since the hostel could offer a twin room for only one night, we decided to try our luck today at some other hostel in auckland. but before that the reception lady got us a nice car offer. ha, the guy at the airport was wrong again! though it was not one of the low budget offers, it's still pretty cheap, and even cheaper than if we would have booked it beforehand via the internetz. so we have a car now, which we will pick up tomorrow at 14:00. or, to be more precise, we will be picked up to be brought to the car. we left our luggage at a locker in the hostel and started to explore auckland. so we went down upper queen's street to the harbour, where we wanted to get a ferry to rangitoto island, to go a little hiking and enjoying nature and a fabulous view over auckland (according to the guides). but unfortunately the last ferry has already left the harbour. so we decided to go to kelly tarlton's antarctic encounter and underwater world park instead. but before that, ninsti bought herself a nice second hand tele lens (70-300) at a camera shop with second hand stuff. at kelly tarlton's we saw a replica of an old explorer's hut with woolen underwear and such, had a snowcat ride through new zealand's only colony of antarctic penguins, and were guided by a conveyor belt through an aquarium tunnel. the huge tank was filled with stingrays, sharks, turtles, and all kind of fish, crabs, seahorses, octopuses, puff fishes, eels and sea stars. a little later we were getting on the bus back to auckland again to see auckland's landmark, the sky tower. its height is 328 metres, making it the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere. unfortunately the outdoor deck was closed, so we had to stay inside. but they have some spots on the deck where they put glass windows into the ground, so you can step on them and look down. it actually was not that easy for us to step over them, but we did it. at the time we were on the upper deck the sun has already set, so we got a nice view over the city at night. also they had a nice shop on the ground floor from weta, the guys who did the costumes and/or effects for movies like king kong, lord of the rings, and avatar with a live-sized uruk'hai statue, and the blue girl from avatar. on our way back to grab the stuff from to the hostel we found a lovely shopped named "real groovy" which had still opened. after a little shopping we got our stuff from the lockers and brought it to the hostel we will spend this night. auckland has pretty steep streets, so it was quite strenuous with all the luggage. but fortunately the hostel was not too far away, and once we had our luggage in our room, we went to get some food. nearby we found a chinese bbq, that looked nice. you have a grill on your table, grab the meat, fish, vegetables, and all stuff at a buffet, and then start to grill it. was fun and also delicious. some random stuff i noticed so far: we did not see or hear a single police car (but loads of ambulances), also i haven't spotted a single cat yet (ownoez), but we saw lots of asian people, and transfer is actually pretty expensive.