Day 25: Christmas Eve in Auckland

Since Auckland gets a lot of tourists, almost everything I want to see is only closed Christmas Day. I heard the Auckland Museum and Auckland Art Museum were pretty neat, so I decided I'd spend Christmas Eve visiting them.

I wasn't able to sleep in even though I was up late last night, so I started my day going to the Auckland Fish Market. They open early and the museums don't open until 10 am. And it would let me walk by the neat bridges from last night during the day.

The fish market was great! They had so many fish and other sea life for sale. You could even get smoked salmon and smoked mussels. I loved smoked salmon, but I bough a little smoked mussels since I've only ever seen that here.

Then I was off to walk over to the museum! It's in the Auckland Domain, a big park, so it was a nice walk to get to it. Most of the first floor was filled with Maori artifacts and items, the second floor was mostly natural history and the third floor was a war memorial and museum. It was pretty good as far as museums go.

I wandered through the Auckland Domain to get to the Auckland Art Museum. They have a place called the Auckland Wintergardens, which is like a greenhouse or botanical gardens. Attached to it was a fernery! I wonder how many places have ferneries? It sure makes sense for New Zealand. There are ferns everywhere here.

The art museum was really nice (and it's free!). After that I was starving so I went to the hostel to make dinner and figure out my plan for the evening. Hiked hunger may finally be hitting me now that I'm off the trail for a few days.

For Christmas Eve I wanted to see the lights I had heard about on Franklin Road. It doesn't get dark until 9 pm here, so I decided I'd go to the Shakespeare Hotel and Brewery before heading to Franklin. I arrived at Franklin just as it was getting dark - and so it seemed was everyone else! The street was packed in both directions and the sidewalks were filled with people. People were singing and playing instruments to raise money. This must be the Christmas Eve activity if you live in Auckland. It really made it feel like Christmas.

After making it up and down both sides of the street, I walked to Nelson Street. I had read somewhere that the bike path was lit up at night, so I decided to check it out. It was a big bridge over the highway and one side was lined with vertical lights. As you walked by, they changed from blue or purple to white. I'd never seen anything like it in a city before.

By the time I finished walking the bike path, it was about 10 pm, and unlike last night, I was tired. I walked back to the hostel and was ready for bed.

I've never seen bridges like these. There was a huge one in Whangarei too

Shopping for Christmas fish at the fish market

A boat going under the bridge that was blue last night

A neat train station I walked by on the way to the museum

A New Zealand Bird near the museum. I'm not sure what kind it is yet

The maori used head or neck rests instead of pillows. I wonder which is better for your body?

This isn't a great photo because of the glass, but this is a recreation of a moa. They were hunted to extinction by the Maori. They're huge! You can see a person in the background. And the day I started the trail Ollie said there used to be a specie… — This isn't a great photo because of the glass, but this is a recreation of a moa. They were hunted to extinction by the Maori. They're huge! You can see a person in the background. And the day I started the trail Ollie said there used to be a species of eagles here big enough to hunt these! But there are smaller moas too. Maybe they hinted the smaller ones.

This is a flightless parrot native to New Zealand. It's my favorite. It looks like a wise old bird. I can just imagine it dishing out advice in a children's movie.

An interesting sculpture on my way to the art museum

The entire front room of this house had a little Christmas Village!

This house's "ditto" lights cracked me up

This was one of the cars driving down the street

Penguins jumping off the roof. So creative!

My favorite light display of the night: a lounging kiwi