Helen had pre-purchased our tickets to be sure there would be room available the day we went. There was plenty of room. We were the only people in our group so our tour guide could easily answer any questions we had.
I didn’t have any. I was too busy snapping photos… and this wasn’t ever going to be my favorite adventure, of all the ones we had. It was slated to be Lisa’s (along with Hobbiton). She is a huge Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings/Hobbit fan. And I have worked at studios before and seen lots of behind-the-scenes craftsmanship in process, so this one wasn’t high on my list of must sees. I was more or less just going along on this one. (Nor was Hobbiton, but it turned out to be among my favorites of the many adventures we enjoyed while in New Zealand.)
Helen giving me two thumbs up from the floor above at Weta Workshop before the tour started
CGI horror makeup on me
Best friends told to “look like you’re fighting tooth and nail” as photo ops!
SKY TOWER
From there we were driven to what locals have nicknamed the Spark Plug because — seriously — once you see it, you can’t un-see it:
It’s actually called the Sky Tower and it offers utterly magnificent views of the surround area on bright sunlit days, which this one was. It’s 400 feet higher than the Seattle Space Needle.
Take a look at what I got to enjoy out the windows as I walked completely around the observation deck clicking away on my phone:
Every few steps, all the way around, there was a glass-bottom portion that guests could walk over and peer straight down through, but I wasn’t able to do that. No, thank you! Some people bungy-jumped from this structure while we were there. Again — no, thank you. I see little advantage in tempting the Fates!
Lisa and I enjoyed a nonalcoholic ginger beer in the cafe there after we made the rounds of the structure so we could get 360-degree pix of everything. I don’t remember what Helen and Deborah had. I was feeling a little overwhelmed/over-stimulated after so much almost non-stop go go go, so I was just vegging as much as I could whenever it was possible. As you know, I’m a bit of a hermit, so this was a LOT to do in under two weeks for me!
I neglected to take any notes from here on out during our vacation, so I can’t offer much in the way of anecdotes. If any occur to me after my brain is fully back on line, I will add them wherever they fit in any of the foregoing hereafter.
We had planned to eat lunch at Andy’s right there but the place was closed so we went back home and I don’t recall what we had. Oh, maybe that was the day Lisa and I sprung for Chinese food. Yeah, I think that’s what happened that day. (Someone will straighten me out of I got this wrong, so no worries!)
Our final ADVENTURE-type day was the next day, at Butterfly Creek where actual butterflies and audio-anamatronic dinosaurs (and a winsome bunch of actual zoo animals) do their thing. Wendy joined us again for that one. (She lives in that part of Auckland.) I will wait to write about that until later. I’m fading fast again; still fighting the tail end of Covid as I type these words, although I should be totally recovered by the time this publishes and you get to read it.
