Auckland – Part 2
Thursday, February 2, 2023
Our 2nd full day in Auckland. After waking to rain yesterday, today is beautiful. We are off this morning to do some more exploring. We plan on utilizing the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus to see a bit more and take in a couple of attractions.
There is a ticket office for the HOHO bus right on our dock. The bus doesn’t start running until 9:00 a.m. so we didn’t head out until after that. As we were purchasing our tickets, we were told there was a $10 discount due to the bus not being able to cover their usual route. The heavy rains of last week have closed the road towards the Aquarium, and the aquarium is still closed due to flooding.
We are a little
disappointed as we thought the Aquarium would have been a good attraction to
visit. However, all things happen for the better. The HOHO bus route is essentially
what we saw yesterday on our included tour, but the commentary was a bit
different and we can get off just about anywhere we want. We did get off at the
Auckland Museum and War Memorial.
Above the central courtyard.
Inside we
bought our entrance ticket and then enjoyed a cup of coffee before starting to
explore. The top floor is dedicated to the military history of New Zealand.
Very well done. After we finished there, we started through the main floor.
Then we were overrun by a group of young children that had to express their
excitement by screaming. Not our cup of tea, so we speeded up a bit and moved
on to the Maori exhibition. It is an amazing collection of artifacts including
an original Maka or war canoe. 75 meters long, 100 men would go to war. The bow
piece is their God of War. They also have an original Wharenui which is
personal/family temple.
More detail.
Evidently the sticking out
of one's tongue is a blatant
insult.
Google the All Black rugby team's chant.
Back on the
bus, we finished their route and returned to the ship. We checked in at the
Excursion Desk and scheduled another tour for tomorrow. North Shore and the
village of Devenport.
Friday, February 3, 2023
Forecast for
today was for cloudy, but no rain. Wrong! We joined our tour group at 9:30 and
headed out. Our driver/guide was a bit frustrated as he would give us a tidbit
of information and normally be able to point out what he was talking about.
Today the clouds are right down on the water or ground. So, a huge marina –
fogged in; an old sugar factory – shrouded in clouds; a cinder cone (they have
lots) – we’ll take his word for it. But then it did lift a little and we were
able to see some of the sites. We drove up one of those cinder cones and had
good views back across the bay to the Central Business District of Auckland. The original
itinerary had us going up an even taller cone, but the road is currently closed
due to the intense rains they’ve recently had. Our driver told us they had
received about a year worth of rain in just a week.
We did stop at a large lake in a caldera. Water from this lake used to be pumped across the harbor to Auckland. Many years ago, black swans were imported from Australia and now are a prominent site in the lake. They were definitely hoping one of us had food. Sorry.
We were given lots of time for walking around the village of Devenport and thought we would be able to find some lunch there. When we arrived at the drop off point, it was back to pouring down rain. So, we opted to take the ferry back across the harbor to our ship. If we had been able to see all the stuff he had talked about and also had time to wander it would have been a fantastic tour. Instead, through no one’s fault, it was adequate but still quite enjoyable.
No comments:
Post a Comment