Auckland

We continued our drive north to Auckland, stopping off in Cambridge on the way for lunch with Jo's friend Leigh, a horse whisperer (an interesting lifestyle) and later the first traffic of note we have experienced in NZ, Aukland seems like a city growing too fast for its infrastructure.

We set off the next day for a mini "coast to coast“  walk, i.e. across Auckland but gave up with the heat and the plain fact that too much of the walk was through some dull suburbs.

Enjoyed the harbour and its views especially the amazing amount of life on the waterfront. Great fish meal in a swish restaurant overlooking the floating gin palaces.

One day was spent on a wine tour, mainly with the aim of visit the Kumeu River Winery where we lucked into meeting the ancient proprietress. Most of the wine industry locally has been built up by former Yugoslavs that emigrated there in the 60's and our wine guide had relatives in most of the vineyards we visited ( including his brother in law below) so we got to see a lot including their methode champenoise being disgorged by hand.

Hunting Lodge: delicious rose

Auckland has its own Fringe festival and we enjoyed the first night of it with a free concert by Hopetoun Brown  in a main square. Two actors were passing to perform a mime show in the picture below!