Day #6 – Auckland Day #4 – Happy Boxing Day!

Larry Mandelkehr

My Fitbit says that I’ve taken 19,346 (9.51 miles) and climbed the equivalent of 51 flights of stairs. It’s nice to finally be sitting quietly in the house!

After a quick ‘make your own breakfast’ (grilled cheese sandwiches, yogurt, etc), we headed out for the Auckland Zoo. What a great zoo – well laid out, great exhibits, lots of interesting and different animals, lots of zoo staff, cool interactions with some animals and it was not crowded – even though today was a holiday. The zoo minimzed cages so you could more easily see. There were multiple buldings with magnetic locks on vestibules (to keep animals in) so shared common space with many of the animals. Highlights included:

  • Watching the cheetahs getting brushed – acted just like our cat Ringo, rolled on the ground, nuzzled the keepers, etc
  • Seeing both alligator and meerkat meal time – separate times in separate exhibits!
  • Climbing through the tunnels in the old meerkat exhibit (sans meerkats)/ There were at least five segments between 10 and 20 feet long each
  • Seeing the very, very friendly otters (Mommy – what are those animals doing?)
  • Animals we’ve not seen before (or we got to see pretty up close)
    • Kiwi (nocturnal bird – in a really dark building
    • Red pandas – kind of a cross between pandas and foxes
    • Stick insects – imagine sticks between six and eight inches long that have multiple legs and come alive
    • Sumatran tiger – yes, we’ve seen them before, but not this close up
    • Servals – not as big as cheetahs, but big ears and really cute
    • Emus – walking free in a open yard – up close and personal
After the zoo, we tried to find a place for coffee and a snack and discovered that most places are still closed on Boxing Day – back to the Countdown Supermarket (for at least the 3rd time)
Then came the more strenuous activity of the day – hiking to the Mokoroa Falls.
Heather researched waterfalls that met several key criteria – pretty/large, close to Auckland and reasonable close to a road (didn’t want to hike two hours each way!) – and we settled on Mokoroa Falls. After loading up on liquids, we took a very pretty drive about 30 minutes outside Auckland, the last section a ridge, so we had panoramic scenes on both sides. We finally reached the ‘parking area’, grabbed our coats and started walking.

The good news when driving along a ridge is that the scenery is beautiful on both sides. The bad news when driving along a ridge in search of a waterfall is that you’re going to have to hike downhill for a while to find the falls – and then hike mostly uphill to get to the car. The hike to the observation overlook was only 1.3 km (about a mile – and almost all downhill. Only took about 25 minutes, passing multiple groups enjoying the walk back up the hill. Once we got the overlook – the falls we’re really pretty – we saw several folks in the pool at the base of the falls, so…we hiked down about sets of stairs cut into the hill to get to the falls. Luckily a group of four guys hiked down right behind us so we could take pictured of one another (no selfies needed). Heather and Ryan climbed over the rocks to get closer to the falls and Ryan also climbed a large rock (with foot/hand holds provided – whew) and another steep path to get closer to a second waterfall below the observation point. 20 minutes and more than 20 photos later, we started the ascent and hiked back to the cars – according to our Fitbits, the hike back was the equivalent of hiking up about forty sets of stairs.

Heather found a great Japanese restaurant – part of an international chain – she had eaten in one in London when she did her study abroad about ten years ago (see menu at http://www.wagamama.co.nz/our-menu) and the food was wonderful. And I thought that ramen was only available in plastic packs 3/$1.

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