Our first stop was Kelly Tarlton’s Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World.
The first part consisted of a replica of Scott's hut containing genuine paraphernalia and video footage. The history buff was beside himself with excitement! Then we took a snow train ride around the penguin enclosures which was a close encounter of the frozen, but up close kind. Fantastic. Lastly we walked through a water tunnel and observed sharks, stingrays (just a flat shark really) and various other sea creatures. Oh and we got our photo taken:
-5 Ice Bar
Cold & wet outside but we still ventured into the Ice Bar. Dressed in big Eskimo jackets and gloves we were lead into a bar which is totally made of ice with a constant high of -5 o C. The bar contains various impressive ice sculptures. No cameras are allowed which would have been difficult to use anyway wearing our thick gloves.
Vodka was the only drink available as it doesn’t freeze at these temperatures. There was a choice of vodka based cocktails which all sounded tempting. The drink was served in an ice glass which needed two hands to pick it up due to the thick gloves. After finishing the drink we could smash our ice glass into a plastic bin. This was actively encouraged!! ...and we got our photo taken!
St Patrick’s Cathedral
Nipped in to say a quick prayer for all our family and friends at home. The organist was play a Liam Lawton Gloria, practising for the mass later. I resisted the temptation to say:"I know him!"
Sky Tower
We went to the sky Tower but the weather was so bad and visibility so poor we decided not to go up. Hope to go back next weekend. There was a tourist office open-they call them 'I-Sites' and we booked our accommodation in Rotorua and our full skiing holiday in Mount Ruapehu.
Leonard very kindly picked us up and brought us home for some lovely home made grub that Denise had prepared for us.
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