7/3/09 We had to get up at 4.30 am because although our flight wasn't until 10 am, the only free shuttle to the airport from the hostel was at 5 am. Cue lots of hanging around once we were there, and checking in our bags early. There wasn't any free internet available, like at Singapore and Sydney airports, so we just sat in a cafe, bought a sandwich each and read for ages. Having waited so long after checking our main bags in, we thought we had plenty of time before we had to board the plane... completely forgetting that we hadn't actually been through security yet! We were in the middle of leisurely consuming a massive tin of fruit salad whilst sitting outside when we heard an announcement reminding all passengers to Auckland to go through security as soon as possible. We made it onto the plane in time, as there weren't any security holdups.
I was really pleased on the flight, because on the ascent and descent I discovered that they weren't very strict about not having cameras switched off during those times, so as well as the shots of us flying out from Fiji, which you can see in this blog, I managed to get some spectacular photos of New Zealand from the air as we flew in!
On our arrival at the airport, we got some money out and had something to eat, before going outside to the airport-city centre bus. When we got off the bus we walked round the corner to the first place on our list, and booked ourselves in for three nights. It's very close to the Sky Tower! We were now 13 hours ahead, because of New Zealand daylight saving time.
After we had settled in we went out to download our Fiji photos in an internet cafe, but the first one we visited gave the memory card a virus, so we went straight to another more reliable looking one to sort things out. Dave thought at first that the card was broken and that we had lost all our Fiji photos (and the ones I took in the plane over New Zealand), but the man in charge of the cafe managed to get them onto the screen for us. We were so, so relieved! I nipped back to the hostel to get one of our blank memory cards, and Dave transferred all the photos from the virused card onto the blank one. Luckily, the virus had only affected the card, not the actual photos, and he said the virus wouldn't get transferred onto the new card. We tried downloading the photos onto here, but although it said 'upload complete', and the rest of our photos appeared, the new ones didn't.

8/3/09 The main thing we did today was go to Auckland War Memorial Museum, passing through Auckland Domain on the way - Auckland's oldest park. On the ground floor we went through big galleries with lots of exhibits from and information about all the different Pacific Islands and the Maori, and there was another smaller exhibition about childhood in New Zealand in the past century. It was all really interesting. On the second floor were the war memorial halls, a sad small exhibition about the Holocaust, and others about the Maori/Settlers wars in the 19th century and New Zealand's role in the Boer War and the First and Second World Wars. In another gallery there was a series of replica 19th century Auckland shopfronts.

9/3/09 We didn't do much in the morning or early afternoon, but in the late afternoon we went to the Sky Tower! It's the tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere. As well as viewing platforms and a cafe in the tower itself, they had a hotel, casino and souvenir shop joined on to it. We wandered round the casino first, not to play on anything but just to have a look. Also, Dave really wanted to get hold of a poker chip from there as a souvenir. They had on TV one of the test matches between NZ and India, so we watched a bit of that as well. After Dave had bought his special chip, we went up the tower itself. The lift has a glass panel in the bottom, so you see the ground rapidly shooting away from you as you go up and down! The views were spectacular, as you can imagine, over the entire city, harbour and beyond - I thought it rivalled Sydney Harbour, in fact. They had a glass panel in part of the floor as well, and they had taken care to put a notice next to it assuring people that it was as thick and safe to walk on as the concrete of the rest of the floor was! We both did so, though I can't imagine that anyone with a fear of heights would go within a million miles of it... We stayed to see them changes from daylight to sunset to darkness, and took loads of photographs.
After this we picked up our jumpers from the hostel, and carried on to Prince's Wharf to visit -5 Bar, the bar made out of ice. I was disappointed when they told us that photography wasn't allowed inside (for three reasons - a) they used to allow it but then someone took photos here and then used them to steal their idea and set up their own ice bar in Melbourne, b) if you could take photos yourself you wouldn't buy the ones the bar offered to take for you, and c) the severe cold can damage cameras if exposed to it for too long), but privately I resolved to covertly take some through the window outside instead. We had to wear massive thick winter coats, gloves and hats before we went in, and we were warned to keep hold of our drinks in both hands or it would slip out onto the floor. Although smaller than we had expected, the bar was great - apart from the floor, the till, the drinks and the outer walls, everything really was made of ice! Even the bar and the benches to sit on were - but deerskins were thrown over the benches so that your bum wouldn't freeze. The glasses were made of ice, hence the warning about how to hold them. We had a cocktail each, which all had 'icy' names and were vodka based. They were fruity and delicious. Dave asked how come the bottles of vodka didn't freeze, and the barman said that it was OK because alcohol above 20 percent doesn't freeze. They had some ice sculptures around, and even had a chandelier made out of ice! I managed to get a couple of photos through the window, and they came out quite well so I was happy.
We walked along the harbour for a while on the way back, passing a massive posh cruise ship on the way, by far the biggest I've ever seen. Before we arrived home we passed by a Turkish kebab and pizza place, and we bought a couple of sweet things - piece of 'baclawa' and a bit of Turkish delight each. They were both absolutely delicious, and the baclawa was the best I've ever tasted!