Our last full day...

Melissa here. =) So instead of going to the super short over priced horseback riding tour, we slept in late and spent our last full day in New Zealand on the top of a very tall mountain.

We went out for our first meal of the day... Lunch. Gotta love those days. We had our usual conversation... "What do you want to eat?" "I don't know. What do you want?" "Anything is fine." Which lead us to a cafe called Vudu Cafe. Chris said it was the best tasting and satisfying breakfast we've had. He was right. He had pancakes with blueberries and I had french toast with fruit. Yummy.

Then we headed toward the gondola whose top sits 790m above sea level. The bottom is very close to the city. At the top, they have what they call "The Skyline Luge." You're basically on a little go cart type thing on a pretty steep course strategically placed just a foot or two from the edge of a cliff. :) 790 m above sea level flying around on a little plastic seat with wheels coming very close to the edge of the plateau??? Are you crazy??? After much convincing from Chris, we bought our tickets for 2 to ride the gondola and 2 trips down the luge each. But it was fun, I must admit. I'm not one for high speed adventures (unless strapped into a roller coaster type apparatus) so I was riding the breaks most of the time.

After the luge it was around 2pm and we got nice frozen packaged dessert and took a walk around the observation level and souvenir shop. We were debating to get tickets to the Kiwi Haka performance. 30 minute show for $30 each and 3 hours away. Do we sit around and wait or go back down to town and catch a movie or something. I thought it was a once in a lifetime thing to watch this show. When are we ever going to be back to New Zealand? But the Chris said they do this show at the Polynesian center in Hawaii and that Marielle knew how to do it too. We agreed to go back down into town and watch it next time we're in Hawaii (which would be a lot sooner and easier than coming back to NZ).

Once again we got distraced by shops. By the time we got to the theater, we had missed all show time by at least 30 minutes and the next weren't showing for 3 or 4 hours. So we did more shopping and had an early dinner at Winnie's Restaurant and Bar. We had a half Moroccan Lamb half Trio something (steak, ham, and mushroom). Interesting. Our waitress had an American accent and we couldn't help ourselves but to ask her where she was from. She said she was from Florida taking a year off after graduation to tour the world. 1.5 months in Figi and 1.5 in New Zealand so far. We gave her a nice tip considering they don't normally tip in NZ.

Roamed around the shops some more then to their local grocery to get some edibles to bring back for our coworkers.... and some ice cream for us. We went back to the hotel and ate ice cream and watched Raiders of the Lost Ark. They have a lot of US movies and sitcoms on their tv.

Tomorrow we go home. =/

Wiper Count: 45 and 1