Auckland, New Zealand – February 23

rose garden

Partly cloudy, rained once, 22 degrees, windy

Overnighting in Auckland made it easy to walk off the ship this morning whenever we pleased. We had a tour booked for 8:45, so it wasn’t exactly whenever we pleased. This tour was arranged with our travel agent from home who is part of a travel group.

rose garden

The Virtuoso travel group excursion today only had 20 people in a large coach bus, so we had plenty of room to spread out. Our morning was spent driving through the city, seeing different parts of Auckland from what we saw yesterday. We got off the bus at one point to wander around a rose garden, and at another to see a war memorial. All the while we were with a great guide who gave us lots of info.

Other Auckland sights we saw was the ‘most expensive residential street in Auckland.’ Different from yesterday, we didn’t hear how much these properties are worth – they are larger than yesterday’s expensive homes, but who knows as far as value goes. Yesterday’s averaged 2 million (NZ money is worth a bit less than Canadian), so these must be more than that.

memorial

Our final stop of the morning was to the Auckland War Memorial Museum. This was an impressive place. It originally was a mar memorial, which is still is today, but there are now additional exhibits of New Zealand’s history – particularly Maori history. We learned that the first people to arrive on this last were from Polynesia in about the year 1250 – that surprised me a but, I would have thought people were

stained glass ceiling at museum

here a lot longer ago, somewhat like the first people in North America. I can’t imagine how long it too these people to get here that long ago…it took us a while.

Maori artifact

Our group of 20 broke into 3 smaller groups to tour the museum with a guide for about 90 minutes. Our guide described some of New Zealand’s endemic animals, things about New Zealand’s first people and some things about New Zealand’s participation in wars. Our guide told us some tours are full days just to the museum – I could see that. It would have been nice to have some time for a snack and a coffee here…the

watching cricket

museum café looked like one of the nicest we’ve ever seen.

As we waited for everyone to return to the bus after the museum, we watched some cricket in the field next to the museum – certainly nothing we see at home.

Lunch was at a historical building right downtown at the pier – easy to get back to the ship. There were 3 courses accompanied by New Zealand bubbly and wine. I started with a ‘hot and cold’ seafood plater. The main and dessert were both

lunch menu

delicious, but not worth mentioning after I describe the sushi. I eat sushi but wouldn’t say I was a sushi lover or aficionado. Before today, I’d say I could take or leave it…wow, I think I’ve never actually had good sushi. I could have just kept eating this stuff and never minded with the read of the meal. The most interesting part was the way the soy sauce came…in a dropper!

eye dropper soy sauce!

We also learned that there are no snakes, venomous spiders or much else for wildlife that would be of any concern. Besides that,

Maori boat

and although I’ve only been in New Zealand for 2 days, I really like it here – it is a place I could certainly come back to.

This bus also had Wi-Fi! One other bus in central America had Wi-Fi, but it is not common. When it is, it is very convenient. We’ve chosen not to rent a portable Wi-Fi device this trip and although Chris has a cell plan…I don’t, I find I don’t need it at all, can get it in bars or restaurants and if I encounter an actual emergency I can turn my cell on. For the extra money it would cost me, I don’t think it is worth it.

outside museum

After lunch we did some shopping…good thing Lululemon has multiple sizes! Prices were about the same as Canada.