We had no concrete plans today, which was nice. We headed to the eastern side of the island today until the road ended. After parking, we took a tramping track toward the Stony Batter Historic Reserve. It is the site of a former tunnel/bunker system and gun emplacements from WWII, when the possibility of Japanese invasion seemed more real. Nowadays, however, it is the site of wineries and sheep.
The tunnels can evidently be visited on a tour, but as it is the offseason, they were not open today. We could still access the reserve area and tramp around the site amongst the sheep whilst taking in the views of the surrounding hills and coastline.
Someone painted eyes and teeth on one of the hillside boulders, which I thought was a nice addition. I do hope it doesn’t scare the sheep too much, though. The weather here is wildly unpredictable. It was fairly clear initially this morning, then became a thick fog, then it cleared for a bit for some sun, which turned to a crisp overcast while we were tramping around the hills. After a successful tramp around the countryside, we drove back to our Air BnB for some leftovers and snacks for lunch.
After regrouping, we went back into the “big city” of Oneroa to do a bit of shopping. I got a t-shirt with a kiwi bird spinning vinyl on it, as they are oft known to do. Since the kiwi is a nocturnal bird, scientists have found it difficult to prove that their beaks aren’t designed specifically for turntables. Either way, after briefly losing our line-of-sight on Joelle due to a high clothes rack, we walked down to Oneroa Beach at low tide as the sun was going down. The large rocks on the beach caught some of the sun’s waning light.
We then began a long debate as to where to get dinner. As it was a Monday, everything is evidently closed except for a lone Italian restaurant called Fenice. That is to assume that Nicole’s research was actually correct. Sometimes she just likes to lead us all to Italian food. But of the many restaurants we saw in “bustling” Oneroa, the Italian one did actually appear to be the only one open. Shout out to the Too Fat Buns burger joint that was unfortunately closed. We hardly knew ye.
This is our last night in New Zealand, so we attempted to do some laundry and get organized for our flight to Tahiti tomorrow. It will be numerous steps to get back to the airport considering we are currently on an island. We will have to take the ferry back to Auckland and Uber our way from there. It is a bit confusing because we will actually go back in time as we fly east and end up landing in Tahiti a day earlier than when we left. While we get an entire day back, it does require that we pay for lodging for the night of the 24th . . .twice. Wish us luck.
passports & pepto bismol 