Mondumo Tour starts in Auckland

 Tuesday 3/5/2024

We met up with our tour group of 22 people on Monday night and had a great dinner.  We started our tour on Tuesday at the Auckland War Memorial Museum.  It was not just a war museum, but it was called the war memorial museum in honor of all their veterans.   

As background information, New Zealand was settled approximately 800 years ago.  It was the last large land mass to be settled in the world.  One interesting fact was that since the land mass had broken away before there were mammals in the world, the only form of life that could get to New Zealand could fly.  Over thousands of years, the birds became flightless and larger and had no predators.  As a result, when the Māori people came, then the Europeans, the birds were decimated.  (Māori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand, they settled here over 700 years ago. They came from Polynesia by canoe).  The most famous now is the Kiwi, the national bird of New Zealand.  It is a nocturnal flightless birds, and still has to be protected from predators.  

Māori people were tribal and fought each other.  Then from 1840-1872, conflicts between the Māori tribes and the Europeans broke out.  It all started with Britajn in 1840 signing a treaty with the Māori to stop Māori  from fighting, but it took just 5 years to break out into civil war (about same time as ours).  The Europeans eventually won.  The Māori culture was prominent in the museum and you can tell that there is a large national push to keep the culture alive.  One of our guides is Māori, and I am sure that we will learn more about the culture in the next week or so. 

The rest of the day we were free to see the sites of Auckland.  We went to a small but well done botanical garden called the winter gardens.  Then we hiked to the top of the tallest spot in Auckland, an extinct volcano called Mount Eden.  Next, we went to some cliffs over the ocean called Bastion Point and hiked down to a cute seaside town called Mission Point……..phew……..first tour day done! 

As we were leaving the hotel for the morning, we thought this rainbow was a sign that the weather was clearing up.

Here we are walking to the bus stop.   The walk took us through a harbour with some cool yachts. 

We hopped on a bus and took a short ride to the museum, which, as I mentioned, was also a war memorial.  This memorial was out front and was for WWI. 

From the front steps of the museum, we had a beautiful view of the harbour.  North head is the smaller land in the middle and the inactive volcano Rangitoto island is in the background. 

No matter where we go Christine (and me too) loves to take pictures of fountains and/or silly faces.  This as both.

In the museum was several interesting things: 

This pou (carved post) stands as a guard to the entrance of the Memorial Discovery center.  It is a returning soldier, paying homage to those soldiers that did not return. 

There were many interesting wood carvings.  

I talked about the flightless birds that evolved in New Zealand.  The next 2 pictures are examples of those. This giant flightless bird, called the Moa, is extinct.  It is a relative of the emu or ostrich.

Next was a giant nocturnal parrot, called a kakapo. They use to be all over New Zealand, but there are now less than 200, which are mostly on protected islands.  

This was a long dug out tree, creating an ocean going canoe. Our tour mate Meghan is helpfully presenting it.  

Christine is admiring whatever our docent is describing. 

The stain glass was a ceiling in the WWI part of the museum.  The top row represents Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Canada.  All the other squares were part of the British Commonwealth during WWI time.

Below is a wāhi whakanoa.  It is a place where people are able to wash with water upon exiting a building, and is used in the Māori culture.  It is supposed to cleanse the spirit, it sort of reminds me of a baptismal font.  You would place your hands in the water, get a little water on them and flick the water on your face and shoulders!

After the museum, we strolled thru the winter gardens.  I told Christine that this looked like a weeping angel.(Dr Who reference).

Some more “weeping angels” in this beautiful arbor. 

Christine is an old selfie pro in the middle of the winter gardens.

The common name for this one was called the lollipop plant.  

It is always fun getting to know new people. Diana was one of our new friends from the tour, she hung with us for the day!

We got around Auckland easily on this hop on hop off bus! 

Next we headed up an old volcano hill called Mt Eden, but had to wait out a rain deluge under some trees before we made the climb.

There were beautiful views from the top. 

This was the volcano crater.  We had the urge to roll down it, but it wasn’t allowed. 

On the way down Mt Eden, we had to dodge another rain storm.  I hid in the bushes. 

We finished off our day heading to a lookout called Bastion Point- again, beautiful views!

Then we walked down to another cute sea side town called Mission Point.  It also had a beautiful beach, walkways and fountains as well as a lot of eateries.  We had to call it a day because the hop off hop on bus was completing its last run.  

Our tour mate Diana was trying to chase down birds! 

Mary….