Sky City Starlight Symphony!

What a night!

This was a fantastic music in the park (at the Domain) to be enjoyed by anyone in Auckland.

We arrived around 6pm for the 7.30 start and already the streets were jammed with parked cars, cars looking for spaces, road closures and hundreds of people walking towards the park with their heavy picnic, deck chair and rug loads. Luckily we saw a very enterprising young man selling car parking spaces for $5 (brandishing a huge home-made cardboard sign) and took him up on it.

Following the hoards of people towards the park, I began to really feel excited about the coming performances. As we arrived, there were 100s of people already set up in front of the stage - we could also see 4 huge cannons, set up by the Royal New Zealand Artillery, ready for the 1812 Overture - wow!

A lovely spot was found and then a variety of directions were sent to friends joining us from the North Shore via mobile phones - 'we are near the cannons' and 'look for the St John's Ambulance' etc. Anyway, they eventually found us ( I was even waving to the wrong people at one point - oops) and we settled down for a fun-filled evening.



Lots of people setting up camp!



The performances were all very impressive. My favourites were the Auckland Youth Choir and their BRILLIANT rendition of The Space Odyssey (I think that was it), the Emperor Waltz (dubbed the 'crowd waltz' due to the fact that everyone in the audience was invited to waltz - we had a go - but I can't waltz and neither can Kev - great fun), the beautiful voice and good looks of Geoff Sewell ( O Sole Mio, Unchained Melody and Nessun dorma), Perfect Day ( I love that song), Somebody To Love, Good Vibrations, Raining Men, Sway, Star Wars (accompanied by a fantastic laser show in the sky), Land of Hope and Glory (of course!), the 1812 Overture (accompanied by 4 VERY LOUD cannons, green lasers and fireworks - truly spectacular) and, finally, the national anthem (first in Maori - which I can just about remember now - then in English). Wow! What a night.

The firework, cannon and laser show for the 1812 Overture was amazing and sooo beautiful! The cannons were bang (ha) on time and everything just stopped together at the end - excellent. Best outdoor show I've ever been to and it cost NOTHING - just the petrol to get there, parking, a picnic and a gold coin given for the charity of the night.





What a lovely evening!

Other stuff:

Wednesday night saw Auckland hit by 3 earthquakes! Of course, I never felt a thing - unlike 1000's of other people! The airport was closed in order to check the safety of the runway and it was breaking news on the TV. Hey ho! Here's a link for you (They struck in Orewa - north of us):

http://www.geonet.org.nz/recent_quakes.html

Friday night saw me being dive bombed by a mad cicada!

I was on the phone with daughter when it flew into the sitting room from outside at the speed of light and proceeded to madly dive into walls and ceiling etc, finally ending with a dive bomb at my head!

Needless to say, I , with a mad shriek, jumped up with amazingly fast speed for a lady of my years (quite impressed when I look back upon this) and ran out of the room - at the same time ordering husband to immediately get rid of said creature.

Daughter thought my shriek was some sort of excitement at a comment she had made until I was finally capable of explaing the situation - I was making sure I was safely out the flight path of the mad insect at the time.

Whew!

Well - today we are off to the cultural festival of Auckland - funnily enough in the same place as last night's performance - shall let you know how it goes. Must do some work first though - BORRRRIIIING.

Must put some more Welly photos on too at some point.

Well - tara fer nooo!

x Sue