Jan 26 - Sea Life Aquarium

This morning was a repeat of yesterday - sleep until 6:00 a.m., doze until 7:00 a.m. and then have breakfast - same menu. Our plan was to go to mass at 11:00 a.m. at the nearby Cathedral of St. Patrick and St. Joseph, so we watched videos until then. Felt a tad sacrilegious….. Today will be the last of the lazy mornings for a couple of weeks - we will be on the bus at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow.

It’s another beautiful, sunny day here. There are warnings about the very high UV index, so we’ll have to be careful with our still pasty-white skin.

Mass was lovely with songs that I knew, so I belted them out vigorously. To sing is to pray twice!! The priest had a lovely sense of humour. He mentioned that tomorrow is his birthday, and as a result, he was giving everyone a day off. Bah ha ha. Tomorrow is already a holiday - Auckland Anniversary Day - a New Zealand national holiday. It commemorates the day on which explorer and first governor of New Zealand William Hobson first sighted North Island at the Bay of Islands. In 1840, Hobson arrived in New Zealand and quickly signed a treaty with the Maori, the Treaty of Waitangi, that led to New Zealand becoming a new British colony. It was on 18 September of 1840 that Hobson founded Auckland and made it the capital city of New Zealand. And that very year, a small regatta was held at Auckland in Waitemata Harbour, involving only three races In 1850, the status of 29 January as Auckland Anniversary Day (now celebrated on the Monday on or before to give a 3-day weekend) and the tradition of the Auckland Regatta became official. In these early days, Maori canoes, local fishing boats, and whaling boats took part, adding much excitement. Yachts, sailboats, and even seaplane races were added over the years. Today the regatta is the largest one-day event of its kind in the world and is the central attraction of Auckland Anniversary Day. It’s one of the reasons Auckland is known as the City of Sails.

After mass, we picked up sandwiches at the grocery store, packed a lunch back at the hotel room and ordered an Uber with our destination being Sea Life - a huge aquarium about 6-7 kilometres from downtown. We ate lunch in the shade so as not to get burned in the strong sun, and then toured the aquarium. I had a 20% off coupon which even applied to the senior rate. Sweet. This being old thing has a few perks. (Got the senior rate at Sky Tower yesterday too.)

The first display was about Robert Scott’s expeditions to the Antarctic. The photographer he had along was fearless and inventive - many of his photographs and films survived the brutal conditions.

The next display was my favourite - penguins!! Sea Life is home to New Zealand’s only colony of Sub-Antarctic penguins - it was fascinating to see the magnificent birds up close in their icy world. There was one penguin sleeping standing up. Methinks it was a teenager.

We took a moving sidewalk through a tunnel with sharks and manta rays and hundreds of fish swimming beside and above us. Very cool. In other displays, we saw sea turtles and huge lobsters and giant sea horses and ugly eels and jelly fish and so much more.Read more