Kelly Tarlton's Sea Life Aquarium

First things first, for those of you who don't know who Kelly Tarlton is, then shame on you! He is this incredible man who sadly passed away at only 47 years of age. I don't even know how to describe him, he has so many titles. Marine archaeologist, treasure hunter, marine photographer, inventor, and many more. I could go on and tell you much about him but who knows if you're actually interested! So I suggest some light reading on your own time if you feel like it, he's a pretty awesome guy and left the world with some pretty amazing inventions and discoveries.

Here's the ol' chap himself:

 



The day started off with helping my roommate move out of this hostel and into a new one not too far from here. She got a new work for accommodation job at a different hostel with more benefits so she took it. Definitely going to miss her like crazy but she's not far at all and we're all so close! So we decided as a fun thing to do on our "last" day together, we'd go to the aquarium and admire everything it had to offer. In Auckland there is Kelly Tarlton's Sea Life Aquarium. With amazing reviews and one of the "to-do" items on many lists for visiting Auckland how could one not do it? Especially when I love marine life so so much. So we hopped on the free shuttle, which immediately made you smile and found ourselves just 10 minutes later making our way into the aquarium.

That awesome shuttle bus:

 

 

 

Now, the really neat thing about the aquarium is that it was built underground! Even more interesting is that the iconic tunnel shark tank (that first appeared here in Auckland and now distinguishable around the world) was created in unused sewage storage tanks from the 1960s. Needless to say they are spick and span now.

 

The aquarium has a variety of exhibits for you to enjoy. From seeing penguins, sharks, marine fish, sea horses, sting rays, and even mock hut rooms from research done in Antarctica. It was a real interesting place to visit, although I did expect more from it with all the hype you hear about it and how incredible you would imagine an aquarium would be situated in New Zealand. I mean, come on, everyone knows how amazing the marine life is in this part of the world, dazzle me!

 

The penguins were pretty amazing though, just because how can you not smile at them? I did secretly hope to have one dance for me. If you know me at all, you'd know I love Happy Feet so much. Combination of penguins and tap dancing and just adorable-ness really gets me. They were so funny, one penguin kept looking at this one baby while I was there, and when the mother walked away the penguin followed! No kidding, it was like in a movie. And then a whole bunch of penguins were standing together facing a rocky wall, just looking at it, not even curious about anything else.

 

Look at them cuties, I want some just like Mr. Popper. Is that too much to ask?

 

Poor little fella was missing a foot :(

 

 

Next we moved onto the NIWA Southern Oceans Discovery. Got to see some jellyfish, which I love, and a giant squid! As well as some facts on conservation and marine & Antarctica life.

 





 

 

Stingray Bay came next, which had a really neat area where you could grab some food if you were hungry in the middle of the visit. Remember how I said that the aquarium was built underground? Well they have windows in the eating area, where you can actually see part of Auckland CBD (central business district) as well as part of the underneath of the harbour. Real cool area to take a break for sure, and such a clever idea!

 

Found a rocking hat at Stingray Bay as well:



As well as decided to be a penguin for a split second, everyone meet Laura! She's from France!



The stingray themselves were huge! I've been to stingray exhibits before, the one that stood out to me was at the Toronto Zoo and you can pet the stingray and whatnot. It was amazing don't get me wrong but they were so much smaller!! These were stingrays with a 2 metre wingspan. Crazyness

We hit up the Pacific Shark Zone next, where the tunnel is found! The tunnel is broken up into two sections. The first has the sharks in it, called the predator tank and the second tank has mainly schooling fish. Both real neat tanks and if you're super lazy you can just stand on the moving side walk and enjoy a leisure ride through the whole lot of it!

My camera thought the railing was more interesting than us!

 

 

 

 

We made our way to the last exhibits, the Fish Gallery and Seahorse Kingdom. They were the cutest exhibits by far! Had a whole tank that was pretty much a mock of the tank in Finding Nemo. They had Dory, Nemo, Bubbles, Gill anddd the OCD fish I cannot remember the name of lol. In another tank they had a blowfish as well! I wish I was good at taking pictures haha, my friend is really into photography and her pictures of the fish were incredible! So bear with me for my photos.

 

The gang's all here!

 

My camera died before I could take pictures of the sea horses, but they were adorable :) you'll have to trust me! The gift shop was a little lack luster, so I decided to splurge on some typical tourist photos, enjoy lovelies!

 

my favourite, hahah:

 

 

fun fun fun, more to come I hope!