Under the sea & on the sea
The city was very quiet on our first day because it was Sunday. Yesterday was very different, but we weren’t downtown much anyway. At 9:00 we met the shuttle bus for Kelly Tarlton’s Antarctic Encounter & Underwater World. This was one of Cathy’s must-sees, and I’m now glad it was. From a recreated polar camp to an incredible underwater viewing tunnel and penguin tour by snowcat, it was excellent, well worth the admission (discounted to $26.50 at the Skytower iSite, the New Zealand Tourism office).
I shot 214 photos tday, but there’s quite a few duds from Tarlton’s due to the tough shooting conditions (even at ISO 1600, hand-held down to 1/4 second in places), so there are only 153 keepers. It’s hard to decide what to show you – we saw so many great sights. After getting back to town, we walked to the harbour and boarded a Fuller’s ferry ($9 return per person) for the 12-minute ride to Devonport, a charming seaside community with a few homes dating back to the 1880s. As you see here, the Auckland harbour is a very busy place.
A “toastie” and beer at a sidewalk table got us ready for lots of walking, and we climbed up to the old military gun installation at North Head, then back down to Cheltenham Beach, where I took the self-portrait below.
Our internal clocks are still weirded out. We laid down for a pre-dinner nap at about 6:00 pm, and woke up at 2:00 am – whoops. It’s now 3:15 am – I still have to figure out how to get our New Zealand maps onto the GPS before we pick up our campervan at 11:00. We’re very much looking foward to getting into the country – as cities go, we love Auckland, but it’s still a city.
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