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| Auckland Sky Tower Lunch |
| The Sky Tower lunch turned into a Montana wine
tasting session. This Dutch courage in fact turned out to be
English fear as I bottled out of doing the Sky Jump. |
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| Holly and Jaq |
| We met Andre and Jaq in Fiji and we stayed
with them in Auckland's Mission Bay. Holly and Jaq here glammed
up at their friends' BBQ. |
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| The Lunch |
| Spinning around in the restaurant
gave us a magnificent view of Auckland. In the background are
the teams preparing for the 2003 Americas Cup. |
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| Rotaura |
| On the road again, first stop
Sulpur City. This is a geothermal wonderland with geysers, smells
and contrived Maori culture. |
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| The Sky Tower |
Auckland's 328m Sky Tower is the southern hemisphere's
tallest structure. It took 2,000 tonnes of reinforcing steel,
660 tonnes of structural steel and 15,000 cubic metres of concrete
to erect it. It can withstand 200km/h winds, earthquakes up
to eight on the Richter scale and on a clear day, visibility
is around 82km. The highest indoor point is Sky Deck, which
has seamless glass giving unimpeded 360º views. |
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View from Mount Maunganui |
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The resort of Mount Maunganui is a trendy little
place where we spent Valentine's Day. After splashing out on
an apartment, we decided to climb the conical rocky mountain
rising 232 metres above sea level. We did our usual trick of
forgetting completely about water. So the main topic of conversation
was whether anyone would be bothered to lug a load of water
to the top to sell. When we got to the top, we found out there
was no kiosk. Was it worth it though! The view was spectacular
as can be seen from this panoramic. |
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| Church
Road Vineyard, Mission Wines |
| Mission Wines is one
of the best vinyards in the Hawkes Bay region. We
had a tour of the vineyard with senior winemaker
Tony Prichard and took in the Tom McDonald Cellar.
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| Birthday
Lunch |
| We decided to lunch out
in the refurbished restaurant after our wine tour and
I splashed out on beautiful glass of Cabernet Shiraz Reserve
2000 for £1.20. Absolutely beautiful meal. |
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4th ODI, Eden Park, Auckland
23/02/01 (NZ 2-2 Eng) |
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The Auckland game was a little more reserved
as we had tickets for the stands and would not be in the midst
of the Barmy Army. We could see them though and Sam and Karen
who were projected on the big screen. We had to make do with
making banter with a load of Kiwi supporters. They were great
fun and allowed us shelter under their tarp when the rain
came. The match was exciting and again we won to square the
series by 33 runs (with a little help from Duckworth-Lewis).
Vaughn and Thorpe making half centuries. |
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| The
Incredible Kauri Trees |
| Now, these were unbelievable.
Kauri trees come from the Agathis Australis family
and have cousins in the Australian Karri and the
Fijian Kauri. The New Zealand trees are the giants
of the family and are second only in size (in the
world) to the Redwoods. It has the highest volume
of timber of any known tree in the world.They grow
VERY slowly and the big ones are over 2000 years
old. |
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Andre and Jaq-au-lait |
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| After the cricket we took a trip
to Pahia and Russell and Waitangi Treaty House with
our friends Andre and Jaq. Here we find the ancient
sundial of particular interest. They were class
Kiwis and hope to see them on their Europe Tour. |
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| Tane
Mahuta |
This is the biggest
tree in New Zealand, the largest living Kauri. It
has a trunk girth of 13.8 metres and is 51.5 metres
high. When I saw this for the first time I couldn't
believe what I was seeing - the thing was nearly
as wide as it was tall.
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| Cape Reinga Lighthouse |
| After the city adventures
in Aukland, we were back on the road again in our Nissan
Crapster, which I had crashed in Napier. Northwards through
90 Mile Beach to the tip and Cape Reinga. |
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| One we could
touch. |
| This was one of the only
one that we could touch. They are so protected and no
wonder since they used to cover the whole of New Zealand.
Unfortunately as they make beautiful furniture, they were
harvested massively in colonial times and they now can
only be found sparsely in the North Island. |
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