Sunshine

We somehow managed to join temporarily with a peace march, they gave me a balloon :)



After perusing the map, we found a random little bit called, wait for it...'Emily's Place'! So brilliant, we visited it and it was a grove of 'Peheratakawa' (or something similar) trees which were actually the coolest trees ever. So we scrambled all over the trees, then through Albert Park which was lovely and verdantly green.


Today was the first sunny day we have had and was it gooood!
We went down to Queen's St. and round the Viaduct on a hunter-gather mission for food. The sea was about 20 different shades of blue and green, with steamlined sleek yachts gliding along.
We located a seafront coffee shop and I had the most yum breakfast ever. Try sitting on a hightop stool looking over the sea and islands across from Auckland, with a warm apricot and yoghurt muffin, librally slathered in salted butter from a tiny white porcelain pot, while drinking chilled guava and apple juice...oh it was great!
Anyways, forgetting my love affair with the breakfast menu, we then embarked on what turned out to be an 8 hour walking trip round and round (or should that be up and down?) Auckland, which is significantly larger than we had originally thought.
Then we went to Auckland Museum and looked over the entire collection of Maori history and New Zealand natural history. The Maori intricately carve every single part of their house, doors, tools, everything is decorated.

As we left the museum (halfway during the volcano exhibit), we decided to take a walk through the Domain (another park) towards a duckpond. This involved yet another hill, which was torture! After trawling through the fern-like rainforest, we made it back to civilisation.