Tuesday 24 March

Another drizzling morning, good job we are leaving the seaside and heading back to Auckland. We set off about 9 and travelled for an hour before stopping at Whangarei Falls to do the loop walk to the falls. They are claimed to be the most photographed falls in NZ so why should we be any different? We then continued on to Whangarei Town Basin, where we also stopped on Sunday on the way up here. It was quieter here this time and we wandered around a bit more. We came across some seniors playing a ball game so we asked them what they were doing. I think they said it was called 'Plonk' which is similar to Boules. There are lots of boats here in the marina, apparently it is a good sheltered spot for when the summer storms cyclonic storms hit. We had a coffee and then wandered around the shops. One of the shop assistants was from England, she spends six months here then six months in England, her husband lives her all the time, guess it works for them. We chatted for a while then moved further down the store where two ladies were working on a wall hanging, they'd done two years and had one more year to go. Not sure what it was called, some sort of tapestry that would be hung in a community building. We decided we'd hung around long enough and carried on until we reached the pullout to buy the toll ticket for the expressway. We reached the hotel in Auckland about 3 and quickly unloaded the luggage and checked in, we then left to return the rental car. Lots of traffic, moving quickly, good job we had the satnav or we'd have gotten lost for sure! We then had a 20 minute walk back to the hotel but continued on down to the harbour area and explored a while. It started to rain and we'd left the jackets and brolly at the hotel so we went in for a Mexican meal so we could shelter. It was still raining when we finished so we ended up buying a brolly. We found the red city link bus which goes past our hotel, it is uphill so is well worth the 50 cents a ride.