I slept really well on the Thursday night and didn’t rush to get up this morning since I felt I deserved the extra rest. I did get up, though, since today was the main point of the whole trip: Finns at the Zoo concert.

I don’t recall much of the first part of the day except I got up and showered and dressed and went out. My feet were kind of sore but once I got going it was okay. I wandered up and down some of the main streets in Auckland, passing the time until it was time to catch a bus to the zoo.

This is the day I got rained on properly for the first time that week I’d thought I might have to buy an umbrella early in the week because the forecast was for rain most days. This was the first time I kind of thought I might have to finally do that. But I didn’t. It bucketed down a few times in the late morning and/or early afternoon. It’s a lot different seeing people huddle under cover throughout the city instead of casually walking around everywhere. The sidewalks became quite crowded at times as people tried to move around. I found the rain was much like it is here in Perth, though, because it would bucket down for a few minutes and then drizzle or stop for a while.

The zoo concert was outdoors and the rains picked a terrible time to arrive. I was prepared to be dealing with wet ground and decided I would get some sort of rain poncho later if it might be necessary. So there was the wait through the day to see if it would clear. And it did clear up at times but then would rain again so there was no certainty at all. At least it wasn’t cold weather. I’m thinking about that now because it’s currently quite chilly here and I have socks and slippers on but have cold feet. :)

I ate a late-ish lunch at a sort of fusion Asian place. I was some variation on a noodles and egg, I think. I had tried to get this earlier in the week but apparently it wasn’t available so I got something else. Anyway, I sat and ate a very leisurely lunch while watching people pass by the small shop in the now muggy afternoon weather.

I didn’t have anything much planned for the afternoon so decided to catch the innerlink bus around the CBD to see where it goes. This didn’t go to plan the first time I caught it. Most of the buses just carry on travelling in a circle but eventually the drivers do change and this one dropped all of us off on a street I’d not seen before. I ended up walking along until I found another bus and caught that one and was able to just sit and relax. This was truly the most relaxing of days during my trip because I had no plans of doing anything much until evening and I wanted to save my feet for standing at the concert. They were still sore but bearable at this point, which was encouraging for the evening. The round trip on this bus didn’t cover as much of an area as I would have liked but it was still useful to have it available even if to just make a walking trip a bit shorter.

After going around once I got off and browsed around some souvenir shops in town and then popped into the library for a little while. There main branch has two levels and the even has an escalator between floors, which surprised me a lot. I also need to make use of the toilets there and found they were kind of high tech too. At the sink there was a machine that did the soap and then the water flowed and then it dried your hands, all at the same basin. It was pretty crowded there that afternoon, perhaps from visitors seeking shelter from the elements. By this time the rains had pretty much stopped altogether and they had been more drizzle for quite a while. So there was a chance the concert might not be disturbed by the rain gods after all. I think I’ve been rather lucky to have never been stuck in the rain at a concert before. The closest I came was when I went to see Neil Finn and Paul Kelly early last year and it had been very much a dark and stormy day throughout. But somehow the rain let up just a little while before the show and all was well throughout.

I think the gates for the show opened at 5pm so I looked to find the bus I needed around 3pm or so. I had gone straight to the Britomart Transport Centre to hopefully make it easier for myself. I think it worked out pretty well because the bus was pretty full by the time I passed by some of the locations I’d travelled earlier in the day. Soon we were out of the cbd area and into a suburb that I didn’t know at all. I remember passing by some sort of museum along the way and then I remember the signs about the Queensland fruit fly. I had seen notices about this in grocery stores and a few other places through the week but this was the first area directly affected. They had been found in the area and there were regulations in place that forbade removing certain foods from being taken out of that area to prevent the spread of the infestation.

It really didn’t take all that long before we arrived at the destination. Actually it was just me that disembarked and it seems I must have gone a stop too far because I had to backtrack slightly to reach the road where the zoo was located. The hardest part was getting across the main road and once across it was quite an easy walk, accomplished in about ten minutes at most. The entrance to the zoo was really pretty and I did take a few photos beforehand. The tickets did include entrance to the zoo but if I wanted to get a decent spot, I wanted to go straight to the venue and stick around. There was already a line of people waiting to get in for the show. I didn’t know anybody, of course, so I just got in line and sat down. It wasn’t moving and would be moving for at least half an hour.

