end of day Tuesday.

we spent most of the day today on Waiheke Island. Just a 35 minute ferry ride from Auckland but a world away. This is like a get away place for the Aucklanders and some very pricey real estate for those with money.

It is a beautiful little island that has many wineries on it dating back about 20 years. We visited three of the wineries today during our tour and sampled their wines. Two were very small wineries - one owned by a couple from the US - the other one pretty sizeable. Primarily they have grapes to make red wines but are trying other types to see if they will also grow well here.

This little island has nice beaches, lots of good restaurants, art galleries and lots of accommodations. Has a population of 7000 permanent residents alot which work in auckland and commute everyday on the ferry. and over 20 wineries now. It is amazing how you can have wine to sell with only 10 acres of land. one of the wineries also has olive trees so sells olive oils as well.

also we saw cork trees today. I never gave any thought to how cork was made - just assumed it was a man made product. But alas - it is a natural product - like a coat that is removed from the tree and pressed into a mold to form corks and then a new layer forms on the tree again. a perpetual product.

We are having our evening snacks and drinks in the lounge and headed over to the casino shortly.

We will be leaving the hotel in the morning around 11 Am headed to the airport. Our plane departs tomorrow for the states at 2:30 PM from here to Fiji and then Los Angeles before our final destination of dallas. arriving home around 4 PM on Wednesday your time and hopefully will see Neil's smiling face picking us up.

i told ned today i cannot believe it is all over - where did this two weeks go? Took a year to plan and is over too quickly.

Has definitely been a trip of a lifetime and i hope someday to visit all these places again.