April 4 - Brook - Today was a very early start. We presented to the Parnell Rotary club with a breakfast meeting at 7:00 am. Then Roger and Avis, our day hosts from the Parnell club treated us to an urban cultural day in Auckland.

First we visited the Holy Trinity Cathedral and St. Mary's Church. The history, beauty, and delicate stain glass windows were stunning and created a lovely and peaceful setting for our tour. Then we were taken to the Auckland Art Gallery called Toi O Tamaki. Some of us choose to tour the New Zealand historical art, modern and contemporary collection while others visited the Degas to Dali exhibit which had the masters from the national galleries of Scotland. We had a lovely lunch at the gallery then headed to Cornwall park. Here we toured the visitors centre and learned about the human and geological history of the park. Then we met one of the farmers in the park and were treated to a 4x4 tour of some of the paddocks and learned about the logistics of running a farm in the centre of the city. We all did not fit in the 4x4 truck so our ever brave day host Roger followed along with the rest of the group in his smart car. Everyone was quite impressed when Roger was able to follow the truck across the paddock's and side-hill and climb steep sections of land, in his Smart Car!!! Our presentation must have impressed him, maybe we should make him an honourary northerner - do the best you can with what you have.

After this everyone went on their separate ways for a free afternoon. I had an extra afternoon of Vocational time. I went to the EastMed clinic - a busy GP and shared practice. I was able to spend time with Anne, a practice nurse. I found it interested to learn how the practise nurses in this setting deliver care including immunizations, and B4 School checks.

Then it was back to my home hosts house for a wonderful authentic Kiwi meal of lamb roast. It was truly a scrumptious meal, no wonder there are more sheep in New Zealand than people!