Auckland--The end of a wonderful trip (Saturday, February 28)

We had to get up early today to get off the boat by 8 am.  We had left just enough things behind that we could get our showers and get dressed, as our luggage had all been whisked away during the night.

We were now docked at Auckland, and the view was different and more urban than a lot of our more recent ports.  We had our final sunrise breakfast on Terrace Cafe back deck, enjoying the warm sticky buns, fresh fruit, and omelets one last time.

We went back to the cabin and spent a few minutes triple checking that we had everything that we brought with us.  We made our way to the Marina Lounge where we awaited our group number being called to leave the ship.  We had earlier decided that rather than staying in a hospitality suite in Auckland until we were taken to the airport, we would pay a relatively modest amount for a bus tour of Auckland.

Frankly, we're not real sure the tour of Auckland was all that well thought out.  We drove along the bay until we came to a park that our guide derisively referred to as a monument to the welfare state in New Zealand.  The Michael Joesph Savage Memorial was on a cliff and had a large circular garden with an obelisk at the end overlooking the bay.  It appeared the main reason for the stop here was to use the toilets.  Across a large field, with a couple of remote control planes being expertly flown, was a Maori meeting house.  It was a beautiful spot with great views of the bay and the Auckland skyline.

We continued our bus ride down along the bay and past beaches on the left and expensive homes on the right.  The driver told us that we were going to get the best ice cream in New Zealand.  When we got to the shop, it was closed.  Apparently we were too early.  When we saw the sign, it said it was Swiss ice cream.  So we continued on.

We drove up from the bay, which was on the Pacific side of the island (east), and through a more residential area of Auckland.  If we had kept going (which we didn't), we would have come to the bay on the Tasman Sea (west) side of the island.  Instead we proceeded on to a shopping area where the driver told us he would let us out at the top of the hill and then pick us up at the bottom of the hill to take us to the museum.  Again, we were early enough on a Saturday that only a few of the shops were open.  We enjoyed the walk around the neighborhood, but it was clearly another stall until we could get to the museum when it opened.

The bus took us up another hill to the Auckland War Memorial Museum.  The name didn't inspire a lot of excitement, but the museum had a nice collection of materials related to the natural and human history of New Zealand.

It was built as a memorial to the nearly 17,000 New Zealanders who died in WWI, mostly in the Mediterranean.  The style of the building is Neo-Classical, based on the Greek temples the servicemen saw from the decks of their warships.

We started on the top level with the military exhibits, which included some impressive stained glass and a couple of plane galleries.

We had more interest in the natural history exhibits on the next floor down.

There were sections devoted to the ocean, the shore, the forests, and the extinct animals, including the moa.










The main floor had a large gallery of Pacific artifacts and Maori treasures.  There were sections for the various South Pacific Island communities, including fabric and needlework examples, clothing samples, and domestic and war implements.







Also included were extensive collections Maori shields, carvings, boats, and other implements.

The last display was a semi-permanent collection called WOW--World of Wearableart.  It was a bizarre set of garments that "don't have to be commercially viable; they don't have to take themselves seriously; they just have to be wearable."  Well, they were right.  It was clear that some people have vivid imaginations---or wild nightmares---that need some way to express themselves.  It certainly was quite a contrast to the other exhibits in the museum!

After about 3 hours in the museum, we tried to figure out a recreational cricket match that was taking place in a field below the parking lot.  We were told that the world would be watching New Zealand take on Australia in the Cricket World Cup later that day, and there certainly was evidence everywhere.  You would have thought that Purdue and IU were playing basketball or something.

The bus stopped next at the New Market shopping area, which is the main shopping district for Auckland.  It was now pretty warm, at least for us, since we were dressed for the plane flight and arriving back in snowy Indiana, with the rest of our clothes packed away somewhere near the airport. We wandered around the area, stopping in a few shops, and looking for something interesting for lunch.  We finally decided on lunch in a Portuguese-style restaurant, Nando's, where we were introduced to PERi PERi, a spice the Portuguese discovered in their African exploration. The spice was served on french fries and developed into a sauce. We finished our meal with shared carrot cake and frozen yogurt that used the majority of our remaining New Zealand cash.  We knew that we didn't have much capacity for additional purchases, so this was largely a window shopping excursion.

At the appointed time of 3:30, we met the bus along the street for the last 20 or 30 minute trip to the airport.  Once there, we identified our luggage, and lugged it to the airline check-in. This was a hot and frustrating end to our time in New Zealand.  First of all, we used the many kiosks to check in and get our boarding passes. We found some scales to weigh the two pieces that we would be able to check, and read the clear directions that the pieces needed to be no more than 23 kg each.  We were able to rearrange the items so that both were 22.9 kg.  Success...or so we thought.  The signs at the scales then also made it clear that we could each have one carry-on (in addition to a personal item, like a purse), that could weigh no more than 7 kg.  Uh oh.  Our earlier strategy had been to move all of the small, dense, heavier objects into our carry on to get the checked weight in the right range.  We weighed and measured our carry-ons and none of them met the criteria, some as much as double as allowed.  So we decided to bite the bullet and pay to check for a third bag ($200 NZ!). We did some more rearranging.  We got our remaining carry-on down closer to the limits, but still over, but without much choice other than to check camera and computer items, which we weren't willing to do.  So we joined the long line to check our luggage, which appeared to only be a suggestion of order to some of the passengers.  When we got to the counter, we found that we could only check the two big pieces, and would need to see an agent in the kiosk area to get the documentation for the third piece.  We found that person and waited our turn, only to find out that we needed to go the line across the lobby to pay the fee.  So to that line we go, and after giving our credit card, find we need to go back to the kiosk agent to get the tag for the bag.  Another, relatively short wait (with people milling but no discernible line), and we had our tag for the third bag...now back to the long suggestion of a line to check that bag.  There was a lot of grumbling in the line from the Oceania passengers about how little information we had been given about this process and how it could have been greatly improved.  Finally, we were checked in...and tired...with about another 29 hours before we'd be home.

Thankfully, we had smooth sailing through customs and security, and in spite of the slow start at the airport, we had plenty of time before our plane was to leave.  Unfortunately, there was very little seating at the gate, so we were herded into their shopping area, which also didn't have a lot of seating.  We kept an eye on the monitors, which alerted passengers when their plane would be boarding, and how many minutes from this area to the gate.  The monitor near where we found a seat told us the plane was on time, and then switched to "Relax".  That was pleasant.  We saw some of the people we had met on the tour and chatted some with them, and kept relaxing. The time that we should be boarding came and went, Alan decided to wander to a different part of the shopping area, and saw another monitor that said our flight was at "Final Boarding".  Needless to say, we were no longer relaxing.  We were also told on that monitor that we were 5 minutes from the gate.  We grabbed up our stuff and hightailed it to the gate...only to find that there was an intermediate checkpoint, and it appeared that the people in front of us didn't have the proper documentation.  After a few tense moments, we got past the checkpoint, and arrived at the gate, only to find that they hadn't actually started boarding yet, though it was imminent.

It wasn't a pleasant end to a wonderful trip, but we survived and while the write up was extensive, it only is cathartic.  Would we recommend a trip to Australia and New Zealand....ABSOLUTELY.