Auckland City Tour
Trip Start
Mar 10, 2007
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88
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Trip End
Jan 08, 2008
Auckland,
New Zealand
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
There are certainly worse ways to start your day.
Of course, being me, I nearly missed the bus despite being there early, by virtue of the fact that it did not pull up where I was expecting it to. To be fair, I was inside as it arrived and when I came out the bus was almost totally obscured by the Sky Tower, so I guess it was a good thing that it was bright orange, otherwise my effort to get out of bed would have been wasted. Once on the bus I promptly missed the opportunity for a free jump off the Sky Tower (don't worry, you have a rope attached) because, firstly, I did not know the Maori name for Auckland, and secondly, because I did not want to put up my hand, as the request, made by Craig, seemed to be a foolish one. C'est la vie. My neck hurt by the time the two lucky people had thrown themselves off the top of the tower, though their comments upon reaching the bottom did not do much to recommend the trip to me, describing it as a decent rather like being in an open air lift, instead of the rush of free fall. Still, not a bad prize to win just for raising your hand...
Then it was time for the city tour and our first stop was... Viaduct Quay, other wise known, to me, as work. Great. I had already been there - almost daily in fact. I was not best pleased, but after a trip to work, things did start to improve. For a start, we went to places that i have not seen in my whole month in Auckland, which, when I think of it, is actually rather shameful. Still, I was making up for it now.
The next stop was the Savage Memorial, which remembers the prime minister who set up many of New zealand's social practices and who spent the last years of of his life (whilst fighting against cancer) cementing them so that they would not be forgotten when he died. A truly admirable goal, so it is not surprising to see the loving care with which the memorial is tended. The pool is drained and scrubbed every fortnight and the whole thing, which is quite large, is immaculately kept. That could be seen even through the maintenence work that was going on when we visited. It also has spectacular views out over the harbour and Mt Rangitoto, so it is a rather lovely spot.
Next we made our way up to Mt Eden and, standing 6 whole metres above the Sky Tower, looked out over the sprawling mass of Auckland. We did not enter the crater of Mt Eden, one of 56 volcanoes around which Auckland is built, as it is sacred to the maori and to enter it is a huge insult, so many people have done so in the past that the crater is actually being closed off to tourists in the near future. It is not surprising that this is happening, as even during our visit someone entered the crater, despite requests being printed in myriad languages that you do not go into the crater.
There is however a legendary story of the students who, in the middle of the night took a truck load of tyres up to the crater, rolled them in and set them on fire, before running down the mountain and clling the local radio station to tell them that Mt Eden was erupting! By this time, the smoke from the tyres was belching black and the mountain really did look as though it was going to explode, so the whole suburb of Mt Eden was evacuated (3000 people) and no one dared to go near the volcano for most of the day for fear of lava and ash. At least, until someone looked at the calendar and saw that it was the 1st April.
Thouroughly disrespectful, but, still, a damn good joke.
No one has ever been caught either, so the students who did it are fast becoming urban legends.
Then we went to the Cardrona, which is a replica of a mining bar in Queenstown, for lunch and sat in front of the fire for a happy half hour exchanging travelling stories with the other people on the tour. It was good to hear travelling stories again, and in such a pleasant atmosphere. It is easy to see why the Cardrona has a replica in Auckland and why one is being shipped out to ???? for the rugby world cup. I don't know where, but it is going there - blame the confusing rules of rugby for my lack of information, if the game were intelligable I would probably know where the world cup was being held!! As it isn't, I don't!
Our last stop was at the harbour bridge, which, while not as famous or impressive as Sydney's bridge, does boast (in contradistinction to Sydney) its very own bungy jump out over the harbour. In order to reach this leap, beneath the thunder of traffic as it crosses the bridge and makes it sway (ironically, a sign of stability!) you must cross the gangways suspended beneath the bridge to the pod. Which, being on a fully inclusive city tour, we did, (whilst connected to a metal cord via a nylon waist belt, which did not improve the safety rating beyond the waist high railings edging the gangways as far as I was concerned, but nevermind.) This was in order to get a closer look at people throwing themselves ino thin air connected to nothing more than a giant elastic band... and strangely, though it is not something that has ever before grabbed my attention, I found myself wanting to do the same (job done for the bungee people, though I will do a larger freefall - being me.)
Then it was back into town, a quick trip to Dunkin' Donuts, and off to the North Shore to visit Brian and Mel, and to my very own room for the night... No groping for clothes in the dark, no one walking in at 4am and rustling bags (which, admittedly, we are all guilty of), but a family (kinsd of) and a real house for a night. These trips really make you appreciate the simple things...
