exploring

Lately I have done a little more exploring since I am becoming more familiar and comfortable with things, and running out of things to do at home. This morning I took my first ferry ride to Auckland, which was beautiful. Got a good view of the navy ships in harbour going past as well. I didn't take my camera, which in hindsight was a bit silly. I guess I underestimated the sightings of various things from the ferry.

As you know, on Monday morning I took Nano to the vets to say goodbye. Here is one of her last encounters (I call it "Mouse, meet mouse"):

The vet said she didn't even fight the anaesthetic, so I think she was ready to go. They were very nice there so I am happy with my choice of a new clinic. And today, unexpectedly, I received a condolence card from them in the mail. How cute and lovely of them!

Yesterday afternoon I went to the SPCA bird wing at Rothesay Bay, near Browns Bay. When the RNZSPCA programme (Animal House) was on TV, Sylvia used to appear on it quite often with her 'penguin dog' Misty. So that was who I went to see. I got to feed a little blue penguin with one flipper (a permanent resident there), baby tui (like this but a bit more raggedy and homeless looking) and baby cockatiels (a bit like this guy). I also saw baby kingfishers, waxeyes and the TINIEST little baby sparrow possible. Sylvia said it was probably a day old. So precious! So that was pretty neat - I'll ring her in a week or so to see if I can go and help out on another day.

So this morning I went to the Voyager Maritime Museum on the Auckland side of the harbour. I did a guided tour (free for Aucklanders yay!) which was pretty interesting and good because the museum was MASSIVE and I think I would have got tired by myself. Within the first few minutes I had to prevent myself from physically leaving the tour group (would have been rather obvious seeing as there were only 5 of us plus the guide), because the guide's Maori pronunciation was so freakin horrendous. People who speak like that should not even be allowed to say the words. Her pronunciation of Tangaroa (for the exhibition "Children of Tangaroa") was perhaps the worst ever heard. And the other people were British and Australian... which is good for the guide because the tourists probably don't know how it's supposed to sound, but bad for the language (and for me). ANYWAY... enough moaning. The real reason I went is because I'm thinking about becoming a volunteer guide there myself. They have volunteer crew on their vessels, Ted Ashby, Breeze and SS Puke (pictures are there if you scroll down). Pretty exciting! The only thing is, they don't provide a uniform but want me to wear black and white... of which I have nothing suitable i.e. trousers and some kind of plain shirt. Which means shopping, for boring clothes that I don't really want to spend money on. We shall see. I would probably start on Ted Ashby (better photo here) since apparently nothing can really go wrong on the scows (flat bottomed) and since I haven't 'sailed' before.

I'll leave you with some more photos (can you guess the theme?):

 Bean shows off his grubby feet

 Bean finds a comfortable but inconvenient place to nap.

Bean has kisses.

PS. It is Adrian and my (I never know how to phrase that) 3rd anniversary today. Fact for the day: According to Wikipedia, the traditional gift for the third anniversary is leather, the modern gift is crystal or glass. The leather I find a little dodgy as an anniversary gift, hah!