Waking up early here was no different than waking up early at home as I found myself awake at 6:30am on this beautiful Sunday. We planned to leave the hotel at 9am to head into the city for our Free Auckland City Walking Tour. The meeting location was near the Ferry Building which was exactly where we also needed to meet for the Harbor Sightseeing Cruise later on. Since we arrived early, we went on ahead and redeemed our vouchers for tickets that way there’d be one less thing to do after our tour.

We quickly found our guide Nick with the blue umbrella he was holding up. Being from Auckland he said he was expecting about 14 people on the tour today and I’d say we had about that many. Our tour was roughly 2 hours long and we learned and saw a lot on the way. Here are some of the things that were mentioned:
• The Silver Fern symbolizes finding your way home
• Kiwis are endangered
• Meat pies are a staple New Zealand food
• Hops here in New Zealand used for beer are the 4th largest in the world
• The 2nd tallest building in the southern hemisphere is the Sky Tower
• New Zealand was the 1st country to allow women to vote
• Tā moko are the facial tattoos that the Māori people have
• In 1835, New Zealand became it’s own country and in 1840 joined the British Commonwealth
• The language Māori is taught in schools and protected in New Zealand

We ended our tour not too far from where we began and my mom and I gave Nick 50NZ for the both of us which equates to about $28.40 (surprisingly amongst the group I think we gave him the most). We had a good hour and some change to kill before we had to meet for the Harbor tour so we decided to stop at place nearby that had an assortment of eateries. We went to Burger Burger and got a lite meal.

Once done we crossed the street and headed towards Pier 11 which was where we’d get on the boat. There was a good amount of people already in line and by the time we boarded we found ourselves about midway through the line. We opted to sit on the 2nd level outside since it was a beautiful day. We enjoyed having the wind smack us in the face as we watched the waves and the neighboring islands as we went by.

There were so many moments that looked like postcard photos and some interesting sites as well. Some of the things we learned on the Harbor Sightseeing Cruise were:
• The Ferry Building was built in 1912 and is a replica of a building in San Francisco, CA
• Cruise ships bring in 660 million dollars
• New Zealand no longer manufactures cars
• Waiheike Island is one of the most popular islands in the world
• Batches are holiday houses and in the 70’s most were torn down on Rangitoto island (only about 30 left)
• There are 54 volcanoes in Auckland
• 31,000 tons of sugar every 6 weeks are delivered to Chelsea’s Sugar Factory
• New Zealand represents 4% of superyachts in the world

After our Harbour tour we got some gelato and went on a hunt to find a book on New Zealands history (souvenir). After success, we checked out a few souvenir stores on the way back near the ferry and found some unique things in packs. Feeling like we’ve knocked out a good portion of souvenir shopping, we then turned our attention to finding food, good food specifically fish. Believe it or not we did so much walking by the water but weren’t successful in finding any.

My mom began getting tired and she was ready to go back to the hotel. We did still have leftovers from last night but it wasn’t enough so we needed to find something. We made our way on the bus back to our hotel but in the distance down the opposite side of the street we saw what looked to be like some restaurants. We walked to the corner and there was a bit of a variety there with one being a fish place. We ordered some food and went back to the hotel.

The restaurant had no hot sauce (*cue Beyonce’s “I got hot sauce in my bag”*-well I had none and the fish desperately needed it). I ended up cutting my fish up and mixing it with the leftovers from yesterday (that made it better). We ate our food and then my mom said she needed to lay down. While she did that, I’m finishing writing up the day’s events. Tomorrow will be super exciting for my mom as she does something daring as I watch and cheer her on because I am absolutely NOT doing it. After that we’ll visit a main attraction and maybe get into something else (I don’t know we’ll see…).