The International Antarctic Center and Amberly Beach

Today we took the boys to the International Antarctic Center, which is just north of the city. It was nice, sort of a museum of Antarctic exploration. We didn't actually ride the Hagglund, since Connor is a little too young, and Evan thought it was too loud. Oh well ... maybe next time. The boys did love the blue penguins, though. By US standards, the Center is small for a tourist attraction--the New England Aquarium in Boston is probably about ten times bigger, and has *way* more penguins. It was worth the visit, though.

Afterward, we took a little drive up Route 1, ultimately ending up a little north of Amberley. With no particular destination, we headed out to the Amberley Beach. As you can see from the pictures we took today, we had the beach all to ourselves, except for the three guys who drove through on dirt bikes and quads at one point. Besides them, I couldn't see anyone else in sight for the entire length of the beach. There were lots of paua shells on the beach, but I couldn't see any place where it would be possible to get harvest them for the abalone. So we had monk fish for dinner instead, with a nice bottle of Marlborough pinot gris my friend Chris brought us.