Day #2 in Auckland.

Hi,
I'm having trouble getting pictures to load and I'm very disappointed. But I'm working on it with my tech support team (Nancy).
Yesterday we went to the Auckland Zoo. It was pretty nice and it was a beautiful 79 degrees and sunny. After spending so much time in transit it felt great to just walk a few house. We also walked around the pier and main city center. Very nice.

Today we went to the Auckland Museum. Generally I can spend 2-3 hours in a museum (including the time spent in the gift shop), but we spend 5 hours touring this museum.  There was a lot of new information about the original New Zealand people, the Maori. Basically, the NZ European colonists did to the Maori people what we did to the American Indians. The museum had a 25 meter war canoe and many carved artifacts. Very cool.

The museum also had an extensive volcano exhibit. Auckland is the only major city in the world built on an active volcanic field. The exhibit ends with ranking officials telling visitors that they should have 3-4 days of food/water/supplies in their houses for when the next big volcano blows. The exhibit was called "Not if, When. ". Seems to me that this display would be bad for local morale. This Auckland volcano last erupted 500 years ago and averages every 5000 years, so maybe not be such a big downer. They also had a 'volcano simulator' that lets you live through an actual eruption. I got in line for the next showing but decided from the noise coming from the room that I'd probable have nightmares afterwards so I skipped it. So did Sam.

Tomorrow we leave for Taupo, about 200 miles from here. We are renting a car from now on. We just learned that the international Iron Man competition is going on tomorrow at Lake Taupo. I hope they got my registration!
More tomorrow, mate.