Day 36 
This is our first stop since boarding the Astor and the first day we are happy to wear summer clothes again.
We are finding the poor internet on the ship a bit of a problem, so we head to a coffee shop that advertises free Wifi. Excellent coffee! And we manage to get onto Auckland library and change our eBooks. There is a library on the ship, but it is full of tatty old books that passengers have left behind. Thank goodness for eBooks and our iPads! Gray sends emails home too.
We enjoy pottering around the town. It is sparkling clean, trees provide welcome shade and people seem very helpful and cheerful. After delicious strawberries and ice-cream and freshly squeezed orange juice we cross the road to purchase some madeira, hoping that it is nothing like the cheap, rough beverage we drank back in our student days. We trust these purchases will be better! We also spot aged port, which we know will be good and add it to our lot.
We meander back to the ship enjoying the sunshine and warm sea breeze and thinking that this is a lovely place to visit again. We have heard about the beautiful gardens, especially orchids, here.
