Before our drive back to Auckland, we wanted to stop at nearby Oppie's for its regional award-winning Fish and Chips. Interestingly, half of the place was a Chinese takeout. It was tasty, cooked in vegetable oil, but probably not as good as the ones we had in England and Ireland.
We then took our time driving up to Auckland because it
was raining and we had no real plans before our flight later at night. Once in downtown Auckland, we were hoping to do a few things: find a laundrette to dry some of our clothes, find a good place to eat, preferably Chinese, check out some souvenir shops and if we had time, the Auckland casino. We kind of did it all. After drying our clothes, we spent about an hour looking for a decent Chinese restaurant on the main road called Queens. After no luck finding the restaurants we had in mind, we finally settled for this food court Chinese stand, where we had a vegetable dish with rice. After our meal, which, surprisingly, wasn't bad, we split up with plans to meet at the car. I went to look for some souvenir shops, but instead ended up just wandering. Theresa took a brief walk through the casino, which was the largest in New Zealand. No time to actually sit down and play. We ended up buying some souvenirs just minutes before our Air New Zealand flight to Rarotonga, Cook Islands.
Our flight was just four hours, enough to watch one and a half movies. Upon arriving at Rarotonga, we were surprised to see a guy singing in the airport to greet all of us at three in the morning. Our host, Rachel from Makayla Palms, was there to pick us up from the airport and drive us to the villa. We decided to stay at Makayla Palms because of an unheard of 98% recommended rating on Trip Advisor. It was like 75 excellent reviews and 5 very good ones. Definitely lived up to expectations. It was our biggest (upgraded to a two bedroom villa) and one of the best places we have stayed at on this trip. The whole villa was pretty modern, just three years old, and would be perfect to live long-term. Unfortunately, just four days for us.
For pictures of the day, go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=eric.chang1&target=ALBUM&id=5411900853951886081&authkey=Gv1sRgCObVje6w15fb3wE&feat=email
No comments:
Post a Comment