Back at the hostel I woke Matt up (he thought he was ill but i have a feeling it's just man flu) and we showered and had a breakfast of eggs and English muffins and bacon (leftovers from last nights tea). We also used the leftover sausages for our sarnies for lunch. All packed up and prepared for a day of exploring we set off into town and first found a second hand book shop to try and sell our Australia book. They didn't want it there either though. Instead we walked round the corner and found that the general post office had free wifi. We took advantage of this and booked our hostel for Auckland.
With our jobs half done we started the touristy stuff, using the Australia book to do a walking tour of the city. We started at central station and walked through memorial statue park which was lovely. The sun had come out as well making all the trees look extra pretty. We ended up walking back past the post office to St Stephens cathedral with some lovely lawned gardens being used by suits to sit in and have an early lunch. The walk took us along beside the river to the botanic gardens which I thought were more like a public park with some modern planting. By this point it was lunch time (the walk actually took us a while) so we sat on a bench in the gardens and started eating our sandwiches. All was going well (the sausages were tasty) until some birds got a little too close and looked like they wanted to attack us. We knew that magpies are known to do this in Australia (cyclists wear plastic long things on their helmets for protection) so both of us got rather afraid, packed up our sandwiches very quickly and ran away to another part of the park. We found a nice spot of grass and managed to eat our food in peace.
From the gardens, we headed along the river further to a lovely bridge which I had crossed this morning. I bragged a little too much about my run (I was proud!) which I think made Matt a little jealous meaning he was planning on joining me tomorrow morning. When over the bridge we walked along the south bank parklands, passing the man made beach with funky water features and a beautiful walkway leading us to a little rainforest walk and on to the Nepal peace pagoda. We took our time along here and finally reached the museum of modern art at around half 3. This wasn't the end of the walking tour but the last bit took us back over the river and into the centre again which we didn't want to do. Instead we went into the art museum as it was free. I'm not the best with modern art and from the first exhibit I was unimpressed. It was stupid things that I didn't think of as art. Other rooms had some nice stuff in and I didn't give up straight away but even Matt got bored in the end so we explored the shop as that had some cool gadgets in it. We then realised the art gallery had free wifi so we sat on a bench out the front and uploaded some pictures and sent some messages.
It was around half 5 when we set off for the west end again. We wanted to eat out as it was our last night in Australia and we thought the west end would have the nicest and cheapest places. Restaurants weren't astronomical but we compromised and ended up with a dominoes pizza each for $5 so that we could go for a drink afterwards. We took our very cheap pizzas and headed back to south bank parklands to sit in deck chairs and eat our food whilst people watching. From there we walked barely 100 metres to a nice looking bar and bought a jug of beer which came to the same price as our meal we'd just had! We drank and planned our New Zealand trip, deciding that getting a car would be the best and coolest idea.
We took our time and when it started to get late we walked back to the hostel which was around half an hours walk away. It was quite chilly so we walked quick and climbed in bed, thankful that we had blankets.
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