Our last morning at the Farmstay started with poached eggs for breakfast, straight from the farm! We packed up and were on the bus by 9.30am, and headed off to Auckland in pouring rain. We have been very thankful for the weather, as it hasn’t really prevented us from doing anything. The times the rain has been heaviest has been while we have been travelling between locations (although not so great for Luke driving…).

We arrived in the city by midday, and took a wrong turn to end up taking the scenic route over the “Harbour Bridge” before we found our accommodation.

We went straight there to drop off our bags even though official check-in time wasn’t until 3pm. Only one of our three rooms was ready, and we found it to be much smaller than we expected, so Beck put her assertive voice back on, spoke to management and managed to get all three rooms upgraded for another $25!! 🎉 The size difference means we can open our suitcases on the floor of the bedrooms, can sit at the dining table to eat, and can congregate to watch the World Cup final tonight 👍

While they were preparing our new rooms, we went to find some lunch and explore the city. We stopped at Wendy’s for lunch because the cousins had never tried it (mixed reactions, we probably won’t hurry back there…), and then walked up to Albert Park. On the way back to the hotel we discovered a Dunkin Donuts for afternoon tea and a souvenir shop (which turned out to be even more expensive than some of the tourist attraction gift shops we’ve explored!).

We also discovered on the opposite corner from our accommodation (called Barclay Suites) a pub whose claim to fame was that it is NZ’s oldest microbrewery, The Shakespeare Brew Pub. The boys went to try the beers there while we showered the kids and put some washing on, and discovered kids eat free on a Sunday night, so we all piled in there for dinner! And now it is time for World Cup cricket on Sky Sports and the card game Kaboo before bed and our last full day in NZ.