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We put our bags into storage, as we would be moving on to another hostel later in the day and hit the streets of Auckland. To see the sights as easily as possible we bought ourselves an Explorer bus ticket that does a circuit of the 14 major sights in the city.
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Penguins at Kelly Traltons
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Auckland is 'The City of Sail', being built on an isthmus only 16 km wide nowhere is very far from the sea, islands and bays provided shelter for thousands of boats. There are more boats per head of population in Auckland than anywhere else in the world. The first place we hopped off at was Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World. As well as an extensive aquarium that you walk through in a glass tunnel they also had an arctic exhibition with penguins and a replica of Scott's hut that could also be visited. Further aquaria contained other exotic sea creatures. We spent an interesting and enjoyable 90 minutes there (could have stayed longer if we had time) before moving on.
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Next stop was the Auckland Museum. We arrived just in time for the Maori cultural show, although similar to others we had seen before the performers seemed to have just that little extra repartee and audience participation, a good 30 minutes worth of entertainment. We then spent another 90 minutes looking around the exhibits, in particular the Maori and the natural history section where we could check out some of the birds and plants we had seen on our trip so far.
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Dianne performing with pau
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After a spot of lunch we emerged into a wet Auckland afternoon. As we had our bus tickets we decided to ride the bus to get a view of what ever we could and listen to the commentary. At the top of Mount Eden we were told that in front of us was one of the best views in Auckland, unfortunately we were sitting in low cloud.
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Returned to the city centre to pick up our bags and carry them to our next hostel. Half way along the street the heavens opened up and we had to take shelter under a shop canopy for 20 minutes until it passed over. The street which was on a hill was a torrent of water with large waves forming when it met car wheels. With the rain easing we completed our journey and booked in.
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As we hadn't bought any food, and as it was Saturday night we stepped out for a meal at a local pub before returning for an early night to catch up on our diaries.
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A difficult day to guess whether the weather was going to be fine or wet, as it turned out it remained dry but windy, so we visited the Maritime Museum. Part of it was given over to an exhibition on the Americas Cup which was being held in the city. A series of films with the sound track being relayed through personal head phones told the story of the cup from its beginning to the present day.
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The rest of the museum was also well presented with boats from various Polynesian societies as well as more modern working boats of the area. The stories of immigrants who took long passages to reach New Zealand were also told and a replica of a despatch office added to the interest. Other maritime artefacts covering fishing and navigation were also on show as well as a reproduction of a bach - a New Zealand summer sea side dwelling, usually self constructed using either orthodox, inventive or casually improvised methods.
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The visit was completed with a look at the boats moored in the harbour.
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Auckland Skyline
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Took a trip out into the harbour for the day to visit Rangitoto Island. Left on the 11am ferry calling in at Devonport. With the Auckland skyline behind us we joined the many boats going out to view the semi-finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup (the winner gets to compete against the New Zealand holders for the Americas Cup) before reaching the island about 30 minutes later.
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Rangitoto
Rangitoto, the only volcano of its type in New Zealand, emerged from the sea around 600 years ago in a series of fiery volcanic explosions. Further eruptions sent red hot lava flows down the sides of the volcano, forming the black basaltic rock that now makes up most of the island. Today Rangitoto is the largest, youngest and least modified of about 50 volcanic cones and craters in the Auckland volcanic field. It is probably extinct, although the Auckland field is only dormant.
The island's name is derived from the phrase 'Te Rangi totogia a Tamatekapua - the day the blood of Tamatekapua was shed'. Tamatekapua was chief of the Arawa canoe which arrived about 1350, and was engaged in (and lost) a major battle with the Tainui at Islington Bay.
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Cones and Craters
Auckland is remarkable because of the number of volcanic cones and craters in the urban area. There are about 50 cones and craters all within 6km of their neighbour. Rangitoto is the most recent, largest and least modified. Auckland's cones and craters used to be more prominent. Most of the cones have been altered by Maori earthworks. Since then, quarrying by Europeans has caused major damage and in some cases destroyed volcanic land forms. The quarried material was used for city roads, railway track bases, breakwaters at the port, and for building e.g. Mount Eden Prison.
Most of the surviving cones and craters are now part of the public parks system and are protected from further exploitation. The Department of Conservation manages the volcanic islands of Rangitoto and Motukorea (Brown's Island) and the mainland cone - North Head.
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Climbed up a well made clinker path through vegetation which was successfully colonising the lava beds to the summit with views of Auckland as well as all around the Hauraki Gulf. Walked round the summit crater and the down again on a board walk to reach a road that would take us to Islington Bay. From there we returned to the Wharf along a rough lava coastal path in plenty of time to catch the 4.20pm ferry for a choppy crossing back to Auckland
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Just time for a quick snack before we made our way to the pick up point for the Auckland Bridge Climb. After a briefing we were kited out with overalls and a safety harness before boarding a minibus to take us down to the bridge.
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We started our climb from the right hand side of the bridge on the south side. Clipping ourselves on to a safety line we ascended to the underside of the bridge and on a metal walkway, 25m above the water, made our way out to the third pier where we transferred to the opposite side to continue over the harbour to the second pier. The bridge is actually three bridges, a four lane bridge built in the early 1960s which when it was found to be inadequate soon after had two further lanes added to each side, supported on the same piers but not attached to the original bridge at road level. From the second pier we then climbed up to road level and then up the support arch to the top then crossed back over the harbour at high level. Before descending we again crossed over at the upper level and stood on the gantry watching the traffic pass below us, waving to cars that pipped their horns. Finally we descended below road level and crossed under the road once more and returned back to shore on the opposite side of the road.
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Returned to the tour companies building and returned our gear. We hadn't been able to take our cameras with us (for safety?) but the guide had a digital camera that she had used to photo us and when we got back we were offered the shots at NZ$20 each, we bought one which was divided into four postcards.
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