The Civic Picture Theatre

Chalk one up for me - we actually beat the weather this weekend! Yesterday was such a lovely day we decided to catch the train into the city for our weekly photowalk instead of today which isn't looking too good, although I must say it's not raining. The Auckland Heritage Festival is on until the 30 Sept and they are having free guided tours and all sorts of things in and around the city. I've always loved the old Civic theatre which back in 2000 was reopened after a 40.8 million dollar refurbishment. It is what is known as an Atmospheric Theatre, so-called because it is designed to evoke the outdoors at night, one of two in Australasia with only seven worldwide. If you click here you can see a virtual panoramic view of the auditorium or here for the Civic's homepage.

After getting off the train at Britomart we walked upstairs to have a look at the fountain which you can see through the main skylight of the station when you're downstairs. Here is a photo I took inside last time we were there and a couple I took yesterday.



On the way up Queen St we bought our lunch and had it sitting in the sun in Aotea Square where they were having a market day.

I was fascinated to see that the square had been planted with bright yellow pansies and parsley of all things. It did look very effective though.

Of course I couldn't leave the market without buying something before we continued on to the Civic guided tour. This pretty bracelet matched my jumper perfectly.


Our tour guide was the manager who had been involved with the refurbishment and recreating of the Civic, it was an absolutely fascinating hour which ended with a film on the making of the Civic which opened in 1929 and included original film footage of the time. The theatre is of course very dark inside and as I don't have a clue as to settings on my camera I just stuck it on automatic and hoped for the best. What follows is a selection of the best which aren't too bad although I'm no professional that's for sure!

The foyer taken from upstairs. This is where my mother, aged 17 in 1929, broke the heel on her shoe coming down the stairs and fell all the way to the bottom, she wasn't hurt except for her pride!

One of the two gold panthers who guard the stage in the main auditorium.

Information on the remaking of the beautiful Flamingo Curtain.
Below are three photos of parts of the curtain including the obligatory one of me! The photo I took of all of the curtain was too far away for the flash to light it up unfortunately. However, if you click here you can see Shazzt's photo of it. She very wisely doesn't seem to have needed to use her flash, I really must learn more about taking photos in the dark without a flash.



Okay, after seeing this photo (I cropped the bottom off!) I decided it was time to really start my daily walking again. After breaking my foot last year I haven't got back into it properly again and have put on about 5kgs, time to lose it again - I'm aiming for 65kgs, currently 71, just too much for my height of 1.65m (5'5"). So everyone, help me out here, I need lots of encouragement!
Now if I could just look like this again.....