We awoke to a cool sunny morning and after reading the local paper discovered the previous night's thunderstorms had been exceptional. "I've never seen anything like it" reported one Auckland resident of 20 yrs.
A lazy start start catching up with the blog and couple of calls found us leaving the house after 10:00. We had planned to visit Rangitoto island, an extinct volcano in the bay, but on arriving at the ferry terminal discovered there are only three crossings in the morning, two of which we'd missed, and three returns in the afternoon so we decided to leave this for another day. Now unsure of how to spend the day we began mooching around Auckland.
For a large city it has a nice feel about it and manages to successfully blend modern skyscrapers with the original historic buildings. The main street, Queen's Street, contains most of the shops (many of which have already donned their Christmas decorations - Santa with reindeer in palms, weird) and food outlets and was buzzing with people. Whilst looking for somewhere to lunch we found an Irish pub with a bar staff from Bristol serving roast dinners and craft beer - who could resist, much to Yvonne's chagrin, but who was swung over with the thought of yorkshires.
Appetite's sated we set off for the museum. The sun was now high in the sky warming the day considerably so the climbs through the two parks became hot work. The museum sits atop another extinct volcano, apparently Auckland is built on eleven of them, and the view from the top overlooking the bay drew us to sit and admire for a while.
Finding the museum charged an entrance fee to 'international visitors' that we considered too high we returned to the view and watched a couple with three young children trying, unsuccessfully, to manage the tantrums, teasing and tiredness and eventually falling out themselves. Ah the joys of parenthood!
The museum is set in a large park, which we then set about exploring. On discovering a guy setting up some football goals we lay on the grass in the sunshine hoping to be entertained by 14 enthusiastic youngsters tearing around after a ball. Instead we watched the same guy slowly prepare another 5 pitches and ultimately decided the winter gardens offered a better prospects.
The gardens comprised two glasshouses, one hot one cool, and a collection of ferns - the New Zealand speciality. Both houses were busy with people snapping photographs and Yvonne set about recording the entire collection with verve. She was particularly pleased to be able to identify a peony to a local.
By now it was getting late in the afternoon and we'd booked tickets to see the new James Bond film. We had just enough time to squeeze in a visit to a frozen yoghurt cafe and learned from the information leaflet that it is so healthy for you - at least compared to ice cream. We may have to return.
The film was in Imax giving Yvonne the opportunity to admire a giant sized Daniel Craig for over two hours - heaven.
The 'busy' city centre |
Brits on holiday |
View from the museum |
Glenn seeing what dreadlocks are like |
Another busy street |
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