Thursday was beautiful and sunny so we decided to go up the Sky Tower to get a feel for what Auckland looks like. Reminded us of our favorite U.S. west coast cities on water--San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver. Beautiful vistas with surrounding hills as well as water expanses and islands and ferries. A novelty--you can bungy jump off Auckland's tower, for a fee of course! We saw a few brave souls suiting up but didn't hang around long enough to watch them leap.
Sky Tower, Auckland
From there we proceeded to the waterfront and caught a quick ferry over to Devonport, a lovely little town on the end of a peninsula across from Auckland. We spent the day walking and hiking up and around the town's two high points--Mt. Victoria and North Head--and the beach inbetween. Beautiful vistas of downtown Auckland as well as interesting historical significance. Mt. Victoria was the site of an ancient Maori fortified village while North Head has been a defense site from the ancient Maori times right through to the World Wars. The views also allowed us to appreciate why Auckland is called the City of Sails--there were sailboats everywhere!
Mark and friend on Mt. Victoria, Devonport
On Friday we headed out to do the large Auckland Museum located in a 340 acre park area called the Auckland Domain. We particularly enjoyed a live Maori presentation of songs, dances and weaponry as well as the museum's extensive Maori collection. You rugby fans already know that the NZ All Blacks rugby team is known for it use of the intimidating Maori haka war dance as a pregame warm-up. After seeing the real thing we had to watch a YouTube offering of the All Blacks' version.
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