More on Auckland

If you haven't read the first part of Auckland.. do so first. There's a lot to read, this week should be pretty boring so you can take your time.

After crashing early on Saturday, we woke up at 8:30 for a quick breakfast and were on the way to Rangitoto Island. Rangitoto was the last active volcano in the area, erupting 600 years ago to form the island. Its uninhabited and protected by the government. We took a ferry over and hiked to the summit. The peak is 259 meters and it takes about an hour to walk. I underestimated the amount of physical work this would be. Luckily we wore our walking shoes. The view at the top was spectacular. The sun was shining again and we could see the city, other islands, the harbor bridge, and lots of water. We walked around the crater and headed back down. The ferry only runs three times a day so we sat on a bench and rested by the water for a while. It was perfect.

City skyline from the ferry
At the top with the city behind me
More islands:)
Hiking back down. It was a beautiful trail, and thankfully well shaded!
Me with Rangitoto in the background... I was at the very top!

After getting back into Auckland at 1:30 we grabbed Subway before the Santa Parade. Melissa is one of the pickiest eaters I know, we had to go with something familiar. The parade was unique, different than any I've ever been to. It seemed to be a mix of Christmas and Halloween. Instead of buisnesses having floats, they were groups of people, mostly children, either performing, or playing music, or just dressed up in crazy costumes. There were also cartoon characters and huge balloons. They figured 150,000 to 200,000 people would attend. It was fun to watch although we kept moving along the route so we could stay in shade. Kinda weird watching Santa and toy soldiers when its 85 and sunny.

Kiwi's playing a Christmas medly

No Christmas parade would be complete without the Grinch

We spent the rest of the day walking around the city. We found the Victoria Park Markets where I bought a few souviners. There are parks everywhere. The hiking, walking, and sun wore us down and we went back to shower and nap before finding some dinner. We ended up at a pizza shop that reminded me of Punch Pizza back home. We sat at a table next to some old couples from Florida. Americans seemed to be everywhere we went. After a delicious meal we walked around some more, saw someone jump from Skytower (192 meters of freefall along a cord) and three people get in the bungy ride that flings you up and whips you from the ground to 50ish meters and inbetween. This county is all about adrenaline rushes. I love that though, keeps things exciting. We made our way back to the hostel to rest for the night. We came back to a new roommate, she had just gotten in and was going to be traveling the country for two weeks. I'm jealous, but plan on doing the same in the near future. Hostels are great places to stay, you meet such a variety of people with so many different stories.

I was woken up by construction workers outside at 5 am. There is no 8am courtesy start here. I managed to lay around until 8 before packing my things and checking out. Seems so crazy that we were leaving already. Unlike the first two days, Monday morning was overcast and mildly chilly. We opted to walk to the Auckland Museum and I was glad we did. It was about an hour casually walking and we got to cut through Auckland Domain, one of the largest city parks. There were random statues and artwork throughout, lots of fun trees, and cute gardens. When we go to the museum, we found out "Sue" was the special exhibit. "Sue" is the worlds largest T. Rex who is normally on display at the Field Museum in Chicago. I saw her there this summer, which means I've now visited Sue in two different countries and hemispheres. The museum was full of Maori artifacts (they are the native people of New Zealand) lots of jewelery and wood work. The detail and design was incredible. That was probably my favorite part of the museum... next was the WWII section. Random fact: 1 in 5 New Zealand men fought in WWII. That is more, proportionately, than anyone else in the British Empire. They had so many artifacts and POW notes. There were also red poppys, and I read about Flanders fields which McRae told us about on Remembrance Day. The museum was a lot different than our first two adventurous days, but very enjoyable and a nice change of pace.

Auckland Museum (orange signs are for Sue!)

Maori boards... each man had his own personal design

It was noon so we headed out and went by a few of the big churches in Parnell, the "Uptown" of Auckland if you will. We walked around before catching the bus to Sky Tower, our last activity. Auckland's public transport system makes so much more sense than Sydney's. It was comforting knowing someone in down here had it figured out. Sky Tower is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. Kind of similar to other places I've been, Empire State Building/Sears Tower, you ride an elevator to the top and look around. It was a little different because have glass panaling so you can see below, and also offer base jumping from the sky deck and also a sky walk, where you walk along the outside. The view from the top, despite the cloud cover, was incredible. It was crazy looking over to Rangitoto Island knowing that yesterday I was looking at the Sky Tower from the summit there. Everything was decorated for Christmas and the employees were wearing Santa hats. I'm starting to get into the Christmas mood.

Well that ends our New Zealand adventure. It was way too quick. We caught a bus back to the airport and waited around til departure. It was so quiet, calm, and clean... airports here are so nice. When booking flights, we looked for the cheapest option around the time of day we wanted to fly. We chose Emirates for the way home, and good thing we did. Our flight there was nothing special... 4 hour international flight without so much as complimentary water. Way home we had a full meal, movies/tv/games, pillows, drinks, and the nicest flight crew. It was a flight enroute to Bankok and Dubai which may have had something to do with it. Everything was in English and Arabic. I was told Middle Eastern hospitality was the best in the world, and after this flight I think it might be. We made it back for the 730 ferry and walked back up the hill to college. It was an exhausting but incredible weekend. I kinda want to go back.

Things I need: A better camera!

Also, the internet has been awful and uploading pictures to both blog and flickr has been difficult. I'll keep working on it.