Auckland New Zealand the Aquarium

Sunday we headed off to be tourists with plans to visit the Kelly Tarleton’s Aquarium, the Sky Tower and the Maritime Museum.  A busy day!

Kelly Tarlton’s Aquarium is located in the former sewer treatment plant and tubes, located at the corner of the bay at water level.  There’s a very small, unassuming, entrance and you wind down below the street into the bay.  

The first exhibit is of Scott’s expedition to Antarctica.  The country is very keen on full scale dioramas and had many rooms depicting what life was like in the very cold!  

You then passed through a very cool tunnel of revolving snow around you.  We all thought it would be easy, but each of us felt off balance and a bit tipsy as we went through it!

Penguins, there were more penguins!

 And Lefty got to meet a couple – ok tease them!  And then we saw the sign…..

One very cool section has a moving sidewalk that travels through glass tubes with the fish swimming over you.  We went around this a couple of times, stepping off to watch a 7-gilled shark glide over head or a large ray passed by.

The jelly fish displays are always fun to watch, but the sea horse section was particularly interesting. They had 8 or 9 different types of seahorses, all pretty active during our visit.

We wrapped up the aquarium and headed off to see the city from the Sky Tower.