04/09/10

Today's main event was our trip to the Sky Tower.
We had a reservation for a buffet lunch in 'The Observatory' at 12:15 and were allowed up the tower 45 minutes beforehand. We went for a wander around the 'CBD' to kill time until then and found Albert Park with a statue of Queen Victoria in it. We could have been in England if it weren't for the abundance of thrushes!

The Sky Tower at night.

The Sky Tower was excellent, and although the distant views were a little obscured by cloud we got to see Auckland in all its splendour. It has some really fantastic scenery - there seemed to be bits of ocean in every direction you looked, as well as land and islands. Unfortunately when you're down on the ground you don't get to see anything but buildings. We decided we must go on an island tour before we leave Auckland, and we spotted a good volcano (one of 49 in Auckland!) that we could walk to in the afternoon.

View of Auckland from the Sky Tower.

The buffet in the restaurant just above the observation deck was amazing with a huge variety of high quality food. I particularly enjoyed the prawns and battered crab - though I had some difficulty getting to it through the shell! Tom had some large mushrooms soaked in balsamic vinegar which were unusual but very nice!



After 3 courses (and probably having gained a collective stone) we headed back down on the lift with a partially glass floor. There were glass sections of floor in the observation room too which made Tom feel funny. He didn't fancy diving off the tower to get down the 200m so I gave it a miss too... We walked to the volcano Mt Eden in the afternoon, which was very pleasant with more great views of Auckland's CBD and a large crater at the top. We heard some very strange birdsong, which I attributed at first to the wind whistling past some railing, from some mystery bird, and we saw a funny-looking small black bird with a white beard that looked like it was hanging off its neck unintentionally, the name of which I still haven't found. (It was a Tui!) I did manage to identify some birds we saw on the walk back to the centre as Myna birds, which can apparently be trained to talk. We had some time in the hostel for a rest and diary-writing.

View of Auckland from Mt Eden.

There was quite an earthquake in Christchurch today, which we found out about at 4pm via my phone. It is apparently quite severe. Hope everyone is alright!