Hello from Auckland

It is 1950 on Sunday night, Mar 4th. We arrived without major issues in Auckland yesterday later than expected because the plane had some minor mechanical issues while it was still in Auckland.

Sorta sad to leave Fiji. The people there were very friendly, their word for hello is Bula! We musta heard and then said that word about ten thousand times. The word for thankyou is Vinaka (pronounced vee-naka). At first we thought the word was Vanaka, which, in some of the Fijian dialects, means something verrry different. You would not believe how many times I told someone to "go shoot themselves" (Va naka).

Next step was getting our rental car and we picked up a nice looking RAV4. We loaded up our gear and reviewed NZ driving rules before we headed out and I promptly turned on the windshield wipers! We were given directions to our Best Western Motel and we promptly got lost! We just happened to pick the worst night to do so.

Bruno Mars was playing that night plus it was Chinese New Years so everyone was in town, exactly where we were! Took over an hour to go 5 blocks! We finally got smart and Naomi input the hotel address into the GPS system and we were at our destination in no time...not sure why we didn't do that at the Airport.   Bit of a driving nightmare I must admit.  What a couple of winners we are! Well anyways, we got settled in headed to bed.

Next morning we started going through all our brochures about Auckland. We decided to go down to the water front using the E-train and we walked all over the Bay area. We then took a sightseeing tour around the harbour area on a double decker bus with an open area in the back.

We did stop at MOTAT , Museum of Transport and Technology and went to the Aviation Hall where we took lots of shots of the various planes.

Afterwards we got back on the bus and got dropped off at the harbour again where we joined the crowds of people admiring the huge racing sail boats that were to race around the world in the Volvo Regatta in the near future.

We stopped in at one of the many eateries on the harbour and met Andy, the Captian of one of the touring yachts moored in the harbour. After dinner we then hit the Supermarket for a few things and on the E-train back to our motel.

Here now is our picture gallery of our day: (with a couple of parting shots of Fiji first)
Our driver Waqa (Wonga) and Naomi. She gave him one of our Contigo mugs

Last shot of Fiji. Goodbye!
I thought I had some shots of our arrival at Auckland Airport but I guess not.  The next few shots are for son Carter. They show some of the high-end car dealerships just down the road from our hotel.


Checkout the price tag!





Had to include this shot for Derek Fuchs from SPCG. He will know why as it kinda matches his X-MAS suit

Breakfast down on the waterfront

Their "CN" tower. Here you can jump off it....in a harness of course!

Our Auckland tour bus

Some of the views from the doubledecker bus
These next shots are for Dad. He should be able to identify most of these planes.













This little fellow is called "The Flea" but it did kill a lot of inexperienced pilots because of it's poor aerodynamics






Mark V Harvard I believe

Back on the bus after leaving the Aviation museum...a Bad selfie!


Largest marina in the Southern Hemisphere


These are different teams racing sailboats that will take part in the upcoming Volvo Cup race

They did have a cutaway hull there to show the public what the interior of these boats look like

Someone's private boat


What a great idea! Fresh drinking water outlet dispensing recycled waste water

Another "Odyssey"

An earlier style of racing hull. That center board could contain hundreds of pounds of lead as a counterweight

This definitely is not a pleasure sailing craft. It is meant for racing


And here is Captain Andy who has been doing tours out of this harbor for the last 17 years. The restaurant/bar behind them is modeled after an old rural Irish pub

One last shot of the huge subway station we entered to catch our ride back

Now to find a place to stay for the next few nights.

Bye for now

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 4, 2018 at 7:07 PM

    So glad you made it to your next destination. Cheryl left on Friday and will be back in the summer.I am working full time till end of March for now.Jennarene is going to be working in orthopaedics and has a ninteight percent average. She could trade you recipe cards lol Enjoy NZ

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