DAY 217 SUNDAY OCTOBER 28 AUCKLAND

We woke at 6am to find the ship about to dock at the wharf right in the centre of Auckland.

 We finished packing and had breakfast at 7.30.  The captain called us to his office to be checked by the Quarantine and Immigration officer who told us "good as gold" and we felt like kiwis again.  We came down the gang way after saying goodbyes and snapped the stern.

We shared a shuttle bus with the customs man and some Filipino crew from another ship.  As usual the latter were very friendly and insisted on carrying our luggage out to the main street.

Shortly after we met our steward, Tekabwe from Kiribati, who was off to spend some money.

Quay St was blocked to traffic as the annual Auckland Marathon was in progress (serendipity).  We stopped and watch the fast ones heading for the finish and the slow one passing half way, as the runners were heading out to the turn around and coming back on the other side of the road.  We wandered about looking for wifi and found an Esquires cafe that had wifi and power point and were able to book into the Ibis hotel and catch up on emails, etc. for two hours. Out on Quay St we saw a statue of a Maori chief.

We were due to dock at the same time as the Sun Princess Cruise Liner and had followed it into the harbour.  A couple of ladies came into the cafe and told us they were part of 1000+ Aussies from this ship in town till 5pm.

We checked into our cheap hotel just for two nights until we had made a plan for the following week. It was adequate but there was only one lift holding 6 people as the other one had been out of service for a year. Not good enough in a hotel with 18 floors.