What an amazing city, Auckland the city of sails surrounded by 48 volcano.... We are just across the city's heart in a marina called Bayswater, it is calm, clean and with a spectacular view. Auckland downtown is not far either by Ferry or by car... We visited today the Auckland Museum, it was very impressive (a really interesting and moving presentation of the New Zealand war veterans), beautiful (incredible Maori and Pacific arts and artifacts) and fun (interactive volcano's eruption simulation). The "high"light of Auckland is the sky city tower, it is higher than the Eiffel tower by 3 meters (do you believe that!) and the view from up there is spectacular of course, NZ being the country of extreme, they offer body jumping from the top of the tower or you can simply walk on a 1m wide walkway without rail surrounding the outside of the tower just secured by a belt cable, we passed on both and just look through the window, that was scary enough! Downtown is very busy on Friday night near the water, plenty of pubs and gourmet restaurants and a lot of people (I thought NZ was not so populated, 3M, most of them must hang around Auckland!!!!).
Beside the tourist highlights, we are quietly living at the dock, sometimes too quietly for some (David already wants to move more!), but I like it like that. We had a nice Christmas feast on O'Vive with Malachi and Orca III, and are planning to tour around Roturoa after New Year's eve.
Auckland , la cite des voiles entouree de 48 volcans... Nous sommes juste oppose du Coeur de la cite, dans une marina appelee Bayswater, calme, propre et avec une vue spectaculaire. Auckland downtown n'est pas loin en ferry ou en voiture... Nous avons visiste aujourd'hui le muse de Auckland, tres impressionant ( une presentation interessante et emouvante des veterans de guerre de NZ, magnifique (l'art et la civilization maori) et amusante (simulation d'une eruption volcanique, reconstitution de squelette de dinosaurs, etc...). Et puis bien sur la tour de sky city, plus haute que la tour Eiffel de 3 m (incroyable, n'est-ce pas?) , la vue est est spectaculaire . NZ etant le pays des sports extremes, ils offrent de sauter en body jumping de la tour (tres peu pour moi) ou de marcher sur une petite passerelle de 1 m de large sans barrierres, juste attache par un cable a la ceinture, nous avons prefere regarder derriere la vitre, cela suffisait amplement! Pres du port, la ville devient tres animee surtout les Vendredi et Samedi soirs ou les pubs et restaurants sont nombreux! Nous avons passes un Noel tranquille avec nos amis d'Orca III et Malachi et puis après le premier de l'an, nous partirons pour une excursion sur Roturoa.