NZ Land Logs 6, Year 2: North Island–Auckland
Date: Saturday, February 24, 2007
Weather in Auckland:
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

We were up at 4:30 AM this morning and in Auckland before 8:00. Right on schedule, we met Alan and Helaine Kanegsberg at the Sky Tower and headed to the waterfront. It was still too early to go to the Maritime Museum, so we stopped for a cup of coffee and caught up on happenings since we were last together. It is great to have Concord friends here with us to share our New Zealand land adventure. Kia Ora Aotearoa—Welcome to New Zealand—Alan and Helaine.

Today’s agenda was not high adventure, but we certainly enjoyed the Maritime Museum and then the Auckland Museum in the afternoon. The National Maritime Museum is the place to go if you want to learn about New Zealand’s seafaring history. With an audio tour “guide’ we learned all about the wonderful boats that brought the Maori here from Polynesia, plus there were displays of every sort of boat in the nautical-minded country. We had lunch at the Museum café and then hopped in the van for a short ride across town to the Auckland Museum. This impressive looking building is located in the Auckland Domain–one of the oldest parks in Auckland. This huge chunk of land sits high atop a hill overlooking the city and the harbor. We thoroughly enjoyed the display of Pacific Island and Maori culture. Mark and I especially enjoyed the fact that we could identify the origin of items from our travels this past year.

We are staying at the Aspen House in city centre. It was advertised as “Smart, Stylish, and Cheap’ and at least one of those descriptors fits. Fortunately for the pocket book , it is cheap, but it is anything but smart and stylish. It is a place to stay in the center of the city, however, and it has been tremendously convenient. We had dinner back down on the waterfront, but I’m sorry to report that we didn’t get to go to the Starlight Symphony. We simply ran out of steam. Tomorrow it is on to geothermal world and we will probably be able to pick up a little steam there.

070224 Web Pics–Auckland