Devonport

There are a lot of half-day or day trips and tours you can take from Auckland. Due to our limited time there, we had to choose carefully what we wanted to see. The decision was difficult, but we chose to take the ferry over to Devonport one morning. Devonport is a historical maritime village nestled on Auckland's North Shore. It is a short 10 minute ferry ride from the downtown harbour. We got a good tip from the i-Site visitor centre staff to buy the day pass for $11 which would include the ferry ride to and from Devonport along with unlimited on and off options on the Link-line bus. It was a great deal. The Link-line bus is Auckland's green energy bus and has a route around the city that takes about 45 minutes to ride.

We started off the day by grabbing our now daily flat white coffee at Esquires Coffee and a muffin each. As I mentioned in a previous post, you have to get the tourist books at the airport because they contain some valuable coupons. We managed to get four 2 for 1 coupons for Esquires and so this became our coffee shop in Auckland. Good thing we had the coupons because our flat whites were not cheap in my opinion.....$5.90 for a regular size. To be honest, they weren't the best flat whites (we experienced way better ones in Wellington), but we had the coupons so what the heck. They also had free one hour wi-fi access if you purchased something there, so that made Ziad very happy. The muffins were really good too. And you could find an Esquires just about anywhere, just like Starbucks here.

So after eating our delicious muffins and downing our coffee, I was able to get on with the day. We walked over to the ferry and hopped on for our short ride across the harbour. It was quite windy on the ferry ride as the picture shows. When we arrived we started walking towards the town centre and I found a pour little lost crab on the road which Ziad rescued and brought back to the sea. Our good deed for the day.

We started walking around and decided we'd climb (not really climb) up Mt. Victoria and check out the views of Devonport, Auckland and surrounding areas from the top. The views were quite magnificent and looking towards Auckland you could see the "eye-sore". You could also see so many boats and sail boats in the water; obviously a huge pastime for the Kiwis. We descend from Mt. Victoria along this path that I really thought was a private path and would lead to someone's backyard, but Ziad was right and it didn't. We ended up not too far away from a beach area, but it being the start of winter there, it wasn't really swimming or sunbathing appropriate. We did test the water and it was cold. So I gathered a few cool sea shells and we went on our merry way in search for a lunch spot.

We ended up having lunch in the centre of town at a place called Devonport Stone Oven Bakery & Cafe. It was a great lunch spot...kinda reminded me of a Bread Garden. I had fetticine with spinach, garlic and sunroasted tomatoes and Ziad had the chicken and corn soup. Both were fabulous, hardy and quite filling. Across the street from this restaurant was a little local fruit and vegetable store and we saw they were selling kiwis (the fruit, not the people) in bags of about 10 for really cheap...69 cents for a bag of green kiwis and 99 cents for a bag of yellow kiwis. We couldn't resist and we bought a bag of yellow kiwis. New Zealand doesn't use the penny, but yet they still price things like they do and just round up, or down in some cases. Regardless, 10 kiwis for a buck is unheard of back home so it was a no-brainer. And boy did they ever taste GREAT!! They are a little sweeter than the green ones. Fabulous! I was sad we didn't buy two bags. I was like a little kiwi-monster, I went through withdrawal when the bag was empty. It was such a treat too because I had never tasted yellow ones before. I don't think we get them in Vancouver. And even the green kiwis we buy in Vancouver don't taste the same. I guess I'll have to go back one day....

After lunch and the steal of a deal kiwi purchase we decided it was time to head back into Auckland as the weather was starting to turn on us....by the time we got off the ferry, the sky had opened up and it was raining really hard. This didn't stop us from stopping in at the Gelato shop by the ferries though and buying a couple ice cream cones. Hey, don't judge, it kept us out of the rain and dry!! :) Once the ice cream cones were devoured...OK, it was just me that devoured it, Ziad is good at savouring so I had to sit impatiently and wait, we decided to make use of our day pass and took a ride on the Link-line bus. We took it around its entire route and it was a neat way to see part of the city especially in the rain. We ended the day back at the Middle East Cafe for dinner. :)