Harbour Tour

We are at home today catching our tails, as we were busy yesterday. But I will start from Monday evening, when Linsley and I went to a Rotary meeting at the Waipuna Hotel, which is just an 8 minute walk along the lagoon pathway from Margi and Andy's home. As it was pouring with rain at 5:30pm Margi dropped us off at the hotel, where we were warmly greeted by the Rotarians from the Pakuranga Club. We had a drink while standing around, then went in to a public dining room for a delicious buffet. After 1/2 an hour or so we all went off to another room, where the actual Rotary meeting took place. The guest speaker was very interesting as he is one of the directors of the largest dairy co-op in New Zealand, and they export all over the world. He is also the president of World Vision in New Zealand. The club is about 80 strong, but there seem to be very few women amongst the members. As the rain had stopped during the evening we walked back home afterwards.

On Tuesday Andrew Raine came to fetch us just before 10 as he had to go through to Auckland to see a customer, and he dropped us off at the harbour. Our Andy had organised for us to go on a 'Ports of Auckland' tour which is free for ratepayers. A huge catamarang took us into and out of all the little bays and sections of the harbour, and a lady gave a running commentary and history of the whole harbour. It was most interesting, and took about an hour. The weather was very iffy although it did not rain, but there was quite a big swell and it was windy so it felt good and clean and fresh. Just one of the small sailing craft harbours in the main harbour holds about 1900 craft! There must be millions of yachts and little boats in and around Auckland. It is truly called City of the Sails.

Afterwards we walked along to the station at Britomart where we caught a free link bus which goes round the city continously throughout the day. We got off up the hill and walked to the main library, which we wanted to go back to, having been so impressed by it on our previous visit. On the ground floor there is a coffee shop, the chinese books, many other books, and a huge selection of DVD's and music discs. On the fist floor it is just crowded with books, and up on the second floor is an archive section and their offices etc. It is all really nice, and there are hundreds of chairs around - some comfy ones in which to just sit and read, and many in front of desks which ran the entire length of the building, and which were all filled with people working on their laptops. We wandered around for a while, then each chose a book and just sat and read there for a couple of hours.

After some fish and chips we took the bus back down to the station, and caught the train out to Sylvia Park, where Margi fetched us at about 4:30. We then went to fetch Logan at his school and had a good dinner at home - as always cooked beautifully by Andy. Logan has a splinter in one of his feet, and he wont let us take it out. We have put zambuc on it to try to get it to soften, and Margi has tried to extract it when he is sleeping, but he is far too quick for us!