NEW ZEALAND 4

29/12/08

Well, the weatherman was right! We woke up to a dull and grey morning today and at about 8:00 am, the rain began to fall. New Zealand seems to be blessed with good rains right around the whole year, making for a very green and lush countryside, even in summer. It was rather surprising not seeing the usual warnings and signs about water restrictions that one sees in Australian hotels these days. Our hotel had absolutely no such signage and the tap water was excellent in terms of purity and drinkability.

Although it rained on and off all day, we walked everywhere with the help of a large umbrella that the hotel provided for us. The rain ranged from the annoying drizzle to the sudden downpour, but we managed not to get at all wet. We first visited the Auckland Art Gallery, which is in temporary residence in a building next to its usual lovely old Victorian home. The original building is being renovated and extended so that the exhibition space is increased by 50%. The renovated gallery will reopen in 2011.

I must say that we found the gallery very disappointing. Although the gallery was ample, the rooms generous and the exhibition spaces extremely well-disposed, the art works exhibited were unfortunately sadly below expectations. Some modernist rubbish created by the untalented for the pretentious critics to wax lyrical over, some photographs and photocollages that were quite grotesque and a couple of themed exhibits that had pieces of varying quality and were a pot pourri of old and modern (mainly indifferent) works. One of the exhibitions was “The Enchanted Garden” and all of the exhibits had to do with a gardening theme. For such a wonderful theme, the works displayed were rather prosaic.

Only a few pieces were memorable and were capable of evincing some sort of emotion (with the exception of “the emperor has no clothes on” type of reaction that the majority of works evoked). We were assured by the curators that the permanent exhibits that are usually on show are much better, but we have to revisit the gallery in 2011 in its newly appointed building. Fortunately the entry was free on Monday, otherwise I would have bewailed the entrance fee, however low it may have been.

We walked to the Domain, where the Museum of Auckland takes pride of place. The Domain is a huge park adjacent to the City and is one of the crowning glories of the city. Hectares of parkland, manicured lawns, well-planted trees and pleasure gardens surround the hill on which the rather severe classical-style museum sits. Very close to the museum is the Winter Garden with two enormous conservatories and a formal pond, fernery and refreshments kiosk.

We entered the museum paying a very modest donation fee of five dollars each and found ourselves in a very spacious atrium area. It was quite a busy day with numerous people around, given the holiday and the rainy day. A day in the museum is de rigueur under such circumstances. The museum is one of the best places to visit in Auckland. Excellent exhibits, generally well displayed, a broad variety of thematic displays, an excellent interactive children’s museum area, a fantastic array of Maori and Pacific Islands artefacts and on the topmost floor the war memorial and the monument to the unknown soldier.

A dinosaur exhibition with its centerpiece of a complete fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton was interesting and informative. The children were once again having a field day here and little gasps of pleasure alternated with giggles and a frightened whimper now and then. The Auckland Museum is definitely worth a day’s visit or even more if you wish to do the multiplicity of exhibits full justice.

Close to the museum within the vast parkland of the Domain, is the Winter Garden. This is a gorgeous spot where two huge conservatories face each other across a large formal lily pond surrounded by a colonnade over which wisterias and other climbing plants ramble. One of the conservatories is dedicated to seasonal flowering plants with an enormous display of fuchsias, begonias, alstromoerias, orchids, dahlias, begonias, hydrangeas, sunflowers and several more colourful blooms. The other conservatory is a true tropical hothouse in which there is a central lily pond where Nile waterlilies and Victoria amazonica waterlilies bloom, surrounded by orchids, banana plants, ginger plants, tropical ferns, bromeliads, tuberous begonias, heliconias and other tropical jungle plants.

Adjacent to the conservatories is the open air fernery, which is quite an amazing place as one descends down a ramp and some stairs to a shay sunken garden where pools of water mirror the fern fronds and where the quiet air is only disturbed by the babbling of the running water and the drone of a lone bee frustrated by the lack of flowers in this place where greenery reigns supreme. A place to truly heal and nourish the soul.

We walked back to town through the Domain and the University of Auckland. The weather, which had been showery for the most of the day turned rainy and we were grateful of the large golf umbrella that was lent to us by the hotel. We walked by the old city cemetery and in the grey and wet gloom it was indeed a melancholy place where one could contemplate the vanitas vanitatum of life and serve as a useful memento mori.

We got back to the hotel slightly wet, but nevertheless replete of the day’s activities and the wonderful sights we had seen. I was quite thankful for the lack of water restrictions as a nice, long, warm shower hit the spot.