December 31

In Whangerei I woke just before 0700, got up and make tea, made Fran’s skim milk and had Weetbix with Vegemite for breakfast. When I had finished, I named some more photos, had my shower and dressed. As we were moving on today, we packed, I packed the car, returned keys and we left. Here the folly of some shopping was exposed as the handle on Fran’s suitcase (on the side) broke off and so it could only be carried by the top handle.
We went to Whangerei Falls and looked around. This was a very pleasant spot in a town described by many as having no redeeming feature, but it had a lot – its problem was it was just overshadowed by the Bay of Island in the north and Auckland in the south.
In the town centre, we walked around and had a good look at the shops and mall. Fran exchanged money, bought some shirts and had a chat with people she met along the way.
We went out to the Fernery and looked around. This had many examples of different ferns in New Zealand and many other local plants within its humid atmosphere.
We left Whangerei and headed south. On our way we stopped at the Dome Lookout and had lunch. It was remarkable that when we stopped we were the only ones there, but by the time we left we were one of four vehicles. The outlook was good, but marred by clearfelling of forest, clearly visible from the road.
We continued south after, then stopped in Warkworth. We got information on the local area and I went down to the river and took some photos (noticed that Lions had built the playground) and then headed off to look at the large tree. It really was large and eventually Fran managed to get the photo of me that I wanted. There was a factory site further down, but the road there was quite rough so we gave that a miss. We headed into Auckland, and saw large and numerous traffic jams in the opposite direction.
We arrived in Auckland just after 1400 and Fran booked us back into the hotel. I sat in the car while I was waiting and then she took the luggage up. I had no intention of getting another parking ticket!
When Fran got back to the car, we drove around to and through the Domain and then up to the Museum. After parking (and checking the sign carefully) we went to the museum and spent over two hours looking around it. There were some excellent displays, including an earthquake in a house. We had to leave at closing time. While in the area we went to the Duckpond and had a quick look at the hothouses.
On our return to the city centre, I tried to ring Colin but was not able to, so left plans in abeyance for the evening. Back outside the hotel I found some on-the-street parking and we walked to cinemas (Fran thought we might be able to see “Australia”, but the shows had already started and the scheduled showings were to cease at 1900. We had tea at Burger King and walked around the city, trying to find other cinemas, but – all were finishing early for New Year’s Eve.
We walked back to the hotel, parked car in parking station, and then walked back to the hotel room.
Fortunately in this room I could set the air conditioner to run continuously (as our room faced the setting sun). I processed my photos for today, wrote up blogs (unfortunately only in point form, so they didn’t get posted in time), answered some SMSes and a call from Scott.
We went off to bed early. I was sneezing from something.