Australia
- Sydney
    Zoo
    Fox Studios
    Olympics
- Cairns/Reef
- Ayers Rock

Olympics
- Games
- Closing Crmny

I fly from LA into Auckland.  Jet lag? Heck no!  Time to explore!  It's a blue-sky day, so to get a better view of the city, I head straight to the Sky Tower, which is like Seattle's Space Needle + a TV tower.
From the top, you can see that Auckland is a bit like Seattle:a green hilly city surrounded by water with panormaic views of mountains in the distance.	Auckland's skyline
And like Seattle, Auckland's usually rainy, so I'm extremely lucky that today I can see those mountains!

Then, I dash off to the waterfront to see the America Cup village where they had the sailing races a few months ago.  Inspired, I catch a ride on these yellow water taxis to grab a pic of the city.

Catherine of the Yale Club of Auckland drives by to give me a scene-stunning driving tour of the city.  We drive to the top of two hills, actually volcanic peaks (yikes!): Mount Victoria, and One Tree Hill, a park with a hill that has the Joshua Tree featured in U2.   Next, we drive out to the West Beach Piha, which has black sand.    Catherine points out a neighboring beach, where they filmed The Piano (which had young Rogue! I mean Anna Paquin).

Dinner Catherine invites me to dinner at her house, where I meet her husband Martin and son Julius who's visiting for the weekend from Wellington. They're so incredibly friendly, nice, and wired! Martin
shows me Homeworld net gaming tactics on his ADSL connection. Dinner is awesome, including butterfly-cut lamb with kiwi	Dinner with Martin, Catherine and Julius
sauce, lemon souffle, and golden kiwi (sweeter, less hairy). Jet lag's starting to tug at my eyelids, so I head back to the hotel to rest up for the next day's adventures:  a boat ride to see the Waitoro glowworm caves, and in Rotorua, hot mud, geothermal springs, and a traditional Maori outdoor dinner festival!

I catch a Water Taxi to get better views of the skyline

kiwi