As in Auckland, I wanted to get out on the water to enjoy the harbor/city views. There is a small town called Days Bay about 40 minutes across the harbor with cafes and little shops. Perfect!

After commuter hours, the ferry only runs every 2 hours. I was able to do laundry this morning (yay!), but the clothes were full of water when the wash cycle supposedly finished. I had to wait for a spin cycle to run, which made me late out the door and I had to hoof it the 15-minute walk along the harbor to catch the 10:00am ferry.

I went up to the top deck to enjoy the views. So very windy!

Once out a ways from the city wharf, the opening to the harbor that goes out to the South Island comes into view. I hear the 3-hour ferry between the two islands is magically beautiful. I keep thinking that I will have to come back to New Zealand. I had the same thought about Costa Rica. So many new countries to visit and yet also so much to explore in some of them individually.

The ferry first stops at Matiu / Somes Island (it has a bilingual name to reflect both Maori and European histories). There are some wildlife walks there and it serves as an educational field trip for local schools.

Once docked in Days Bay, I walked just a little ways from the pier to a breakfast cafe called Cotti for some eggs on toast and a view of the water. I looked up some geocaches and there were two on a street around the corner. I found the first hiding in a tree overlooking a recreational field. It was visible from the street and I could have climbed a fence to retrieve it, which only occurred to me after I’d gone around through an entry in the fence and then leaped across a stream to access the tree. It was kind of a wide jump and I was again thankful I didn’t bork my back up.

From there, the residential street headed uphill. The second cache was at the end of the street and the beginning of a trail hike, or “track” as they’re called here. I just love how geocaching leads me to discover spots like this! I hadn’t planned on hiking today, but the sign said it was only a two-minute walk to the viewing area of a dam. Unfortunately, I neither found the cache as it was hidden at the base of a tree and I wasn’t really feeling the bushwhacking variety of cache hunting, nor could I find which way the track goes: once I entered the forest, both down and up seemed to lead to dead ends, or at least to a hike too difficult for me to take on.

I walked back down the residential street to the other cafe near the pier, Chocolate Dayz, as I’d realized that I was sightseeing’d out. I just wanted to sit and drink a chai latte and look at the water until the ferry came back two hours after I’d landed, so that’s what I did.

The ferry back picked up one of the aforementioned field trips. So. Many. Children. Maybe 6th or 7th graders? High schoolers look like babies to me, so I don’t know. I asked one of them how his time on the island was, and he enthusiastically talked about seeing the empty barracks and the animal quarantine. It was cute and sweet, and I was glad I’d engaged him.

Back in the city, I had one more item on the agenda, and I took it slowly. It was a short and quick walk from the wharf to the cable car (props once again to my planning skills), which goes up to the city’s botanical gardens. Like the Te Papa museum, entry is free!

The cutest little flower mosaic tiles lead visitors along a path through the gardens. There are garden collections along the path, like the fragrant garden and the herb garden, along with bigger “attractions” toward the end like the duck pond, begonia house, and rose garden. I strolled very leisurely, which meant by the time I arrived at the very large rose garden, half of it was in afternoon shadow, which limited the vantages from which to take pretty photos. Once again, I considered that social platforms might have started as a way to share the photos people would be taking anyway and are now drivers of the photos that people take, myself included.

Just on the other side of the rose garden was a nook I hadn’t seen on any signs. A waterfall filled a small duck pond featuring a lantern in the center called the Peace Flame. The story goes that it was lit from the fires started by the bombs the U.S. dropped in Hiroshima, and the lantern was a gift from the Japan Society of New Zealand to Wellington to honor the city’s commitment to being nuclear-free. No surprise, this was my favorite feature of the gardens. I’m looking forward to Japan!

From the gardens, it was a half hour walk back to the listing. I guess I could have taken an Uber but it didn’t occur to me. My legs were tired, but my back was in good shape, and it was a chance to see more of the city.

I wanted to return to the listing before Steve and Karen got home. When they showed me how to use the laundry, they said they hang their clothes rather than use the dry cycle, which is common here. One of my previous listings allowed use of both the washer and dryer, with a $3.00 NZD charge for the dryer. I presume electricity is expensive.

I had divided my dirties into two small loads, one to hang dry, which they knew about, and one to tumble dry, which they didn’t. I was embarrassed at how much laundry I had to do (I just don’t travel light!) and I was afraid they’d be upset that I’d used the dryer, which is ridiculous because they were pretty easygoing and they had showed me how to use the dryer if I needed it (their washer/dryer is a single appliance that does both).

I folded clean clothes and started packing them up, with a very early morning ahead. With my last couple hours in the evening, I walked Cuba Street, a historic and well-known shopping and eating district. Guides call it “bohemian”, but it felt rather commercial to me (not a criticism, it just had a different feel than I’d read about).

There were lots of noodle joints, but I’d be in Bali and Japan soon enough, so I opted for Mexican, which I hadn’t had in NZ yet, at The Flying Burrito Brothers. (I hoped at the time that it was not a chain.. as I’m writing this, I looked it up and it is not 🙂 )

I walked back to my listing and past it around the next corner to a natural foods store called Commonsense. I had $6 NZD in cash left to spend and I wanted airplane snacks. They didn’t have my first choice, trail mix. I could have mixed some dried fruit and nuts from the bulk bins, but I opted for a bar and some more protein balls.

Then back to the listing for some chatting with my hosts and some laptop time. Lights out at 10:30am, not nearly early enough for my 3:30am wake-up.