New Zealand - Adventure!

I've always associated New Zealand with outdoor activities and daring adventures. Somehow my planned day of hop-on/hop-off bus did not live up to my dream. I would love to have gone sight seeing outside the city bit I did not set anything up in advance so was out of luck.

A group of us met this morning to get discounted hop-on/hop-off bus tickets. They are regularly $35 but went down to $24 with a discount for over 10. Cash is needed otherwise someone has to put them all on their credit card. NZ $s were available on the ship.

I started the day off with the Kelly Tarltons Antarctic Encounter & Underwater Adventure. This was pretty good. I enjoyed the old historic movies of the groups who made attempts to reach the pole. They also had some nice displays of what the huts looked like on the inside. I also enjoyed the snow cat ride through the penguin area. There were some very nice views of fish, stingrays, eels, sharks etc. in the tanks.

From there I back tracked to the first stop for the bus which was on a look out type point. I joined some New Zealanders who were watching the America's cup boats race. It was USA vs. Sweden. Sweden was way ahead. They pointed out to me the Oracle yacht watching the race. They had their radios tuned to listen as well as their binoculars trained on the boats. It was fun having them fill me in. I also got their input on the best stops for the bus.

Then it was on to the Rose Garden. I had a brief snack there and walked down to some other gardens and towards the water. The buses run every half hour so I got back with plenty of time to catch the next bus. But it did not come. About 25 min. later another bus came so I was on my way to the museum.

The museum had some really nice exhibits. It was $5 so a great value. The Maori cultural exhibit was my favorite. I also enjoyed a special exhibit of artifacts that the museum had received but did not belong in their major collections. They gave some info on where the artifact came from and its history since coming into the hands of the museum.

From there I went to the Sky Tower. Here is where I got my adventure in. There were three options. Ride to the top and view. Go outside the top in a harness and walk around the outside on a 3.5 ft walkway with no hand rails on either side, just empty space to the ground while you receive a guided tour of the city, and jump off from this same platform and fall to the ground via cables. I chose the walk around on the outside option due to my back problems. No more bungee jumping type stuff for me. Thankfully I am not afraid of heights so had no problems with the walk other than being buffeted by strong winds which sometimes made it hard to keep your balance. The views were spectacular!

From there it was back to the ship and dinner. I then ventured out to an Internet cafe. I will have to post pics when I get back to the ship. The day isn't over yet as we have a folkloric performance tonight so I likely won't post the pics until tomorrow.

It was hot and humid in NZ so ignore my prediction about the weather getting cool just yet.