New Zealand - 25th Oct 2008 - Day 2

The wind and rain had been keeping us awake during the long night. Jet lag had kept us awake for some of the night. At 3am we watched BBC news over a cuppa. At 6am we woke up properly and had breakfast at 7.30am but not before taking some photo's from our view of a very surreal looking Auckland Tower. The cloud was low enough to touch the top mast and the pink lighting gave the whole tower a strange look.





The boats opposite our room looked great in the dawn light.



The rain was not too heavy so we decided to take the car to a local aquarium, given a good write up in the Lonely Planet guide to Auckland.

On the way to the Aquarium the clouds grew blacker and the heavens opened. It threw down rain for half an hour. We arrived at the Aquarium which was OK, but not as wonderful as we had expected. They have a large indoor penguin enclosure with water, snow etc. The under water walkway was good fun. They have some large sharks in the tanks including a brown one.


The penguins were quite large but our favourites were the tanks of sea horses.

When we came out, John realised he had left the car lights on. Yes, the battery was flat!!

Luckily we had the mobile, so John called the rental company who dispatched a chappie to jump start the car. we had decided earlier to change the car due to a number of noise issues.

We went to the car rental offices and, after a long wait and a cup of coffee, were given our replacement car. It's identical in make and model but this one only has 156,000 miles on the clock and is much less noisy.

We brought the car back to the hotel, changed and headed for the tourist info office in order to find some good local walks. Walking is a good way to get over jet lag (according to Fiona).

We chose our walk and headed off. The weather was now not so good with frequent heavy showers. we walked through the local park, via the huge University campus and up to Mount Eden, which had wonderful views over the city. Well they would have been wonderful had it not been for the heavy rain and strong winds!!

We headed back to the City visited a few shops and returned back to the hotel in the pouring rain.

We had walked for four hours and the jet lag was not so bad. Well done Fiona!!

We rested, watched the city and the rain from our huge windows and then dressed for dinner. We had decided on a local Indian restaurant.

The restaurant was on the Quay front but it was not that good. The waitor was on another planet and the Chicken Tikka Massala we had was very hot and not that flavoursome.

Still, the beer and wine was good!!

We watched a horror movie, called Shutter, in bed and drifted of to sleep.