With the end of daylight savings upon us, we weren’t quite sure what time it was when we woke. We had plenty of options to choose from – Auckland or Melbourne time, with or without daylight savings. As a result it could have been anywhere between 4.30am and 8.30am. It didn’t seem to make too much difference as we were still getting over our 3.00am start from the previous day.
After breakfast we headed over to Takapuna on foot to get local SIM cards for various iPads and phones at the local Telecom shop. After some trial and one error the iPads were sorted but Chris’s dodgy phone is officially useless given it is locked to the home Telstra network on top of having no signal when at Charman Rd.
The option of coffee and cake sitting in the sun was too good to refuse and after checking out one possible venue that was full and with a queue of people waiting to get in, we moved on and found a shady spot in at another busy cafe. After more people watching and general conversation, we set off down to the main beach where there was much to-ing and fro-ing.
Rolling a light lunch we ventured down to Devonport to reacquaint ourselves with shops and views across the harbour to the city. Unfortunately everyone else had the same idea, making the journey out of Devonport a lengthy crawl in a prolonged traffic jam until we passed the turnoff to the motorway a few kilometres north of the main shopping precinct.
We caught up with family in the afternoon before heading back to Devonport for a wonderful meal and a couple of drinks with Fiona, Derek and their wonderful girls. Much talk centred on travel, food, wine and plans for milestone birthdays. We departed Devonport to find the streets deserted and our journey back unhindered by earlier traffic jams. One quote mentioned during the evening (attributed to a visitor to Auckland many years ago) went along the lines, “I visited Auckland once – it was closed”. This seemed appropriate as we made our way along empty streets with hardly another vehicle in sight.