North Island Day 2 – Leigh, Goat Island
We woke up to a glorious sunny second day in Auckland (third if you count the arrival night, but I won’t).. We packed our stuff, and checked out of the hotel, since I couldn’t book the entire week on my Hyatt points, so I booked the rest of the week on some of my Hilton points.. Turned out the Hilton was a really nice hotel, situated right on the pier. Our room had a great balcony with lounge chairs, and a really nice shower, bar, fridge, etc. they gave us champagne as soon as we came in (since it was our honeymoon).. And warned us to close our drapes when we went to bed, as cruise liners may come over night and dock – and they’d get a nice view into our room! ha.
We had troubles planning for this day.. We wanted to hit White Island – an active volcano island of sulfur… But it turned out it would be just too much driving.. We had looked into possibly crashing at a B&B the previous night, closer by the island, but we ended up coming back to the hotel..
Anyway, we started the day out just wandering downtown Auckland.. With a bit of Shopping for a couple crucial things (ie. I forgot my hat, Mish forgot her rain coat, sun tan lotion..)
We ended up having lunch on Vulcan downtown, which seemed to be a nice stretch of pubs / cafes… It got pretty busy with the work folks heading out for lunch.. I guess not everyone is a tourist 😉
Then we got in gear, and headed out towards Leigh – a small fishing town to the north (B):
It was a relaxing walk around their boat launch area.. enjoying the beautiful clear water…
From there, we headed out to Goat’s Island, to relax and chill.. It’s supposed to have some great snorkeling, but we couldn’t get ourselves to do it (i may have if i brought my snorkel stuff!)
Some interesting cracks in the rocks that go quite a distance.. I was laying ont he beach in the distance of the photo above at one point, and every few minutes a few pebbles would fall on me.. Seems the cliff is still crumbling away quite a bit..
Mish came across a dead blowfish ont he beach, as well as some bright blue little Jellyfish.. And there were quite a few critters running around the tidal pools we were hanging out in..
We used a bit of a Toll highway to get there and back.. I suppose it was a bit more of a direct route.. Had a pretty funky bridge going over it:
That was it for the relaxing day at a couple beaches.. Lots of great scenery and sunshine.. Another early morning coming up, so we hit the sack a little early to prepare.. A night shot from our balcony before bed:
