[lettie]

On 9th April we returned to Auckland to prepare for our departure. Not wanting to waste our last day moping around and bemoaning the fact that we were leaving we decided to go to Mission Bay.

It was a lovely day and ideal to visit the beach. Mission bay is only a 5 minute drive from downtown Auckland and is beautiful. There was a triathlon taking place that day so there were plenty of people around. I suppose it is Auckland's version of Venice Beach. Lots of sporty types here, people cycling and roller-blading everywhere. Everybody looks fit and tanned (except me and Sparks).

Just around the corner from Mission Bay is Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World. This is a must see. It is a huge aquarium built in a disused sewer underground. You could be forgiven for driving past it and not noticing the entrance.

Kelly Tarlton was a man with a vision. A keen diver, underwater photographer and inventor he wanted people to be able to see a diver's view of marine life. He was an expert in underwater salvage and reclamation and worked extensively with shipwrecks and such. In 1982 he and his wife travelled extensively, viewing different aquariums worldwide in order to design his own. The vision became reality in 1985 when he opened Underwater World. Within 2 months this aquarium had seen its 100,000th visitor. It became a benchmark for aquariums worldwide.

The special thing about Kelly's is the moving walkway through a 110m stretch of perspex tunnel where you can get a diver's view of the sharks, stingrays, Moray eels, crayfish and multitudes of different species of fish. Perspex tunnels are now common in aquariums throughout the world, but Kelly was the inventor... There is also an open topped stingray tank where the largest stingray Phoebe and her friends pop up and have a look and a playful splash at you. The Antarctic Encounter is the frozen underground home of the King and Gentoo Penguins, a special environment built specially for them recreates the frozen Antarctic. There is also a replica of the hut used by Captain Robert Falcon Scott on his Antarctic expedition. Plenty of different marine life in separate tanks including octopus, piranha, seahorses, eels and of course clown fish (Nemo).

I could have stayed in Kelly's all day, but we had last minute shopping to do in the city before our departure.

We could barely speak to each other at the airport the following day. We hadn't fallen out, we were just so bloody miserable to be leaving this wonderful place. We tried to cheer ourselves up with the thought that we weren't coming home yet. We were off to Singapore.....

Here are just a couple of pics of Mission Bay beach......