Saturday 28th to Sunday 29th April – Marine Medic Training and Auckland Comedy Festival

Saturday – My Project Jonah training was due to be an all-day session with lectures in the morning followed by a practical session in the sea in the afternoon. The weather for the day had forecast thunderstorms and gales so I was relieved to get a very convenient parking space right opposite the marine centre from which I ran inside to take shelter. There were 32 of us being trained that day and the same number again tomorrow so they clearly feel that they need to up their volunteer strengths.  We consisted of a variety of ages and nationalities as you tend to find in NZ.  I got lucky by getting into conversation with a friendly lady who works for St Johns and may have a second-hand wetsuit I can buy and save myself a fortune. As the morning progressed the weather worsened, and we were all getting nervous about the prospect of having to go out in it and save fake whales!  It was quite a heavy-going morning, we learnt about the history of Project Jonah before finding out about our responsibilities and roles at strandings.  We had a couple of short breaks during which we were encouraged to purchase PJ merchandise and there was tea and coffee supplied to keep us going.  There is so much to remember! But luckily, we have been given a handbook to keep with us. I was left feeling conflicted – I don’t want any whales to strand any time soon, but on the other hand it would be good to have some practice of everything I’ve learnt without it being in two years’ time!

We finished the theory and the organisers had come to the conclusion that it was far too risky to do the practical work this afternoon.  They had to postpone it until next Saturday in the hope that people can re-attend then to finish the training.  You don’t get a PJ fluorescent jacket if you don’t complete the training, so I will be there!

I rang Simon to give him the good news that I was finishing early.  He was waiting for a train into the city to meet me as we had booked a hotel for the night.  We were taking the opportunity of being tourists in Auckland and getting a taste for the city we were hopefully going to be living near to for the foreseeable.  It was also the start of the Auckland Comedy Festival and we had tickets to two shows to enjoy.

I had enough time to go and check-in to our hotel before collecting Simon from the Britomart central station and finding our parking spot for the night.  The hotel we had booked was in a brilliant position for our night out.  We stumbled downhill stopping off to browse in shops until we found a great Japanese restaurant where we expanded our drinks repertoire – neither of us had ever tried Sake. 

We sat at the bar so that we could watch the food being created in the kitchen

Some very tasty sushi and sake

I got to enjoy some brilliant sushi to compliment the drink, but even then, I wasn’t too keen to be honest - Simon loved it though!

We continued to ‘crawl’ around a few bars whilst trying to avoid the worst deluges of rain.  We had to keep on going – our tickets were for ‘Late and Live at the Classic’ which didn’t even start until 10pm!  We were very early as Simon wanted us to be first in the queue to get good seats.  Despite clear warning signs, we hoped that we would avoid being put right at the front row for ritual humiliation, but the rules were ‘first in down to the front’ - so that is where we ended up!

It was a mostly British line-up of acts with the compere being English.  Each of the other six comics were on for roughly fifteen minutes each.  As you’d expect, some were better than others, but we got away with our vulnerable position in the most part, so we could just enjoy the show.  I’d had quite a quantity of drinks by the time the gig ended at half past midnight, so I was grateful we were only a few minutes stumble from our room!

Sunday - 10am is quite an early check-out when you’re feeling a little tender.  So, we opted to stay on foot and head to a nearby café for a bumper breakfast to make us feel human again.  

They had some of those clear floor sections to make your vertigo worse!

We had to move the car out of the hotel’s basement car park, so we opted to drive to Sky City to do our ‘viewing the City from high-up’ tourism choice by scaling the Sky Tower.  It was a much clearer day than yesterday and I felt a twang of pride as I looked around.  Auckland is awesome and I’ll be proud to call the city ‘home’ for the next couple of years if it all works out for us.

View across the Viaduct basin, Westhaven Marina to Auckland Harbour Bridge

View across the Cityscape and harbour to the north shore and that conical island in the distance is Rangitoto Island scenic reserve (it's on the list)

Auckland Town Hall

There is the option to do the Sky Walk at the tower, which is where you are attached to the outside edge of the building with a harness so that you can really get a lean-out!  We decided to save that experience for when we have some visitors who also fancy doing it. We will leave the ‘Sky Jump’ on a permanent basis!

From there we discovered free parking down by the harbour on Sundays and took a stroll around the wharfs and the area known as the Viaduct. 

BB-owl sculpture

View from the viaduct back across the City to the Sky Tower

It was busy, but I could imagine it really gets buzzing in the summer months.  We enjoyed a couple of drinks and a mid-afternoon snack to keep us going.  My seafood chowder was more like a main meal.  It was bloomin’ tasty though!

David O'Doherty's stage set-up

We’d had a very relaxing enjoyable day in the big City, but it was time to head back to the Q theatre where we had tickets to see one of our favourite comedians, David O’Doherty (he’s Irish don’t you know).  He was doing a 4pm and 7pm show that afternoon, so we figured we could see the 4pm one and be home in time to relax some more in the evening.  The D.O’D was great as usual.  His set is a mixture of stand-up interspersed with comedy songs accompanied on a small Casio keyboard (right) He makes it look easy, but it takes a lot of talent to play and sing at the same time and all with spot-on comic timing.  

Getting back into the car, to our surprise the satnav told us that we were only 40 minutes from home.  It’s amazing how near we are to the city when there’s no traffic!  What a great weekend.  We look forward to exploring the City more.