Auckland Day 3 & 4

 Auckland – Part 2 

Thursday, February 2, 2023 

Our 2^nd 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.

Foyer of the Museum

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.

Prow of the War Canoe

25 meters long.

Would seat 100 

warriors.

The Wharenui 

Family Temple

Detail of the carving on this building

Eyes are abalone shell

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.

Old Pump House

Now a local theatre

This is the New Zealand

Christmas Tree

At Christmas time it is

covered in red blossoms.

This is a late bloomer.

Po'hutukawa tree

Victorian era with 

amazing fretwork.

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.

Auckland, Day 1 and 2

Friday, February 3, 2023 – Part 1 

Auckland, New Zealand 

Auckland started for us on Tuesday, January 31, 2023. We were supposed to be in Waitangi for the day, but weather was too poor for a tender operation. Therefore, the captain made the decision to skip Waitangi, Bay of Islands, and head directly to Auckland. We initially were supposed to arrive between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. 

Mid-morning, the captain once again came on the PA system in all areas of the ship to say that the weather in Auckland for the afternoon and evening wasn’t looking so good. He had made a deal with the Harbor Master. We would take on the pilot at around 11:30 a.m. and be docked about 1:00 p.m. However, due to construction occurring in the Cruise Terminal, we would not be able to leave the ship until after 5:30 p.m. The option might have included another day at seas. So everybody should be happy. I know we are. 

Tuesday evening, we were scheduled to try another menu at the Chef’s Table – “Sweet & Salty”.

   1^st Course: Tomato & Watermelon Gazpacho. Very nice.

   

2^nd Course: Grilled Scallop. WOW The scallops were so tender they just about melted in your mouth.

   

3^rd Course: Prosciutto & Melon Granita. Excellent! 

4^th Course: Veal Tenderloin. Again, perfectly cooked.

   5^th Course: Strawberry & Basil Delight. Boy was it a delight.……….

 

And, the weather isn’t as bad as it sounded like it would be.

There is also this strange building at the end of the dock. It looks like it was someone's home at one point, but now appears to be some sort of art installation. A house full of neon.

Wednesday – February 1, 2023 

When we got up, it was still dark outside, but the lights on the dock showed us we were experiencing gale conditions. The wind was howling and the rain coming in at no more than 45 degrees. But it was a balmy 69 F. By the time the sun came up, the rain was gone, and the wind was letting up. We had a quiet morning with a haircut and pedicure for Jan. Then lunch and getting ready for our 1:00 pm “Included” excursion - Auckland, the City of Sails. One in 3 families in Auckland has at least one watercraft.

As is common for “Included” tours, we had a bus ride around the area for a couple of hours. Very good driver/guide. We were taken back a bit when we went to get on the bus. We loaded from the left-hand side of the bus. Of course! New Zealand drives on the “other” side of the road. We had a good laugh at ourselves. But it certainly is a different feel. A very nice little tour of the area. 

We saw numerous examples of the remnants of all the rain they’ve had. Slippages blocking lanes of traffic, large trees laying on their sides, ponds in the middle of parks that obviously weren’t permanent. 

A primary feature of Auckland is their Sky Tower. 1,076 feet high. Currently the 2^nd tallest building in the southern hemisphere.

One of many marinas.

Between our bus and the Central Business District is a 1,500 slip Marina. Just a few boats.

Sea Days - Tahiti to New Zealand

Monday, January 30, 2023 

Sea Days between Tahiti and New Zealand 

Another long spell at sea. Temperatures are dropping slowly as we head southwest towards New Zealand. Tahiti was around 80 F. Today, we are around 70 F. Temperature fluctuation between high and low has been averaging around 2 degrees. Lots of cloud cover and seas range from fairly comfortable to a pretty good rock and roll. 

With the cloud cover, we’ve enjoyed some beautiful sunrises and sunsets.

 

 

We had signed up for the Behind the Scenes ship tour for Friday. The Hotel Manager was our guide for the tour. He is one of the top top officers and we really enjoyed what he had to share with us on how certain aspects of the ship functioned. Such as how much is controlled by Maritime law and the protections for staff. 

We started with the kitchens, which we had toured on other cruises with the head chef as our guide. So this wasn’t as in depth of the kitchen, but covered a number of other areas. Some of the storage areas, the garbage area, an area monitoring all sorts of systems on the ship (no photos), and the laundry. The washers and dryers are huge and they have a machine that will iron and fold the sheets. The sheet goes in as a single layer and comes out the other end folded neatly. I think it also folds towels. We should all have one of those, but it was bigger than our whole stateroom.

 

Washers

Dryers

Press and Fold

All folded and ready.

 

 

Friday also turned into a rather eventful day. We were all summoned to the Pool Deck for a 5:30 p.m. event. We are crossing the International Dateline. I’m not sure exactly what time we crossed, but we went from Friday to Sunday. Everyone was later presented with another certificate commemorating the event.

 

 

As this blog is in reality a record for us to have of our activities, I’m adding a few photos of art projects I participated in. Our instructor, unfortunately, is getting off in Auckland, so we had a showing of all the projects completed by her students while she was on board. These are my attempts. It was fun! 

A gift box

A shadow box

 

A watercolor of
Bora Bora

Weather in New Zealand isn’t looking good. Auckland has been pummeled with huge amounts of rain and flooding. Homes are being condemned and there has been some loss of life. The excursion team says that, for now, our excursions should not be impacted. 

Every day at 12:00 Noon, the captain comes on the PA system in the common areas and gives a report of where we are, our speed, ocean conditions, and the depth of the ocean (most of the time that we have been in the Pacific, the depth is around 15,000 feet, so “we have good keel clearance”). Today, the announcement was in all areas of the ship. The captain has been conferring with the harbor master in Bay of Islands and the weather tomorrow is expected to be fairly bad. It would be a tender port with the time between the ship and shore to be about 30 minutes. He has determined that it would not be safe for the tender operations so is cancelling our stop in Waitangi (Bay of Islands) and is headed straight for Auckland. 

We have been on board since December 22^nd. Auckland was to be our 15^th port on the original itinerary. Auckland will now be our 11^th port. 

     1 port (Nicaragua) was cancelled due to “political” concerns.
     2 ports (Santa Barbara, CA and Waitangi, NZ) were cancelled due to weather.
     1 port (Kauai) was cancelled due to a lack of guides and busses. 

But we got a 2^nd day in Honolulu and we’ll have an extra night in Auckland. The extra sea day between Los Angeles and Honolulu allowed the captain to swing south and avoid some of the effects of a large storm hitting California.