Rain, rain, go away...

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Crazy Jumpers

Panaroma of View from Sky Tower

My one full day in Auckland began with a late start (this blogging takes more time than I thought!), and continued with unstable weather, that was both rainy and breezy. I really only managed to see two sights today, which meant there was more relaxing going on than true tourism.

First, I managed to make my way up the Sky Tower, the highest point in the southern hemisphere and one heckuva a view. The views were spectacular, but even more breathtaking (literally) were the glass floor in the observation deck (see the pics) and the nut cases that were base jumping off the the tower (see the video).

The other site was the Auckland History Museum, which included three floors of widely variant exhibits. The top floor, where I started, contained a decent collection of exhibits and history on all of the wars that New Zealand has been involved in over the years. This included everything that New Zealand itself has deployed its military (which is almost never), and the wars that they were pulled into on behalf of England. They also dedicated several sections of the floor to listing every single name of the soldiers who've died in battle. Quite a tribute.

I wrapped the evening up with an hour at a wine bar (there are some fine New Zealand wines out there...with more to be tasted once we make it to the south island) and a fine meal. Not much to tell, so stay tuned for some of our adventures once we head south.

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Photos

The Tribute
...sorry for the unsteady hand