The big trip to New Zealand is over but because of various technical issues like not having a cable to get pictures off the camera, Ebola, actually not having much on a daily basis to report and being south of the equator which made everything upside down a summary report is needed. That will be provided here.
Mary and I were meeting in Auckland. I was to arrive about 6:30 am and she was to get in about 2 pm. I arrive and take a shared van to the hotel and got there about 9:30 and was actually able to check in that early. Settling in I found that I didn’t have enough plug adapters as they use more of the China standard as opposed to the European or US standard. The lobby of the hotel is on the fourth floor of the building because it is built on a hill and there are 4 floors of shops and restaurants below. One shop was a China guy that sold all kinds of trinkets suitcases shirts and electrical things like adapters. I bought 2 and was in charging heaven. While waiting for Mary I walked around the block and hung out in the room. I learned that there is major construction in front of the hotel as they are building a train station underneath it. Mary got here and we had dinner at an old steakhouse in the hotel block as noted below. We walked around Auckland, which is quite hilly, for the rest of the day and it about killed us.
The next morning we used the excellent bus system to go to a rose garden and some old lady’s garden. Mary determined that the old lady’s garden is what she wants the Rona Garden to become as seen here.
The next day we took the excellent bus system to the general location of the Auckland museum. This was a huge park with an arch with this guy on top.
The park had many cricket fields and open areas and the walk to the museum was about a mile I would guess. This was the start of the walk. You can see the guy above in the background.
After trekking the better part of a mile, mostly uphill our destination was within sight and of course uphill.
The museum of course focused on New Zealand and Polynesian history. To me the most impressive thing was a longboat built in the mid 1800’s. This boat was really long and quite impressive.
That night we had an Italian dinner after which Mary came down with the Ebola which more or less wiped out the next day, Friday. Saturday morning we checked out and headed to the ferry to travel to Waiheke Island. This was about a 40 minute ferry ride and once we got there and evaluated the situation we decided to rent a car even though they us RHD here which means driving on the wrong side of the road. As it turned out this was one of the better decisions we made as if we hadn’t getting around would have been problematic even though there were buses. The roads were all 2 lane and speeds never got much above 30 so driving was not that big a deal as it turned out. There were a coupe village areas and the rest were just houses and park like areas. As opposed to what you would find in the US the houses were just normal not big mansions and obviously vacation homes and rentals. The island had many wineries and half of it was pretty much wild uninhabited area. Only 1800 people actually lived there. Any thing you did on the island you had to share with sea gulls, like eating breakfast.
Off in the distance you could see Auckland.
There were many bays and inlets around the island.
A few sandy beaches.
So after a couple days wandering around the island it was back to Auckland to catch our flight to Christchurch on the south island. During that flight my case of Ebola kicked in and the rest of that day was limited in activity but we did find a laundry to wash clothes.
The next day we headed into the central area by way of the trolleys and got to the botanic gardens. Christchurch had an earthquake in 2011 that pretty much destroyed the entire central business district. (link) The people living there decided not to build over 4 stories which you can see how that works here.
The botanic garden was the usual botanic garden with flowers and stuff, although they did have big trees.
There is a small river that runs through Christchurch and seems to be involved in everything going on there.
After a few days it was off to Wellington at the Southern end of the North island and the capital of New Zealand. Wellington is a very hilly city and because of it being on a bay and the passage between the two islands we learned that it is also a shipwreck mecca. The wind and weather patterns are apparently quite tricky here. Across the street from the hotel was the entrance to the funicular that took us to one of the hills overlooking the city and what we thought were the botanic gardens although the gardens did come into play until we had walked clear down the other side of the hill.
A couple views of part of Wellington and harbor from the top of the funicular hill.
As we walked down the hill passing trees such as this,
and flower things such as this,
we finally get to the rose garden which is not as impressive as the other ones we have been to but a rose garden nonetheless.
The next day was the day we were to go do a cooking and learning about Van Gogh thing at some New Zealand lady’s house. Turns out she was born in the US and lived all over the place and has lived in New Zealand for the last 12 years or so. We learned about the Van Gogh guy, cut up some green leafy things and cooked some bread stuff. Here is a live action shot of Mary talking to Randi as we are waiting outside the hotel for a taxi to take us to this event.
Also, as a cultural side note I do prefer their give way signs to our yield signs.
The hotel we stayed in was an older hotel that had been redone. They had genuine, now hard to find, Otis elevators. of the famous Otis and the Elevators famous song “I’ve got the ups and downs for you”
With Wellington done it was back to Auckland for a couple days. Other than just wandering around the main thing we did was go up into the Sky Tower that is is the big landmark in Auckland and is taller than the Empire State Building. Here you can see it in a picture taken from a park on top of a big ass hill near the hotel.
Of course once we got up there the vertigo kicked in and because of that you are required to look at all the pictures we risked our life to take.
Here is a famous Auckland bridge.
Looking to the NE.
To the N-NW
This picture to the West has the big park and museum we visited the first day.
Part of the central city and the port.
A big car hauler and part of one of the 2 cruse ships in port this day.
Well that’s not all of them but I guess it is enough. The next morning at 4AM Mary gets up to leave to catch her 6:30 am flight back to China. I have to check out of the hotel at 11 am but my flight is not until 7:45 so I have to kill most of the afternoon before going to the airport. I get there late afternoon and spend a couple hours eating free stuff in the lounge and go to the gate only to ultimately be told we would be leaving 1.5 hour late. So after more that 12 hours after I got up we are on the way and I got back home about 8:30 Friday night thus ending the great New Zealand adventure where I assume that it is still summer and people are still eating.
