Auckland part two.

Most of our time on our recent trip to Auckland was spent with Dave and Nikki. 

Which was wonderful. I enjoyed getting to know them better as well as meeting their families and many more friends who were invited along.

On our final day, we had time to ourselves and decided to play the tourists.

Our first stop of the day was at the Sea Life Centre.

Where I was delighted to find penguins, with snow!

 We were pretty much first through the doors and the keepers were still busy in the enclosure with the snow machine.

There were Emperor and these little Gentoo, who were nesting.

 As is the way with aquariums, for every good picture, we got loads of blurred images.

Thank goodness for digital cameras.

The octopus was good, he posed nicely for the camera.

I was particularly pleased to see him, as usually when I go to these places the octopus is either hiding, or not in his tank at the moment!

Rays are a favourite of mine. It doesn't matter how large or small they are, I just love to see them gliding through the water.

 These guys were particularly large. We came back to them later to watch feeding time.

We took many, many more photos, but I won't bore you with them.

Next stop was the butterfly park.

I was delighted all over again to receive a special visitor!

Like the fish, many of the butterfly shots are a blur of colour.

We also got to watch some brave chaps feeding some very large salt water crocs!

Our final stop of the day was at the Museum.

It was interesting seeing the history of New Zealand.

The Maori exhibit with their meeting house and Waka was beautiful.

Of course as we approach the 100th anniversary of Armistice day, thoughts turn to those who served in that great war and to the many who did not come home.

This is just one of the memorials we saw in the museum.

As we exited the museum and made our way back to the car I got one last snap of the city and the sky tower.

 As we flew home the next day I couldn't resist getting a quick picture of the Cook Strait.

That's Farewell Spit down there, reaching out from the top of the South Island into the ocean.

And the snow topped Southern Alps.

I'm still picking away at my secret stitching and gathering items to tuck into special packages.

But I've taken one or two photos along the way, just to tease you here and there!

I'll show one of those next time, along with pictures of my newly acquired stash!

I swapped shifts today, so I'm not starting work until one o'clock, which means I have time to play, after a few domestic chores!