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I never give big cities a chance. After breakfast, I walked down to the docks to see if there were any spots on the ferry left to Waiheke Island. There was still room on the 10am ferry, so I ran back to the hostel and grabbed my backpack. First, I took the bus around the island, and then went back to the town center, where I looked at shops, walked through the art gallery, stopped at the info center for a map and the bus schedule and then got wedges at a cafe. For the afternoon, I decided to walk out to one of the closer wineries. It was a nice walk, a few sprinkles, but generally a pretty walkable day. The winery ended up being closed for a private function, and it was already 3pm, so I kept walking up around the hill to the next vineyard. There was an amazing lookout on the way that looks back over to Auckland. I stood on the picnic table and took pictures of the sea, the Skytower and the islands. Very cool. The winery ended up being really busy, but I did a tasting when there was a gap. It was only $5 for 7 wines. The Chardonnay was amazing, Rose kind of blah, and the reds so-so, but two were good. One of the descriptions was “with a hint of pencil shavings” hmmm… clever or cliche, I found it rather amusing. After the tasting, I walked back down the road and then took a side trek (track) over to the beach area. It was signed, but totally not a path, so it felt like I was walking through someone’s farm land! I arrived back in the central town area just in time to grab the bus back to the 5pm ferry. What a fun and relaxing day. When I got back to Auckland, I got take-away pizza for dinner and headed back to the hostel to eat. As I sat down in the cafe, I looked up and happened to be staring across the room at my favorite Irishman! I just can’t get rid of him! It was really nice to end New Zealand with a friendly face.