This entry is going to combine days three and 4 because not quite enough has happened for me to be able to stretch it out into two separate ones. Also by the time i normally write these entries I was just too tired to contemplate it, but that is beside the point.

Yesterday, after enjoying a really full 18 hours of sleep, I decided to have a more calm and relaxed day by taking a look at the Auckland War Memorial museum, which was up a fairly steep walk from where my hostel was. I found out the hard way what it means to have a city built on 46 volcanic outcrops, but it did mean that the Auckland domain where the museum was surrounded by some of the lushest meadows I have ever seen. before going into the museum proper I had a walk through a very interesting part of Auckland, the acclimatization park. The history behind this is that in the 1860s the society of acclimatization was granted 4 acres of land in which to accept plants and animals that had been shipped over from the UK and other parts of the Empire, where they would spend some time getting used to the New Zealand climate and the potential pests that would prove fatal otherwise. This is how root plants like the potato were no doubt introduced into the ecosystem, and is responsible for the availability of trout to be fished in New Zealand rivers. It now makes for a pleasant distraction before going to the museum proper.

The Museum itself is pretty fantastic, with a range of exhibits from the natural history of New Zealand to a whole room dedicated to Sir Edmund Hilary the second man to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. The main sections of course though were those relating to the wars that New Zealand was involved in. There were the ones that you would expect, such as the Anzac memorial of those who fought in Gallipoli and in the Somme, but there was also a small section about Kiwi involvement in the Boar War, which I had never known before. There was even a small part dedicated to the Maori wars between 1846 and 1872, another event that I had been completely unaware of up until that point. There was also a very poignant inscription on the front of the museum, one that still resonates a great deal with me: “The whole earth is the tomb of heroic men and their story is not given only on stone over their clay but abides everywhere without visible symbol woven into the stuff of other men’s lives.”

That evening I went out with some students at the University of Auckland to what they described as a ball, but was in fact simply an excuse for students to dress up formally and fill up a pub dancing and drinking.  It was fun night by all accounts, but I was still feeling the effects of jetlag and was quite happy to be able to go back before midnight.

Today I did something slightly different by going on a long hike through Auckland, going from the north coast all the way down to the south one, sixteen miles in all. It wasn’t an extremely challenging hike, but the distance did take a bit of a toll on my feet so I might have to plan for a more lazy day some time in the future. The hike was the perfect way to get a good look at Auckland in all its beauty, from the busy and tall central business district to the more quaint suburbs of Epson and Newmarket. When I had arrived I had a niggling sensation that I had seen something similar to Auckland before, and today I realized that it reminded me a lot of Wells in England, only much more spread out. The effect is that the city feels small and dainty when in fact holding a third of the population of this country, an impressive feat! If only the weather hadn’t been so damp it would have been almost the perfect day.

Tomorrow is a bit undecided. Maybe Hobbiton, maybe something a bit closer to home, it all depends on weather and how tired I feel. Until next time!