Charis: Before we knew it we were back in Auckland for the last week of our trip. We were staying with friends (one of whom is a fellow radiologist) in Mt Eden, a neighbourhood formed around a small dormant volcano just south of the city centre. It was lovely to see them both after a year and see how they were settling to their new home halfway across the world!
Mt Eden was a really fun neighbourhood to walk around with lots of fun coffee shops, an excellent tea and book shop and even a vegan patisserie that we went to for brunch.
A short steep walk up the volcano led us up to some incredible 360 views over the city and the sea beyond – Auckland is pretty cool in that it’s basically built on a thin strip of land between two bays, so is almost entirely surrounded by sea.
I spent an evening visiting another radiologist, a previous educational supervisor of mine, who’d been out in Auckland for the past 5 years. It was great to catch up with him, having a good walk around the city centre and grabbing cocktails at the Queens Rooftop Bar. I also got to wear my newly completed crochet jumper!
Derek: I had reached out to some members of the University of Auckland Space Institute as they use GNU Radio for some of their radio systems. They were quite welcoming and invited me to tour their engineering labs and satellite operations center. They have a student makerhub where students are building their own satellite, having already launched one in 2020.
We spent a day in the city centre exploring, found more tasty coffee at Pink Neon Sign, and looked into Weta Cave. We skipped the Weta experience as we’d gone to the one in Wellington, though in hindsight it still probably would have been interesting as the exhibits are entirely different.
Charis: We visited Revive Cafe for lunch, a lovely little hippie cafe with a selection of delicious stews and daals. We also decided to grab a massage after all our hiking and before our very long trip home, and stopped at Aroma Massage for a little bit of pre-trip luxury.
That evening Derek had organised a surprise for us. Alas, whilst walking around town earlier that day we’d seen loads of banners advertising the Lord of The Rings musical so I’d managed to catch on! We nipped to Gorilla Kitchen for some very speedy burgers before heading to the theatre.
Honestly, it was incredible. In a very interesting move there was no orchestra pit and the actors playing the main cast also played all the instruments! Definitely gave a fun vibe at various points such as Bilbo’s birthday party but was a bit strange seeing Pippin whip out his cello (complete with a neck rest so he could move around!) when they were headed for Isengard!
Apparently they are headed to the UK in October and are showing at the Lyric in Plymouth!
Our last evening we headed out with our hosts and a visiting cousin to Dice and Fork, a fun games cafe, for a game of Munchkin. Board game cafes are my happy place, so this was a fabulous last night in the city.
And then, one last drive to the airport for our flight back home. Our month in New Zealand really was incredible and honestly one of the most beautiful places I have ever had the pleasure of visiting. It’s an absolute paradise for hiking and the people were so friendly. We definitely ended our trip on a high.
