Monday 9th April 2018 - our last full day in New Zealand.

The day has dawned sunny and bright but the forecast for the South Island is heavy snow!!! It seems the last details of our rearranged trip home have been concluded and we are set for leaving early tomorrow morning, hopefully, if the TD 13F storm over Fiji permits. It may be that the departure of our Air New Zealand flight will be delayed a bit to allow the worst of the storm to pass over Nadi and western Fiji. As we have a longish layover in Nadi, this should not affect our Air Fiji flight to LA. From LA we have a Virgin America flight to New York.

 So, not sure what to do today. MAC is wary of a boat trip so we decide not to go to Waiheke Island and we will leave that for our inevitable return to New Zealand. 

 We were unable to check in on line 24 hours ahead as usual due to the fact that this is a multiple destination international flight, So we decided to walk to the New Zealand Air offices to see if we could check in there. That proved to be not possible either. We caught a bus to Queen Street and walked down towards the water, turned right and found Ika Bowl on the corner of Fort Lane and Snickel Lane. This is a new place, recently opened and featured on TV which serves mostly raw ingredients, fish and vegetables. It is similar to a Poke place in NYC although this is called Polynesian Poke. 
The cutely named 'Snickel Lane'


The new fast food sensation in Auckland, recently featured on TV, Ika Bowl, serves delicious food and soon there is a long line to get in.
We had one bowl with salmon and salad and one vegetable bowl. They were delicious. We sat on stools in Snickel Lane and enjoyed lunch. We did have plans to go up to Mount Eden but a rain shower nixed this so MAC found a gourmet ice cream shop called Giapo on Gore Street where they create these elaborate ice cream designs and sundaes. I was not enamored of the taste of the ice cream which had a strange after-taste but the designs were certainly something.
One of the amazing ice cream designs at Giapo.
Further rain clouds gathered so we walked along the quay past the Holland America Line Noordam which was the day's cruise vessel. There seem to be one vessel per day at the cruise terminal. After a  brief visit to a couple of tourist souvenir shops but no further purchases we returned to the hotel for an afternoon nap in preparation for our dinner at Antoine's Restaurant in the Parnell section of the city. We have heard great things about this place from those we met at Gibbs Farm. There is a dish called 'thrice cooked duck' which gets rave reviews so we are hoping it will be on the menu tonight. News of this last meal in New Zealand, will have to await our return home to New York early morning on Wednesday 11th April.

 Antoine's was amazing and as it was Monday, it was not very crowded so we had great service. I started with a congee with snails and pig's trotter. This may seem to be a rather strange dish but I was intrigued and the dish proved to be very tasty and interesting. The dick as main course was as good as it had been described to us but there was a lot of it!! Even though wiser counsels would have advised against it due to our full stomachs, we couldn't resist the 'Antoine's special bread and butter pudding'. This also proved to be excellent, not too sweet and very tasty. The meal was washed down with an excellent Hawke's Bay, New Zealand red wine, whose name, unfortunately, I cannot recall. This was a super meal which we will remember for some time. The general niceness of the New Zealand people was epitomized by the fact that when our taxi which the restaurant had called for us, overshot the address, the chef and owner of Antoine's ran out into the street to re-direct him to pick us up!!!

 We have not covered all the sights in Auckland but I guess we are a bit tourist-ed out and this city is quite relaxing so maybe we can be forgiven for not giving it our all. We should leave something to do and see, if and when we return.

 We noticed a number of amusing signs while in New Zealand and here are a couple of them
A neat sign for restrooms

Well, I am not sure what this means......!
Our pickup for the airport is at 6.25 a.m. local time in the morning and then we have the long, long trip home.

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