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Hilton Auckland, North Island, New Zealand

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Kiwi word of the day: Kiwi – A New Zealander. Named after the national bird, the kiwi. Not to be confused with the fruit bearing the same name.

Today we spent time wandering around the city in almost perfect weather. 20C degrees, mostly sunny and a light breeze whenever it got too warm. We started the day quite late, as the kids were a bit jetlagged from Australia. It is a 2.5 hour time difference from Adelaide. We took a bus to the Domain, a big green park on a hill not too far from our hotel. The park hosts the Auckland Museum, where we spent a few hours.

We started off with “weird and wonderful”, an exhibit for kids with lots of touch and play items. We then learned a bit about the area’s natural history and wildlife. Turns out that up to 100 years ago there was a huge flightless bird roaming NZ called the Moa. It was so big that an ostrich looked like tweety bird compared to it. The museum had a lifelike replica standing over 3 meter high. We also learned a bit about the Maoris, NZ’s native people who have been here for a thousand years. The highlight was a performance by 6 Maoris, warriors and ladies wearing the traditional garb, singing in Maori, and performing the “haka”, a famous war dance. During the dance, they stick out their tongues and enlarge their eyes in order to scare the enemy. Shir was a bit scared but found renewed confidence in my lap.

We ambled back into the city center through the domain park and took in the new sights. Different trees, flowers, birds, and even people. Many immigrants from Asia and the pacific islands (Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, etc… ). Ron and I had a sushi snack while the girls were napping. Later we ate some Korean food that was surprisingly tasty even for Paola, who normally prefers more European fare.

We walked the blocks around Queen Street, the main tourist strip and reached the Sky Tower. Ron really wanted to go up, so we paid the exorbitant $28 per adult (luckily the kids are free) to get up to 220m and take in stupendous views of the city. As New Zealand is the adrenaline rush capital of the world (bungee was invented here), the tower also has a free fall facility for daring tourists. They get thrown off at 190m and freefall (connected with cables) to street level. All the others get to see from inside.

We returned to the hotel before dark and ordered a pizza delivery from Hell. Yes, that’s the name of the pizza chain (www.hell.co.nz). The view from our balcony is spectacular. We are right on the water and can see both downtown and the northern neighborhoods.

Tomorrow at noon the RV company is picking us up and we start living like gypsies again.

Good night,

-Hemi

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 1st, 2007 at 4:19 am and is filed under Big Trip, New Zealand. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.