There's a fair bit to see around the city. After being almost completely leveled by a massive 7.8 earthquake in 1931, the city itself was rebuilt completely in the Art Deco style of architecture, the contemporary movement of the time, with a very Spanish Missionary type feel to it. See pictures below. Nowadays the city is built up enough that only the town center retains its Art Deco heritage. To walk along and see all the buildings takes an hour and a half.
Also toured the city prison, an older establishment which was one of the few to survive the tumultuous earthquake of '31 (though there are cracks in the floor and parts of the compound are no longer fully level as a result of the quake). The prison only closed down in 1992- and it would definitely be quite a memorable experience to have to stay locked up in it, even in more recent years. The current family who owns the prison complex has turned it into a tourist attraction and also partially a backpackers hostel. I elected to stay somewhere else however; I prefer my hostels to have a slightly more welcoming feel to them. In the prison's more than a century and a half of operation, there were four official hangings that took place, although the tour guide emphatically acknowledged that more were rumored to have occurred in the unknowing dead of night.
A large number of backpackers in the town are staying for a couple of months to work in the surrounding orchards. This region, Hawke's Bay, has a large fruit growing and vineyard population. Apparently this week was the first week of blueberry harvesting; many of the backpackers staying at the hostel clamored for tips on how to pick faster once they found out that I am a veteran blueberry picker, having spent so many summers doing it at home.
On Wednesday (the 25th) I took a bus to Wellington, New Zealand's capital and southernmost principal city on the North Island. It is way more vibrant and upbeat of a city than Auckland, despite only have 400,000 residents to Auckland's 1,000,000. Auckland was very quiet and sedate, with only one main shopping street, but Wellington acts more like a typical city, with a student district, a main thoroughfare, and numerous popular streets and malls.
There's a free tour of New Zealand's Parliament complex in Wellington. It was a really good tour; the guide littered his commentary with numerous digs at New Zealand's political system and persons, most of which went over my head. New Zealand has a constitutional monarchy. When the Queen of England deigns to set foot on New Zealand soil, she automatically becomes the Queen of New Zealand, but her role is largely ceremonial. I believe that all bills passed by the New Zealand Parliament get passed on to her, but I think she has very little veto power. In effect New Zealand is a republic, but it is a very conservative nation so as the monarchy bit is not problematic, New Zealanders see very little need to break of ties with England. The tour went through the legislative complex, the New Zealand Parliamentary Library, and the Executive Wing. We also went into the basement of the Parliament House and saw an actual Base Isolator- the colossal devices put on the bases of buildings to counteract and protect against earthquakes. Wellington is built right on top of a geographic fault and suffers between 10,000 and 15,0000 earthquakes each year. Apparenty the Base Isolator is a New Zealand invention, and as one of the few significant Kiwi inventions it is highly paraded about at any opportunity.
National Library:
The Executive and Legislative Halls: the one on the left is called the Beehive.
I picked up a street performer license for juggling, but I'm leaving on the 27th and am not sure if I'm going to have a chance to use it.
I've put up a map of my route through the North Island. The red line is where I've cycled, and the blue/black is where I've taken a bus. I'm going to try to include a map as I'm going for the South Island.
Please make this map larger.
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