Our last stop, Auckland, NZ September 16, 2023

Roscoe was disheartened that we didn’t go to the South Island, which has mountains and fjords. But Auckland did not disappoint. It is a beautiful city with about 1.7 million residents. It is very clean, modern, and is known as the City of Sails. Over 135,000 boats are in the harbors around the city. We came off the boat and wanted to go to the aquarium. We hired a taxi. Our driver Giday, was from Ethiopia and has been living here 21 years. He spoke great English and was very kind. The aquarium was built by a private citizen, Kelly Tarlton, who had explored the oceans around NZ and found ship wrecks. He died of heart failure, at an early age, just 7 weeks after the aquarium opened. I know Roscoe has posted pictures on FB and I will post some here. But let me just tell you, that after being with geriatrics for almost 4 months, it was great to hear children laugh and see families with their kids. It was Saturday so lots of families were there. We were forward thinking enough to get Giday’s card and we were able to call him to come pick us up. He took us to the War memorial and museum with a little sight seeing on the way.

The museum had a great amount of Māori memorabilia and artifacts such as a longboat and a meeting house. It also had wonderful WWI and WWII exhibits. There were also exhibits from the Boer War, Korean War, Vietnam and Afghanistan. It seems that old white men are always sending young men to war. It never ends. The most striking exhibit for me was the Holocaust Memorial. I am always amazed at man’s inhumanity to man.

When we left the museum, we wanted to go downtown to the ferry dock. There were no taxis so we got on the local bus. The driver told us he was not going downtown. After we talked for awhile, he said hop on. He then drove us down to the correct bus stop, about a mile away. He refused to take any money or a tip. He said he was from the 🇵🇭 Philippines and had only been driving a bus for 2 months. He walked us to the correct pickup. Within 2 minutes, the local bus arrives. Well it seems you need a ticket to ride….we didn’t have one. The driver just looked at us and told us to go sit down. So we had a free ride into town.

People can be so kind, it takes very little effort. He could have made us get off, but decided to be kind. We then purchased ferry tickets and went to Devenport. A cute little town across the harbor. We walked around bought a magnet 🧲 and had a late lunch. On the way back, we ran into Mustafa. He was sitting on a park bench. I think I told you about him before, he is 85, from Turkey originally, but lives in Miami. We had lunch with him a couple of times. He said he was flying home at midnight and was just killing time before going to the airport. We told him about the War Museum and gave him the brochure. He decided to head there so he beat haste to the ferry and the last we saw of him was leaving the ferry to go to the museum. We will never see him again…ships passing in the night.

After we came back to the ship we settled in for the night. I finished a book and Roscoe posted on FB. Unfortunately, I was up 7 times last night with a little digestive problem. I’m feeling fine….just a little shaky. So Roscoe and I decided to take it easy today. I’m not sure if we will take the shuttle and go to the little town in the Bay of Islands. It’s Sunday. Other than a port market, nothing much will be happening. So we might just hang around the ship today. I’ll start a new book and we can have some quiet time.

Trivia! I know you’re all dying to know, we came in 8th out of 102 teams on the Progressive trivia. No prizes for us, but we had lots of fun.

Three days and we will head to the airport Wednesday morning. Lots of packing to do over the next 2 days. We’re having our last dinner with our trivia team tomorrow night and our last dinner with Dorothy and Barbara Tuesday night. I will miss my Dorothy and Barbara. I still have a couple of posts to make so stay tuned.

Auckland has 1.7 million people. It is very clean and the people are friendly. We did see homeless people. Not the first we’ve seen and to be expected in a city this large.

The aquarium. It was a Saturday morning. It was good to hear children. We’ve been in the geriatric ward for 3 months 😂

How can you not love penguins?

Barbara and Peter. Barbara is from Montana and Peter is from Wyoming. How they got to the Auckland War Memorial is beyond me.

The Maori meeting house. Again, to call this a war museum seems odd. The first floor was Māori artifacts.

Māori long boat. All hand carved from one tree.

WWI BICYCLE. SPRING LOADED WHEELS. no tires to go flat.

Banyan tree on Devenport

Our last fish and chips. They were delicious.

Ferry ride. Maybe 10 minutes. Cost around $5 American. The NZ dollar equals $1.65 US

Our fish n chips

Māori outrigger canoe. The Polynesians used these boats to traverse great distances and discover many islands.

Auckland Bridge changes colors.

The Sky Tower is the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere

The docks are right downtown. Queen Street is the huge shopping street

I just like this picture of us. Maybe it’s my hat.

The Bay of Islands is 144 small islands south of Auckland. It was the last official stop of the cruise until Sydney. It was the only stop we didn’t get off. I wasn’t feeling well and we decided since it was a Sunday, we’d just take it easy and stay on the ship. I finished a book and Rock posted on Facebook😃.