Noon Report:
- Position: S 36° 50.54′, E 174° 46.11′
- Speed: Moored
- Course: Moored
This morning I tried something different – 4 miles on the waterfront. I started heading a mile south going as far as one of the many marinas around town:
Returning to the ship I proceed a mile north to the container port:
Back at the ship we breakfasted and presented ourselves for our morning excursion – a bus tour of the city.
This was an interesting event. Because last Friday Auckland received 3 months worth of rain in one day many of the roads were closed. As a result our driver took to the side streets (many not intended for bus travel) and there were several instances where we came close to crushing other cars as our driver commented about the “idiots.” Because of the closures and low cloud cover we weren’t able to stop at any of the scheduled photo opportunities, though he did stop on a couple of occasions to allow people to hop out and take a quick pic. So we saw a bit of the city and we learned some stuff:
- Geographically Auckland is one of the largest cities in the world at just over 234 square miles.
- Auckland is home to the largest ethnic Polynesian population in the world.
- 1/3 of Aucklanders own a boat – giving it the monicker “City of Sails”
- 92% of New Zealanders live on or near the water
- There are 48 volcanic cones within the city limits
- The most recent volcano formed Rangitoto Island (translates “Blood Sky Island”) about 600 years ago
After lunch we did a bit of blogging, a bit of reading, and one of us (I can neither confirm or deny that it was me) took a good long nap.
I woke up just in time and we were able to attend the port talk on Napier – the port we will see on Sunday.
The evening lecture:
was by our new Resident Historian. Dr Douglas was born in New Zealand and currently lives in Australia. She used the look at life in New Zealand in the 1950s as a way of introducing herself. She’s going to be fun to have along for the next few weeks.
Tonight saw the return of BBB. Bruce doesn’t present Brain Busters on nights we are in port so it’s been a couple of days. Apparently our brains weren’t that rusty, though. We scored 14 of 20 and tied for second place. If I had been thinking and identified the European bridge crossing the Rio di Palazzo as the Bridge of Sighs instead of the Ponte Vecchio we would have tied for first. Tomorrow!
So that’s the day. Shortly after 6:00 we left Auckland on our way down the coast to Tauranga.
We’ll catch up with you there.
Kia Ora, R
New Zealand is all that remains of the ancient land of Zelandia. I thought this plate had separated from Australia but it turns out is separated from India and Antartica so it’s animals are quite different from Australia. It’s at the edge of two plates which are going in different directions which is why it has so many volcanoes and earthquakes – also next to the 2nd deepest ocean trench in the world. As a British colony people drive and walk on the left and the “up” escalators are on the left.
The Kiwi fruit came from China as a gooseberry but has been bred so that it’s fruit is sweeter and the husk rather than being tough shaggy skin it is more hairy – so it looks like a hairy little brown kiwi bird – and thus it’s name!