Auckland life..

After a much needed sleep in the Queen of Tongas room, we headed into town. Shopping was the order of the day for Tuesday, amongst Aucklands well known areas such as Queen Street, K Road and Newmarket.

We were not that impressed. A lot of the guidebooks emphasise the fact that a quarter of NZ's population live in Auckland, and Queen St is fantastic for shopping. Its not. K Road was a lot better with some funky little stores, while a visit to the Victoria Park market was a letdown as it only sold tourist junk.

Newmarket seemed to be where all the shops were, and it was busy still despite the drizzle. As we have no money for shopping anyway, it was a case of Zee browsing.... great..

Anyway we had a much better day on Wednesday with us going to Auckland Museum . As well as a real thorough Pacific Life section, and a brilliant Maori exhibition, we were also treated to a Maori welcome ceremony and an show of Maori singing, chanting and dancing.. including the world famous Haka.

After this we headed around the rest of the museum, which had a natural history floor and also a war memorial floor.. A really great day out! The museum in Wellington, Te Papa Tongewara is meant to be the better place to see Maori artifacts and other NZ treasures, but I really enjoyed the Auckland War Memorial Museum!!