So it is winter here. Not a US Midwestern winter or Northeast winter, but winter nonetheless. We wake up to temps in the high 30s or low 40s (Fahrenheit) before it warms up to the mid or upper 50s during the day. As it is winter, there have been a number of activities offered as part of their Winter Festival. We decided to take advantage of a couple of free events on Saturday.
We walked from “our” house to downtown which was approximately 75 minutes. We took the train back at the end of the day (about 25 minutes).
A couple of the activities offered through July are snow or ice-based. There is a square that has been transformed into a skating rink and a snow globe for a free photo op. I thought the snow globe sounded cool and thought we should check it out. It was definitely cool (no pun intended), but we observed it from outside as it was smaller than I had imagined and we don’t really need a photo of ourselves. It was interesting watching the staff shovel the man-made snow that accumulated inside the globe. We also liked the ice princesses that were posing for photos near the globe.
After people watching for a bit, we decided to head to the harbor area for our picnic lunch.
We had free tickets to another festival event (see below) at 4:00 pm. Until then, we decided to do one of the central district Auckland walks that we had picked up at the I-site (visitor’s center) in the Sky City building. It took us to various public art pieces along Queen Street, the major shopping street in the city center.
A little before 4:00 we headed to the Auckland Town Hall for Te Hono: The Gathering. We weren’t quite sure what to expect except that it was suppose to be a multi-media event. It was held in one of the town hall chambers with big bean bag type chairs up front and folding chairs behind and on the sides. There were a couple of musicians on stage who performed sound effects for the show. Scenes were projected onto the walls and ceiling while three Maori men told different stories. The performance lasted an hour.
Peckish Travels 