we were surrounded with in the bay.

Finally spotted a group of dolphins. Our scientist crew members said that these were short-beaked common dolphin. They were just waking up so they were not extremely playful. I got a great video which I posted on my Snapchat, but here is a picture of some of their fins in the water, sticking out as if they were swimming by us. 

The next couple hours were a little bit slow, but to be surrounded by all of that beauty still made the trip worth our while. But our skipper and the other scientist on board did not feel that we got to see enough wildlife on our Safari so they gave everyone on the boat a free ticket for another tour whenever they want to go again in their lifetime! That was very generous of them.

After our boat tour, we did one last stop before heading to the airport. We saw an English pub and decided to go in for a

toast to the Queen. As we sat there, we watched the New Zealand Open Golf tournamentwhile we sipped on a beer. Our friends, Gary and Mary Lee in Arizona would be so proud of us!

Here’s a little bit of history… British explorer James Cook, reached New Zealand in October 1769 on the first of three voyages and would subsequently claim the land for Britain. In 1840 they formally annexed the islands and established New Zealand’s first permanent European settlement.

Off to the airport, we go!