We have now left Ohakune. After saying tearful goodbyes to friends and a last meal out we boarded the Overlander train and we were on our way to Auckland. Very sad to leave but excited for what’s next. The train takes 6hours, although it’s not that far to Auckland, but the train is lovely and travels through some fantastic scenery.
We arrived in Auckland Friday night where we were picked up by our friend Tracy. After a quick stop for some fast food at Mission Bay we headed to her house in Omaha Beach, around 1 hour North of Auckland. Saturday morning we went for a walk on the beach, which was 200m from the house and to get there we walked past John Key’s house– NZ Prime Minister! He wasn’t in though…
After breakfast we headed out on Ian’s boat for a couple of hours and he took us fishing. First time James and I have ever fished but it was brilliant. James dropped his line and had to pull it out immediately because he had already caught a fish, and that set the tone for the day. I caught 7 fish! But only 1 was a keeper, the rest were too small. James caught 2 keepers and Tracy caught the biggest of the day. They were all snapper except for one Kingfish that Ian caught, but it was too small to keep, even though it was much bigger than the snapper. The sun was out and it was so nice sat on the boat. We then took the boat to a nearby island and looked at Mansion House, walked around the nice gardens and jumped off the jetty into the sea. James and I spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach swimming in the sea, on holiday!
Sunday morning we went to the Matakana markets, which were really good. Although not many arts and craft stalls there were plenty of food stalls where we had steamed pork buns, coffee, smoothies and a few samples! Then we went snorkelling at Goat Island, which is a marine reserve. Although not as sunny, we had wetsuits on so spent a while looking for fish. We saw plenty of snapper (but you can’t catch them) and zebra fish, it was really pretty and once James got the hang of using a snorkel he was fine too! Sunday afternoon the sun came out so we went back to the beach and took the body boards and played in the waves.
Monday morning we packed up to leave Omaha but stopped for a Gelato first on our way, peanut butter choc chip and Ferrero Rocher flavour, and then headed to a rifle range. We each had 40 rounds with an air rifle shooting at moving animal targets. I shot 2 big fat pigs and that was it, I was pretty rubbish. James was great and scored lots of points; clearly his hunting has paid off! We also went to a baseball batting cage which was brilliant; I was much better than expected and surprised everyone by hitting the majority of the balls. James was great too, but that was expected. Then Tracy dropped us off in Auckland where we are spending 3 nights before flying out of New Zealand to Dubai and then home.
