Friday, August 25, 2006

Saturday 20th August - Back to busy

Well back to the basics, see as much stuff in a day as possible. And boy did we see as much today as we could!

First was the Aquarium, founded by Kelly Tarlton, a dude, who liked fish. We got to see some more penguins, this time really big ones. They were king penguins which can grow to 2m, normally 1.5m so there I knew there was really big penguins and nobody believed me. Even the chicks were about 1m tall. Picture to follow: -





Then we saw some stingrays get fed by a guy named Keith, who told us not to stand on them or they will sting us and he nearly did a lot. To be fair though, the mother was a 2m monster who liked to use her fins to wrap around Keith to sense where he was, not a job for non fish lovers: -
Then we saw some sharks, some eels and some guy feeding tonnes of fish. All very educational.

Big thanks to Liz for our next outing. We did get interrupted by a big 'awareness march' through Auckland but we did end up at Eden Park for the All Blacks V The Wallabies rugby match for the Trinations cup. (That is Nz V Oz for the uninitiated). Quality game seeing the All blacks come from behind to triumph in the last 10 minutes 31 - 27. A superb game: -




We were not finished by a long shot. After a 2 hour fight to get back to the Hostel we legged it up to the SkyCity Tower for a fancy meal at Orbit the revolving restaurant. Quality views all around the city, and gorgeous food and wine, all very pleasant. Not very apt for backpackers but what the hey. Wasn't too 'comfortable' again that high up, but then neither was Liz, only Sarah showed true muscle with the height. None of us showed too much enthusiasm to jump off it with the SkyCity jump though. I much prefer the horizontal speed thing myself. Just so happens we pick our car up tomorrow. But here is a view from the tower: -



The third member is settling in very well, jetlag is supressed and is up for the walking. We will enter a '3rd combatant' piece shortly after she has made her solid impression on the adventure 'Team eh?'. (The Nz-ers say 'eh?' after every sentence be it a question, statement or insult).

Right 90 mile beach and Paihia awaits us along with trucking in our Toyota.

Laters
Pricey, outnumbered, out gunned, and having to pay for everything!

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