Then we arrived in Auckland, New Zealand...

When we arrived, shortly after eight in the morning, our room at the backpacker wasn't ready yet, so we stashed our numerous bags in the office and headed out in search of a good coffee. We found a little Italian bakery where a fellow from Liverpool was busy chatting enthusiastically and creating wonderful steaming cups of pure magic!

Afterwards, we walked up to the Auckland museum. Both of us are interested in all things historical! This is a shot of me inside a Maori meeting house.




We were both amazed by the size of a Maori war canoe which dominated one of the main floor exhibit spaces.


The museum also had quite a large war memorial display. We had a good look around and then took in the Maori concert... a great mix of education and entertainment. No photos, sorry, we were too busy enjoying the performance!

Huge says this is a V-I bomb. Hundreds were launched by the Germans from France onto London during WW II. Allied pilots were witnessed flying close to them to try and tip the wings with their own to divert them from the city. The thing is huge, and must have wreaked havoc on the city.

They have this Supermarine Spitfire inside the museum, in the War Memorial exhibit (and a working Rolls Royce engine from the Spitfires in a plastic display case). Among the Allied pilots, many Canadians flew these manoeverable machines. That information is non-existent outside of Canada probably due to the fact that our pilots flew for the Royal Air Force (Britain), as we did not have our own air force yet. Oops, looks like I'm heading into LECTURE mode! I'd better stop there before I start listing all our pilots and their stats...(a proud Canadian of our vets, what can I say).