Up at eight in rare sunshine and we set off to find breakfast. The city seemed quite sleepy and quiet, but we finally found a tiny café for our flat blacks and eggs and then walked down to the harbor as the city came to life.
Bob wanted to get a ferry ticket to the Great Barrier Island, 2.5 hours away, to see if he could get a few more sea birds, but found it was all sold out for tomorrow! Holiday season has started with a bang and the city is loaded with tourists and Boxing Day sales. We saw a line queuing up outside the Swarovski Crystal store with a door man letting in only few at a time, and that continued all day.
It started pouring as we entered the Ferry building, but then it cleared a bit as we left. We walked along the harbour past some amazingly large super yachts and over to the Fish Market. As we entered the rain let loose once again! The market was beautifully laid out and we could identify many of the unusual fish we have been served. There were the local crayfish (spiny lobsters) for sale at $99 and in the next bin frozen Canadian lobsters for $25 each! Can’t figure this one out!
The rain diminished as we walked through the harbour and returned to the hotel to figure out what we should do for the next three days. From our hotel window we can see the 1076’ tall Sky Tower two blocks over. The restaurant we are going to this evening is the Sugar Club on the 53rd floor. At that level is also a four foot wide platform with no railings encircling the tower like a halo on which one can pay a bundle to be attached to a thin cord and walk around and be encouraged to lean out over the abyss! Also for over $200 one can jump off this platform attached to a wire. From our hotel room we actually saw one person flying down until he disappeared from sight!
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| Sky Tower |
Bob was researching more cruises, so Hilary and I walked a few blocks to the marvelous Auckland Art Gallery and were able to join a tour as we walked in. The Gallery recently reopened after building a beautiful very modern addition of wood and glass that somehow smoothly attaches to the 1887 French chateau original museum. We toured galleries of 19th century NZ art to the modern day, illustrating the different and developing relationship between the Maori and the European cultures and displaying some lovely artworks.
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| Auckland Art Gallery |
We returned home to rest and dress up for dinner. We walked around the block to the Sky Tower and in a very complicated combination of escalators and elevators managed to get up to the 53rd floor and the Sugar Club, the latest restaurant of Peter Gordon, a Kiwi, London-trained, avant-garde chef.
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| Duck Breast with Liver Cone |
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| View from our table with the walking "halo" |
All the dishes are starter sized and the same price. The idea is for each person at a table to order 2-3 dishes each, share (if you want) and therefore get to taste many different ingredients and combinations. Every plate is very complex with unusual ingredients. We had, for instance, five-spice duck breast with smoked polenta, walnuts, eggplant shitake salad with a chilled duck liver in a small cone and lamb loin with goat cheese beignets, pea puree and cherry tomatoes. All very good and interesting, although I think he uses too much smoke.
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| Bob's Dessert |
Bob had the most amazing dessert: white chocolate mousse with basil and tomatoes, olives and celery that had somehow been sweetened but retained their character and were amazing with the chocolate! We really enjoyed the dinner with a most amazing view of Auckland and all of its harbors/boats, etc. The other nice thing is that though this is an upscale restaurant, it was without pretension and the service was friendly and excellent.
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| Sky Tower Viewing Deck |
The price of the dinner also included admission to the 60th floor observation deck so we went up there in the last light of the day to see the beautiful complex waterways and islands in the Auckland harbor.
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