In an attempt to remind myself that I am actually traveling ON MY OWN. I went up to the Auckland Museum. Museums are good. They're like an off-line version of the internet. You can learn all about where you are, what the history is, even what the future holds for it. What a gallant and worthy place to spend an afternoon!
And you can go there if you haven't got any friends.
It was a pretty good museum as it goes, split into Maori History, Natural History and European/War History. They also had a 'Magnum' Photo-exhibition with photos based on Family, War/Suffering and Aesthetics at the end of the 20th Century.
It was so good I didn't get round the whole place in time and I'll have to go back when I return to Auckland.
Next day, I went on a free trip around town put on by the people I was thinking of booking my tour around NZ with (Stray). It was nice getting off Queens St and seeing some other parts of the city. We saw various monuments and parks dedicated to various people and the things they'd done.
Most of the monuments (and the museum) are built on top of the bulbous parks in NZ. There are 48 similar shaped hills around Auckland, caused hundreds of thousands of years ago when bubbles of lava belched up through the earth.
This is 'One Tree Hill.'
A monument built to honour the treaty between the British and the Maori in New Zealand.
The tree itself was chopped down by radicals who weren't happy with the way the integration was going. Since then, various trees have been planted and then cut down by other radicals. I assume at the moment it's just called 'Hill.'
Later that night, 'Stray' did a talk about their full tour, then took everyone downstairs for a drink at the bar.
It's great how much free stuff you get when you're backpacking. A lot of our nights out in Northbridge were dictated by who was doing a backpacker night. The best was probably The 'Post Office' which gave out a ticket on (free) entry, which entitled you to a free soft drink, a free alcoholic drink (inc Vodka - Woo-Hoo!) and a pretty good Bangers and Mash with Peas!
Anyway, it worked. I bought my Stray 'Max' ticket and they're going to be taking me all around the country!
The other good thing about today was meeting people on the bus. I was thinking of blowing out the Sky Jump until I came back to Auckland in a few weeks, but I was chatting to a couple of the girls about it and we all decided to do it the day after...
It was a bad night to watch the Matrix Reloaded. I left the first film buzzing. This one I think I'll have to see again to appreciate. In hindsight its a pretty good film, though it could never live up to the original. To be honest I was even bored in a couple of the fight scenes. It's funny what the apprehension of jumping off the tallest building in the southern hemisphere can do to you during a film.