Melting

After my last entry my day continued on in Auckland. I decided to go up into the Sky Tower, which offered an impressive view of the city. Auckland reminds me a lot of Seattle. It sits right on the water and there is surrounding land and islands with other communities on them that you can see as well. I was told that Auckland is the most spread out city in the world, which became obvious from atop the Sky Tower. I opted out of throwing myself off the top for $100, though we were able to see people falling past us from the Observation Deck. After the Tower, I walked up to a spot called Mt. Eden. Auckland sits on many active volcanoes, and while they aren’t active at this very moment, scientists believe one of their volcanoes will erupt in our lifetime. Mt. Eden is one of those volcanoes and is a good hike up from the city center. Once to the top, imagine my surprise when I saw cows grazing inside the crater. Someone had also decided to spell out the name “Daniel” with rocks at the bottom of the crater. While I was there, a moronic father and his three kids decided to walk into the crater and try to scare the cows, even though there were signs everywhere asking you not to walk inside the crater. The view from Mt. Eden was even better than the Tower, as it gave you a view of the city itself. Plus, it was free. It was too early for the sunset, so I walked back down towards what I thought was the direction of my hostel, but got myself a little lost and ended up walking right past the prison, which was not in my guidebook. Since I was booked on an early bus the next morning, I had a quick dinner, packed and pretty much called it a night after so much walking around.

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