Saturday 26th April 2014
When we arrived in Auckland many moons ago, all we really saw was the airport hotel. Last night we had a room (in the Quality Hotel, Parnell, Auckland) with a really spectacular view of Auckland by night. We have one day left to explore this huge city of 1.4 million inhabitants.
We started our last day with a fascinating morning in Auckland’s War Memorial Museum. The New Zealand museums really are excellent. Unexpectedly we spent a very happy hour looking at about 100 superb wildlife photos which made the final of the BBC Wildlife Magazine annual photography competition. We didn’t always agree with the judges’ choice of category winner but deciding on our choices for winners was half the fun.
We then spent another couple of hours looking at the exhibitions on Maori culture and the military history of New Zealand. There was so much more that we didn’t have time for . . .
Then a fantastic trip up (initially to the 52nd then the 60th floor) of the famous Auckland Sky Tower (a really lovely treat from Sian, Sian and Michael). The views were panoramic (photo at the top of this post) and gave us a much better idea of the geography of the city, including its volcanic hills, bays and the port.
Tomorrow we fly out of Auckland airport, but only as far as Fiji!
However I suspect that it will be the end of the blog entries for a little while . . .