New Zealand gets one cyclone per year on average. We already delt with a tropical system and Cyclone Hale while we were up in the North Island. Now there is Cyclone Gabriel. It is currently a Category 3 storm and is due to hit Auckland on the 12th of February. We were due to fly to Auckland on the 12th so we moved our flight up to the 11th. We also canceled our stay up north of Auckland that was on the beach. We will be in Auckland when the storm hits but ti should be substantially weakened at this point. Perhaps we could have delayed our return to Auckland for a few days, but since we have international flights on the 16th we felt it was best to be onsite for that departure. That took us most of the morning: cancel rooms at three different places, book a different hotel, change a flight and cancel a rental car all before noon. Once that was taken care of we packed a couple of snacks and took 4 mile stroll downtown and along the lake. Since we will be getting up early and going straight to the airport we got back and got did some of the mundane tasks. We did some wash, packed the bags and cooked our dinner. Off to Auckland tomorrow!
The church is quite lovely
Finally a monument to something other than a sheep
OK, it is a sheep herding dog but at least not a sheep!
The lake is so big and the area is prone to earthquakes so Tsunami are a real threat
Our shadow in the water
Water and Land
Pillars from the original bridge, it had npo space for pedestrians
The stone church was built in 1935
The observatory has placed sign up of various distances from a sun model
The distances are to scale, Pluto was across the bridge
Saturn was across the field so I did not get the best picture
Jupiter is the largest planet but it gets the same size sign
Our tour of the solar system has ended in the asteroid belt
Two layers of clouds
Peace!
Water skiing it is not, more like water surfing
A jet ski pulling a stand up paddle board
With out the payload this jet ski was screaming across the water
The inner planets
All fit in this area
We were excited to see this large freshwater eel! We were less excited to find it was merely a stick