There was another lady just behind me who struck up a conversation. She’d flown over from Canberra and was part of the same fan forum where I had spent a bit of time. We had a good chat while we waited and she regaled me with stories from other shows she’d seen. There are quite a few members of this forum that have done a fair bit of travel for the shows and it seems this one of those people.

The line finally started to show signs of getting ready to move so we gathered up belongings and we went straight to the front when we arrived. The venue was divided in front of the gazebo where the band was to play. The left side was for people in chairs and the right side was for people who were standing or sitting on the ground. We went to the right side and were just behind the lines marked out by the footpath there. Sitting there was pretty fine for me since I wanted to save my feet for later in the evening. Meanwhile the other lady was up and about quite a bit and chatting with other people she knew from the forum.

I think the show was due to start with the support act at 6pm and I just stayed put and the other lady did eventually return although a bit after the support act had begun playing. I liked the singer but I admit he didn’t exactly wow me on this occasion. I think he played for about half an hour to forty-five minutes before leaving the stage to be readied for the main attraction. During the break my companion flitted about even more but returned well in advance of the main program. I Skyped to the Scientist while I was sitting there and I eventually went up and bought a drink but otherwise stayed where I was.

Finally the band ran up to the stage from behind the gazebo (where more people were sitting) and got ready to play. We tried to stay seated on the ground but then other people started to stand in front of us. I always feel like I play by the “rules” but it always backfires because others don’t and make it harder. As the songs continued I was seeing less and less so we both moved over towards the front steps to the gazebo. The other lady was trying to record song after song with her tablet. She ended up sitting right up close and I squatted a bit behind her. My feet were hurting quite a bit from squatting but I stayed for a while and then moved back. Eventually she moved to the other side and I took her place and sat there most of the rest of the evening. It worked out really well because, aside from young kids getting in the way, it was a great seat. And the kids weren’t much of a problem either. The lady doing the recording had gotten rather narky about them earlier which I thought was uncalled for.

It was a great show by the whole Finn family. They sang sang a number of songs from each of the main performers and later in the evening, they brought out Tim Finn’s daughter, who I think is nine or ten or thereabouts to sing. She was great and really got into it. Tim’s son had been playing as part of the band all through the evening. I think he is about fifteen or so. Neil Finn’s younger son played drums, guitar and whatever was needed during the show. And his wife joined them on bass at one point. It was a bit like being allowed to peek in when they were doing a family jam at home. It was really special throughout and I got a lot of great photos. Most importantly my feet survived the night quite well.

As this was a zoo venue, the curfew was much earlier than at other shows so it was all done and dusted by 9pm. Which was really not that long after dark. I hung around with my new acquaintance for a little while but then we parted company as she had different plans to mine. It was particularly dark on the way out of the zoo. I guess they only use the most minimal lighting since they are not designed for night attendance.

There was a steady stream of people walking from the zoo towards the main road and I followed along and stopped at the bus stop. It wasn’t too long before the bus arrived and I was on board for a pretty quick ride to the CBD. It surely only took about a third of the time of the trip there. Once I got to the Britomart Centre, I got off and wandered around the city in the night for a bit. Actually it wasn’t that much wandering that I did. I followed along the wharf area, which looked pretty cool at this hour with little lanterns on the tops of several posts along the way. It was a pleasant evening and I took my time going back towards the hotel.

I stopped at the Countdown Supermarket and got a couple things to eat before heading back to the hotel. For the first time since I arrived, I wasn’t ready to drop when I got back. I had a snack and went to the room and was feeling very chatty with one of the roommates. I hadn’t noticed the bunkmate above me was sleeping at the time. :( It was surprising she was in at all, being a Friday night. Anyway, I was awake until much later and spent that time reflecting on the night I’d had and feeling really good. I did eventually fall off to sleep though, with no clear idea of what I was going to do on Saturday. I had ideas of going to one of the nearby islands, a popular one that had been highly recommended. But I also had an idea of trying to get back to Mount Eden in some way, just because I had liked it so much. I think it must have been about half past 12 before I slept and I had a good night, despite a very noisy hotel with all the young people in full party mode.