Yesterday (the 19th according to New Zealand), we woke up early (7:30am) and had a quick breakfast on the Marco Polo. We left the ship on busses around 9:30am, and they took us to the airport, where we waited for the Air New Zealand flight to Aukland. The flight was very brief, only about an hour. I sat next to a gentleman from the Marco Polo and a young New Zealand woman backpacker on her way back to her home at the Bay of Isles from a trip to Queensland, where she had done the "Awesome Foursome": bunge jumping, white water rafting, and a couple other dangerous sports.
At Aukland, we were met by busses again, and taken on a two hour bus tour of Aukland. It was pretty interesting, but again I felt like we didn't have any time at all to absorb anything. The city is built amongst and on top of a number of volcanic cones, all extinct for thousands of years. It was interesting to see the huge circular or oval hills scattered throughout the urban sprawl of the city. One of these cones is named "One Tree Hill", because it has one tree growing at its top: a pine of some sort. This is undoubtedly the most famous tree in all of Aukland: it can be seen from most places in the city. Next to the tree there is an obelisk, placed there to symbolize the peaceful relationship with the Maori indians who were here thousands of years before the English or the French. (Much of New Zealand, especially Aukland, where the Maori population is concentrated most heavily and still growing, is attempting to be bilingual, speaking both English and the Polynesian language spoken by the Maori.)
They took us to the New Zealand War Memorial Museum, where we saw solumn rememberance of the New Zealand soldiers who fought in wars past, including, I'm told, 100,000 soldiers in WWI, when the population of New Zealand was only 1,000,000. Some tens of thousands died, and about 40,000 were wounded. The museum also had memorabilia from the New Zealand explorers, including a painting of the young Sir Edmund Hillary in one of the marble stairwells to the upper level. The museum's contents, however, were devoted primarily to relics from the Maori indan tribes, who were of Polynesian origin long before the English or French arrived. One item that attracted my attention especially was the last war longboat of the Maori, which ocupied the back of the main floor. It was roughly 30-40 yards long, with ornate iron carving on the prow, about five feet high.
Outside the museum, which was situated on a low hill in a less populated area of Aukland, there was a monument to the soldiers, with the inscription, "The Glorious Dead". I'm not sure I can appreciate the message in that inscription. All around the building, which was a square with one semicircular end, above each window, was the name of one of the places that New Zealand soldiers had fought.
Right next to the museum building, in a lower area, there was a huge cricket field with hundreds of people playing. There were quite a number of people watching on the hillside, and some interesting cars parked along the driveway at the hilltop.
After the museum, we went downtown by the marina where more than 1,500 sailboats are docked. We crossed the Harbor Bridge both ways, where we had some great views of the city, the harbor, and the marina. We were told that there is a waiting list of people wanting docks at the marina that is several thousand long; it's extremely competitive.
We returned to the city, and drove up the steep side of Mount Eden, one of the highest of the volcanic cones that Aukland is built on. At the top, we looked down into the cinder code, now grassed over and serving as a home for a number of cows. From the crater rim, we had spectacular panoramic views of all parts of the city, and both harbors.
After this, we headed back to the airport and picked up our 11 hour flight to Los Angeles, where we are now. The flight didn't seem that bad, really. Not nearly as bad as the trip to Punta Arenas. This is probably caused by the fact that I had a window seat, and was seated next to a sales supervisor for the New Zealand company that makes jet boats: the same company that made the boats that Sir Edmund Hillary used for his expedition up the Ganges River. (The son of the president of the company went with Sir Hillary on that trip.) He was very pleasant and didn't snore. Since I had a window seat, I had more room on the side for laying my head and left arm, instead of being stuck between people on either side.
We will have to wait here in L.A. until
I stopped writing right there, and ran to the displays to find out where our flight was. It was leaving in fifteen minutes, so I quickly got Grandma and we ran to the gate and made it on board just on time. Almost everyone else was already seated and waiting to leave.
By the time we got to Chicago, and then Detroit, I was too exhausted to write any more. So, this is the end!