crazyscot

Auckland.

We slept well.. while the motel may sit on a thoroughfare and look a bit dilapidated from the outside, it's well decorated and appointed within, and the bed is good. A positive review is starting to write itself in our minds.


Having gone to bed before sunset out of necessity we found ourselves awake before dawn, so went for a walk to try and catch the sunrise. We were not successful; it was overcast, even trying to shroud the top of the Sky Tower. That said we did see something of the early morning life in this central Auckland suburb of St Mary's Bay - the predictable mix of dog walkers, early-morning bakeries and people getting on with their business, in what looks like quite a good suburb: the cars are smart and clean, the properties are generally well kept, one house even seeming to have left laundry out to dry on the verandah overnight. The people are very friendly, too.

Breakfast TV this morning is providing reports from Queensland waking up to count the cost of Cyclone Yasi with some very scary footage and radar traces.

When they say that Auckland is built (sprawled?) on a number of volcanoes, they're not kidding. There are dozens of them, and the city positively undulates because of it. Remarkably three-dimensional, much more so than (say) Edinburgh with its wide-area hills that you don't tend to notice so much.

Today's activities have not yet been planned but that's probably next ...

Oh, and they're right: the good Aus/NZ standard suncream does make you look like a zombie. Mind you, that's how we've been feeling so far, so nothing much new there ;-)