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Published: November 21st 2008
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Rangitoto Wharf
"Don't miss the last ferry - coz it's a long and very cold night on the island if you do" Last week was Canterbury Show and Cup week and accordingly we got a provincial public holiday on the Friday for "Show day". The Royal New Zealand A&P Show took place over three days and was visited by Princess Anne. There was also a whole raft of events including big horse racing events including a harness racing day (which is very popular down under).
Actually, we didn't take part in any of it, because Def Leppard were playing in Auckland - so we'd booked flights and hotel and got out of town as soon as we could. One has to get one's priorities straight!
The flight afforded spectacular views of both South and North Island, and the highlight was clearly seeing the giant volcanoes in the Tongariro national park. We arrived on Friday afternoon, headed to Wendy's for Chilli (the only one we know of in NZ) and then hit the shops (there's a much better range in the big city) and ended up by the harbour for pre-concert food and drinks.
Of course, I don't have to say that the mighty Leps rocked, because they rocked.
The next day, with the dulcet sounds still ringing in our
Tongariro crossing
From the plane - although you could have probably guessed that from the wing... ears, we packed up as much food and drink as we could carry and headed out early to catch the 10.30am Fullers ferry across Auckland Harbour to
Rangitoto Island. Rangitoto is a now dormant volcanic island, but is only about 600 years old and has only just been declared extinct. The crossing took about 25mins and we took in spectacular views of the city, the harbour and some of the other islands.
Our aim was to climb to the top of the volcano and climb it we did - across a spooky flat plateau of crunchy volcanic rock followed by a short sharp ascent up to the crater rim. We ate lunch at the top and than walked around the crater rim, descended via a completely different route (on the opposite side of the volcano) and then took a less well-worn track through some amazing vegetation. The highlight has to be our sighting of what we're pretty sure was a Kea - the green New Zealand mountain parrot, which we've previously only seen in captivity. We made it back in time to meet the second to last ferry leaving the island and finished the day with coffee back in
Auckland Harbour
From our dinner table on friday night. Auckland.
That night we planned to go to the cinema, but we were both too tired so we managed a quick Nandos (yes, they have them in NZ too!) and an early night.
On Sunday we ambled around the city until it was time to head back to the airport for our flight back to ChCh.
Right, I'm off to buy several copies of Chinese Democracy, the new Guns N Roses album I've only been waiting 14 years to be released!
Oh, and if you haven't seen 'Quantum of Solace' yet...do so, we went to a preview last night and it is most acceptable.
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