Sky Tower Lamb

We awoke to a sure Obama victory in the election news down in the breakfast parlour. The other lodgers, from England, wee very excited as well for the Obama presidency. We packed our bags and got approval from our hostess Maureen to leave them in the foyer for the day while we trekked around town. We scheduled our shuttle for that evening and took off down Victoria Street. We perused Victoria Market and found the prices less than spectacular. So off to the Auckland Domain, a huge park with rugby and cricket fields and the Auckland Museum. As it was lunch time, we walked down Parnell street, searching for one of a few gluten-free restaurants that Ingrid had researched. All three of the cafes that we were looking for had either moved or shut down, so we stopped at a café that fortunately had gluten-free fare. Next we headed back to the Auckland Museum, which was filled with Maori artifacts and other displays pertinent to New Zealand. The most impressive artifact was the Maori war canoe, which was hewn from one tree and was very wide and massively long with ornate carvings. Also, the Moa fossils and other large bird fossils were impressive. We then trekked to the Sky Tower downtown for our dinner reservation at 5. First we went to the observation level and walked around. Auckland is quite a beautiful city from the tower. There is a lot of foliage and greenspace. Portions of the observation deck had glass floors that you could stand on and look straight down. It took quite a bit of trust to stand on, even knowing that the glass was well engineered. At 5:30 we headed up to the Orbit, the actual restaurant. We were the first guests at the restaurant (apparently everyone in NZ is accustomed to eating late). We sat by the window and had a wonderful set menu meal for $65 dollars, which included an entrée (appetizer in NZ) of seared tuna, a main of lamb loin, and two glasses of wine plus coffee or tea. Although the reservation is for an entire 2 hours (which allows for two full revolutions of the city), we had to leave at 7:00 in order to walk back to our B&B where our shuttle was going to pick us up at 7:30. We made it just in time and sat comfortably in the shuttle, picking up others along the way, until arriving at the Auckland Airport for our trip home.