26th Februrary 2008

I suddenly got confused and thought it was August, late sunset and warm days really confuse me apparently. After finding Base Auckland successfully, I dumped my bag, paid for room with more monopoly money and ventured out into the glorious sun to experience the city. To get my bearings I headed straight for the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere, the Sky Tower. You can see it from all over the city and looks brand spanking new. I got some backpacker deal for observation deck and sky deck for $18. The view was amazing, visibility was perfect and I stayed up their for ages just chilling.

They have thick glass you can stand on and look all the way down. I obviously jumped up and down on it to test it's strength. The sky deck is a bit higher, but it's kinda bland up there. I decided that to make the most of the view I'd get a coffee and some chips/fries in their cafe. Rather than having "americanos" here, they have "long blacks", which are very black and suspiciously not long. Saw someone do the sky jump, which looked a bit pathetic, as although it's very high (198m?), they control your speed so it looked quite slow. Very expensive as well. I made my descent in a glass box at probably a faster speed and decided to check out the Metro, a shopping/cinema complex. It's great in there! All criss-crossing walkways, arcades, game shops, book shops and eaterys. Great fun.

I then headed over to Albert Park, which I saw from the heavens as I sipped on my titchy mug of pure caffeine. In the sunshine it was blissful, and I gathered the park was dedicated to Queen Victoria's Albert, as there were statues of her, and probably him. I chilled on a bench near a fountain and some palm trees.

For the rest of the daylight I wandered around randomly, through the very pretty but somewhat empty Transport Centre and then along the harbour side. There was a fisherman's wharf ala San Francisco with nice bars, restaurants and a Hilton at the end. I chilled at the end of the wharf for a while, looking out to the various islands in the bay. In the evening I did nothing of mind-blowing fantasmagorical nature, apart from hit up a very English style supermarket (none of this strange American excuse for a supermarket) and caught up quite successfully on my blog. My time is so off because it only gets dark at 8.30 or something, and so I was last to go to bed in my room.