Auckland: Wine Tour and... ANOTHER Zoo?

Note: Parker informed me that his mom, Gina, expressed a desire for more commentary on the photos in our gallery, so I just went in and added some. Feedback appreciated, we aim to please. ;)

Quote of the day: “I just read Butchery as ‘Butt Cherry.’ I was confused.” – Dallas

So, we started our day with breakfast in our hotel's cafe. Dallas's cappuccino was pretty!



Next, we embarked on our ever-so-sophisticated wine-tasting tour , which is amusing because neither of us are really wine-drinkers. We visited three wineries (where we tasted several kinds of award-winning wine), a black sand beach, a café, and a honey shop. We were accompanied by a Russian woman who had just moved here with her husband, her absolutely adorable two-year-old daughter, and her mother. As always, the bulk of the day's pictures can be found by clicking the 'Photos on Flickr' link above, but here are a few to start with:

















After our wine-tasting tour, we decided to go to the Auckland City Zoo, because Dallas had her heart set on seeing a Kiwi. It was an amazing zoo! So beautiful and well-designed. All of the animal habitats felt very open, spacious, and natural. We got to see the Kiwi, but there are no pictures as the exhibit was way too dark. Unfortunately a few of the animals were unavailable because parts of the zoo are undergoing renovations, but we did get to see three young tiger cubs frolicking around! Dallas got some positively stunning pictures of these tigers, and we had some fun frolicking around the Zoo as well. :)























At the Zoo, a guy approached me, told me he was from Indonesia and asked me where I was from, and then asked if he could take a picture with me. So if any of you come across a photo on the internet of me with a random Indonesian dude who does not resemble any of my friends, you can disregard it. ;)

The Zoo closed at 5:30, so we headed to the shop to grab a couple of souvenirs and post cards. After that, we realized that we had taken a cab there, but had only Dallas's cell phone (no pay phone in sight) and no cab phone number. We walked out to the street and discovered that the last tram had left at 4:30. So, we headed out to another street and found a bus, then spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out where it would take us. We eventually caught a bus and made it back to Queen Street in Downtown Auckland.

Dallas is feeling just slightly under the weather (I think she may have caught the little cold I had), so she wanted some spicy Korean soup. We were a little sketched out by some of the hole-in-the-wall places we passed, but I spotted this from the bus and thought it looked promising. And bright green.



We located the nice little creperie that our wine-tasting tour guide had recommended. I got some french onion soup and then we headed back to the room to eat. I got to talk to Parker today, after some phone-card complications, and it was great to hear his voice again. After Dallas and I were done with our dinner, we went back down to the street and each grabbed a dessert crepe. Yum.

We are now winding down for the night. It's raining outside and I'm feeling a little apprehensive, because I'm supposed to drive (with Dallas as my navigator) to Cathedral Cove tomorrow and that was daunting enough without the rain to complicate things! We'll see.

We will conclude this post with a couple of video clips from our time in Sydney:



Thanks for reading! Good night. :)