Day 12 - Celebrity Traitors Finale and Waiheke Island

The time difference meant that the Celebrity Traitors final started at 10am for me - a perfect watch with my breakfast mango smoothie. Being able to watch was a victory for my VPN (if you are reading this BBC, I have paid my TV licence, so this seemed fair…). I did not see that result coming, but I shall keep this a spoiler free zone.

As I remain 100% faithful to sightseeing, as soon as it had finished I walked down to the harbour and caught the ferry over to Waiheke Island. Waiheke is apparently known as being one of the sunniest places in New Zealand, which I guess explains the quantity of beaches and vineyards.

Right from getting off the ferry, the views were pretty idyllic.

I had booked the Hop-on-hop-off bus (We have another HoHo!) with my ferry so hopped on and got an introduction to the island on my way to Oneroa village. This lovely village had a number of restaurants - including a seafood restaurant overlooking the ocean where I had my fish-burger lunch - as well as a nice beach with a fun geocache nearby and water definitely warm enough for a paddle.

The very well scheduled HoHo then took me on a tour of some of the vineyards and wineries of the island. There are a LOT of vineyards and wineries! I chose to get off at the next big beach though at Onetangi and had a wander before completing the HoHo loop and going back to the ferry terminal.

It was then back to the city in the early evening and back to my apartment. My plan was to sort my laundry and packing and to have a swim in the re-opened pool, but I have realised that I am actually very tired and have quite a bit of sorting to do ahead of parkrun and my hotel check-out tomorrow, so might have to pass on the swim.

I meet up with my Intrepid tour group tomorrow, so it promises to be another big day!

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