27th February 2008

After various morning tom-foolery involving smoothies, I made my way to the Magic office to sort my life out. Within a matter of minutes I had booked a tour around the bay of islands and gained a huge pile of related leaflets and tree-based fun. Cunningly, I had a plan today and made my way to Discover New Zealand to get a free shuttle to Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter and Underwater Shambola. Turns out my brand new Lonely Planet is vastly out of date and woman there was quite disgusted at how much they ignore their emails. After a spot of sympathy I got a cheap ticket and the knowledge of how to get to Kelly Tarltons. I utilised public transport ($3.20) and got there pretty quickly.

I thought I'd come here when I was little, but I must have mixed it up with Brisbane or Christchurch Antarctic themed kiddie attractions. Was good fun though, saw penguins, a remake of Captain Scott's Antarctic base, and then went on a polar-mobile ride through the penguin lair. Twas quite scary at the end, especially on my own in this 10 seater box on caterpillar treds. Then saw all manner of Ray, sharks, and fishie beasts on a conveyor belt water tank tube, like in San Fran. I'm slightly worried I'm going to become less impressed with aquariums now I've been diving and that I go to far too many in every city I goto. Some of the lobsters were awesome though and the clown fish are always cute, hiding away in their anemones. After grabbing some food amongst a throng of short excitable people, I made my escape and spent a bit of time wandering along the water front before catching the $2 shuttle bus back.

On return to Auckland I made the executive decision to head to the Auckland Museum as it is tucked away beyond the uni and through a huge ark. The walk was great as it was such a beautiful day and I must have looked like a local as I got asked for directions twice, but answered successfully both times, bonus! Museum is an impressive building at the top of the hill and has 3 floors split in The Wars, Natural World and Maori type l'histoire. Seeing the WWs from NZ perspective was really interesting, and quite somber as well.

The walk back began the destruction of my feet by my flip flops, but was enjoyable to use the late light. I ate in a place called Revive in the evening, which sells a variety of healthy food, as I felt bad at the way I had been treating my body. Staff were friendly and not only did I have the whole place to myself but they played Norah Jones the whole I was there.

Chilled.