NZ- Friday, 1/7

Friday, 1/7- Best Western BK, Auckland

My cycling shirt will eventually wear out, as will my new All Blacks shirt and my kangaroo leather hat. But my final souvenir, that will last forever.

When we awoke we went in to super-mega clean mode on the inside of Captain Slow, getting him as empty of gray water, full of fresh water, and cleaned of all things dirty as we could. Along with that we packed all of our things into something, anything to make the transfer to hotel as quick and easy as possible.

Then it was off to Auckland in one big, four-hour hop, stopping only to pee, put a snack together, and be sure the propane tank was full. We figured on dropping the Captain off a little early so that we could have a little more time.

Not so much. We had told the company when we picked up Captain Slow that we would drop him off at 3:30. We arrived at 2:00. No one was there. We called and luckily only had to wait twenty minutes for the guy. It was the same one that brought us the camper. He remembered us when we mentioned visiting Sheep World. He took us to the motel.

We checked in and then set about finding a decent tattoo shop. The bus ride in to Auckland main, Plan A, would have taken over an hour. Fail. Plan B appeared in the form of Nesian Tattoo, a studio quite literally two minutes walk from our room. Hooray. And the shop looked clean. Hooray. And the portfolios were really good. Hooray. And they had an opening, no waiting. Hooray. Cash in hand took a seat and got matching silver ferns on the outside of our left forearm/wrist. They are small, only an inch and a half or so long and maybe an inch wide at the thickest point and will be easy to cover. Left side because that's the wedding ring side. Same stencil. I think they are the perfect honeymoon souvenir.

Dinner was a short walk away at a Greek/Italian/Indian place called The Bar and Baa. Good food, shaky service.

We're now in the room trying to make everything we bought *cough seventeenkilosofyarn cough* fit in to our bags. Well, she is. She's better at it and I'd be in the way.

We don't want to go.

Oh yeah, the guy who did our ink was a big Samoan named Joe. My tiki was done by Joe, the shark on my ribs was done by JoeJoe. Moral- Guys named Joe become tattoo artists. He was very cool but it was a trip to listen to him talk because the voice that came out of him was not the voice we are used to hearing out of guys that look like him. Big Samoan at home means heavy pidgin. Here? Soft-spoken with that wonderful Kiwi accent.

Our flight is at 10am and we need to arrive three hours early. Early night tonight then (in a real bed! Yay!) and early morning tomorrow. Like I said before, we don't want to go.