Friends in Auckland

After Toronto we visited our friends Dave and Cindy in Auckland. In writing this post we realised we didn't take ANY photos of them while we were there! Auckland felt familiar straight away. Not only driving on the left side of the road, the look of the streets and the shops, the brands for sale... Although, that said, we did feel a little funny when initially being driven from the airport and going round the round-a-bout from the left side first and doing right hand turns into the left side of the road. Jo was the only one who drove while we were in New Zealand as she was the least tainted in driving on the left side of road, having not driven at all in Germany, USA or Canada and because Nathan had a German driving licence less than a year old.

We didn't do too much in Auckland - we were pretty tired by that stage. We went into the city, crossed the harbour and enjoyed some clear, sunny weather. The weather was very inconsistent, alternating between hot and cold. Here's Jo and Owen with some extinct volcanoes in the background. Almost every hill and mountain is an extinct volcanoe, since that's how much of the land was formed.

We also went to an aquarium called Kelly Tarltons (no idea of the reason for the name). It was small compared to the Sydney Aquarium, but had a really cool freezer room where King penguins were kept. We travelled through the room in a little insulated train to see them up close.

We also went to see a bird colony - we've already forgotten the type of bird. This picture shows the birds at their nests. They are evenly spread out on the rock because if they get too close to their neighbour they get pecked. We saw some of the birds doing a courting dance, which involved rubbing necks and probablly squawking. Probably because the whole colony was squawking a racket anyway.

There were some differences from home, of course. For one, the accent is a bit funny. This is old news for all the Aussies, but for the benefit of the Germans... The New Zealanders pronounce "Bear" and "Beer" the same way. There's a commercial on TV where a customer asks the bartender "I'd like a Beer for the Bear, Bro". It sounds like "I'd like a beer for the beer, bro"