Auckland

Hello again from Auckland, the City of Sails. Tonight is our last night here and Stephanie and I have had a good time. It is a very nice city. Everything here is extreme. The buildings, the sailing, the jumping, the rides, everywhere you go there is something extreme to do. On an average corner downtown there's some sort of ride that will send you 100 metres in the air. Auckland is home to the Skytower, the tallest building in the southern hemisphere, and you can go basejumping off of the observation deck (attached to a harness of course). They love their sailing here along with their rugby. It's a really fun city.

Our second day we went to Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World. This is a really cool aquarium. They had a whole penguin habitat filled with king penguins and another kind that I don't remember right now. They even had a safari vehicle that went through the sub-zero habitat for an up close and personal look at the birds. Very cool. Even cooler than that, half the building is an aquarium with filled with huge sharks, stingrays, fish, and other New Zealand species. The best part about it is the glass viewing tube that takes onlookers through the massive tank. So there's 180 degrees of viewing pleasure. And there is even a conveyer belt to take you through the whole thing. We are glad we went there.

Today we went on a free tour of Auckland. Yup, a free tour. It was great. They took us to the harbour brige and allowed us to walk accross it, which usually costs about $25 and is not open to the public. They put a harness on us so we would'nt fall off too. The views of the city from here were spectacular. The photos we took are nice. And of course, becasue this is such an extreme city, there was bungy jumping from the middle of the bridge. I didn't do it, but I watched others from our group take the plunge. After the brige we ate lunch at a park on the beach, and then after that we went for a beautiful walk on a dormant volcano with great views of the forests, other volcanos, and the city. (There are three dormant volcanos within Auckland city alone. There are about 15 just around it!) The whole mountain was fortified in the early 1900s becasue there was a rumor that the Russians were planning an attack. Needless to say the Russians never did come here, but the forts are pretty cool. I went swimming at the bottom of the volcano where it met the beach. The water was so nice and calm.

Photos of all of this can be seen at http://uwo.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2107096&l=3555f&id=58000349

So thats it for Auckland. Stephanie and I booked ourselves on Magic tours, which is a a travel plan designed for backpackers. It takes us all over the place on coaches, with experienced tour guides as drivers. It is a hop-on hop-off sort of thing, so inbetween traveling we can stay as long as we want. It's a neat system and we will hopefully meet lots of travellers on the way. Tomorrow we go north to the Bay of Islands which should be beautiful. I'll let you know all about it when I get there.

Cheers