Last few days in Auckland

Lee in awe as a huge short tailed stingray passes over his head. Lucky the ray feeding time at 1pm doesn't include small children.


His catch phrase is "Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles..." in Finding Nemo but here he is happy enough swimming about with Dory, not pictured.


Sky Tower dwarfs everything in Auckland... actually it dwarfs every building in the southern hemisphere!

Lee, Rachael, Cath and Alan enjoying the evening light at Devonport in Auckland. Alan and Cath live in this great place with sea all around.

For some people the view from the Sky Tower just isn't good enough. The wind in your hair, the sound of distant cars, the feeling of freedom, oh ye and the plummeting 220m to the ground onto a tiny speck of a landing pad.

Lee and Rachael with the view of Auckland behind them. Scared of heights? These aren't nervous grins at all!?

The City of Sails
The next morning we started on the task of selling our beloved car, our Nissan Primera who had taken us all over New Zealand...

First job was to give it a good clean, not only the outside but the inside also. Just down the road was a do it yourself car cleaning centre where we vacuumed the inside and Rachael took great delight in using the jet powered car wash! - Washing herself as well as the car so that both came out gleaming in the end!

Next task was to print out the advert we had created, since Al and Cath do not as yet have a printer this meant going into the City to find an Internet outpost. We negotiated the traffic and parked downtown. The City was bustling with people, cars and buses a little overwhelming after the peace, quiet and solitude we had experienced on our road trip. Still we found a site and printed off some copies, putting one up in a backpackers on our way back to Al and Cath's in the suburb of Epsom. The noticeboard was covered with advertisements for cars..our hearts sank...

Back at the house Rachael found an Internet backpackers site that had a notice board where we could advertise the car also. We still had some posters to put up but we now had to wait and see.

Wednesday dawned another fine and sunny day, we were in limbo. Last night we had received a text from a guy wanting to come see the car tonight! He'd seen the ad on the Internet!

We put another ad up in a local supermarket and spent the rest of the day relaxing in the house, monitoring the phone and email. Mid day and we had two more email enquiries for the car! One of which asked if she too could come take a look at the car this evening!

6pm and the first guy came and took a look at the car. 8pm a young lady came to take a look. Both were really positive but we were not holding our breathes, there were many cars for sale out there and I feared that our broken electronic windows would be a sticking point.

Thursday, another fine day, we aimed to put more adverts for the car in local backpackers today but while getting ready the phone rang.... it was the young lady who came to view the car last night, she wanted to put in an offer for the car! Although her first offer was a little low we soon negotiated a good price for it! $1250, that's $100 more than we originally paid back in January! Wahoo!

Harmony, our buyer, would be coming later this afternoon to collect the car, we now had a free day! We sent a few items home via the post and then relaxed.

Later that afternoon Harmony arrived, we sorted the paper work and soon she was driving off and we were waving away our "home" for the last 2 and a half months! It was a great feeling to have sorted it all and sold the car.

We celebrated by going for a swim in the local pool while Al and Cath went to the gym. =)

Another beautiful day dawned with Friday, we had no worries, we'd posted our stuff home and sold the car, we were free to enjoy Auckland, the City of Sails and we decided to visit Kelly Tarlton's Aquarium and Antarctic Experience.

Having no car and it being a lovely day we decided to walk to Mission Bay where the aquarium is set in an underground bunker. It was quite a long walk but we felt good for doing it and within 2 hours we were at the centre.

First we walked through a replica of Scott's Antarctic base and learnt a little about the exploration of Antarctic, we peered through some windows nearby and looked out onto the Penguin enclosure, we next went on a short ride in snow cats through this enclosure. King and Gentoo Penguins were standing on the ice and snow, jumping into the clear blue water of a 3m deep pool. We could see them zipping through the water through see-through panels, flying through the water with streams of bubbles coming from their feathers. Then they would shoot up out of the water and back onto the ice =) They were fabulous to watch.

The next section was Stingray Bay, and in a large tank numerous, very large Stingrays swam, splashing around the edges and gliding over the sandy bottom.We watched the stingray and other large fish in the rank being fed, although the stingray were not too hungry this time.

Next was a large aquarium with a tunnel running through, as in Napier's Aquarium, where you can watch fish, rays, sharks and this time even a small turtle swimming around and above you.
The final section had a number of small tanks, one had examples of wildlife in New Zealand's rocky shores including some of the largest crayfish we have seen! The others contained exotic fish such as Lion Fish, Piranhas and Nemo!

Back in the blinding sunshine and we started the long walk home. It took a little while longer and we were pretty tired, with sore feet by the time we got back.

Saturday, our final weekend in New Zealand. The plan originally had bee to join Al and Cath in a trip to the Coromandel. However as the morning progressed into afternoon and still no sign movement, that plan was soon we abandoned. Still we took a walk up the volcano, Mt St John, behind the house and on returning went into the City with Al and Cath.

Once more the City was bustling, but we were able to get a few bits and pieces that we need for the rest of our trip.

Sunday and it was another bright and beautiful day. Al however showed no signs of moving from the computer and Cath needed to go and do some work.
On returning, much to our relief, Cath declared that it was too nice to be indoors and she proposed a walk on a nearby beach. We jumped at the chance and even Al dragged himself from the computer to join us. We drove to a beach in Devonport, another suburb of Auckland, and walked along the waters edge in the glowing afternoon sunshine. Aucklanders were out in force enjoying the autumn warmth and sunshine, sailing, swimming and having BBQs.

At the end of the beach we climbed yet another extinct Auckland volcano called North Head. We climbed its grassy banks and on reaching the top looked out on a wonderful panoramic view. Rangitoto, Auckland's youngest volcano, rose up in the calm, blue waters of the harbour, and on the other side the City's landscape spread across the horizon, its skyline dominated by the Sky Tower.

We climbed down and returned to the car, we then returned in the evening light across harbour bridge to the house, the lights of the City started to twinkle as dusk came.

Monday, and yet another beautiful Autumn day. Once more we were determined to make the most of it and so caught the bus into the city, which was again bustling with people. We escaped the crowds and went up the Sky Tower, at 328m its the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. The top viewing deck afforded wonderful views of the City of Auckland. Numerous green mounds of long gone volcanoes rose up like small oasis in a sea of buildings, the blue water of the harbour shimmered in the bright sunshine, we could even see just how far we had walked to get to Kelly Tarlton's the other day!

We even watched some crazy folk jump off the 220m high platform attached between two. parallel lines.
On returning to solid ground we caught the bus back to the Epsom and enjoyed a relaxed afternoon before cooking a roast as thank you to Al and Cath for letting us stay.

Well that's it, just a couple more days and we fly to South Africa ready to join the Imaginative Traveller Northern Quest tour from Cape Town to Victoria Falls. Through South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and into Zimbabwe we will travel over the next 3 weeks. Internet access will be limited and so this is the last blog entry for a while! My goodness how will you all cope! Do not worry a full account of our African adventures will be given once we return... so till then! We look forward to seeing you all when we return!