…………and we are off on another adventure! Thursday 2/29/2024. Christine and I are exploring New Zealand for the next 2 weeks. Originally, we were supposed to arrive together on a flight from San Francisco. Unfortunately, my connecting flight in Denver was delayed for 3 hours, and because I might have missed the connection in SFO, I changed my flight and went through LAX instead. Whichever way we got here, it worked, with the final flight taking over 13 hours. I arrived in Auckland a few hours before Christine! Since New Zealand is 18 hours ahead of eastern standard time, we lost a day and arrived on Saturday 3/2/2024.
You can track your flight progress on in flight screens, here is my plane on the way to New Zealand!
First look at Auckland, New Zealand from the plane!
After getting to our hotel hours before we could check in, we freshened up and set out to familiarize ourselves with the local area. We really weren’t up for much after the long flight, but we did get lunch, walked along a bustling waterfront filled with restaurants and bars, and found the ferry station that we would need for tomorrow.
First order of business is always taking care of our thirst and our stomachs. We’re enjoying our first locally made cider and looking over the waterfront.
A Princess cruise ship was in the port. These boats are huge!
There are many islands and peninsulas nearby and they use a ferry system to get around. This is the main ferry building. (We’ll use it tomorrow).
Our hotel had a popular roof top bar looking towards the water.
These ice cream cones hanging on the wall aren’t just decorations, they are the kind of cones that you can order.
We didn’t get any of the “cool” cones, and we weren’t hungry for dinner, so we had ice cream instead to end our first day.
Sunday 3/3/2024
We aren’t going to meet up with our tour group until Monday at 4pm, so today we took a short ferry ride to Devonport to spend a few hours exploring. This was a small town just across the harbor from Auckland. It was a nice mixture of historical (from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s to WWII defenses), touristy and cute residential, all wrapped up in a seaside town.
Here we are on the comfy ferry boat!
Tromping around town taking in the local sights.
Way in the background in these 2 pictures (past Christine’s hand) you can see the city of Auckland.
The town was full of some interesting and old trees.
I loved these sea side homes.
At one end of the town was an old extinct volcano, that had a military base built on it. It looked like a good place to defend the harbor. Everything there was left from WWII. Here is a picture of me getting the lay of the land.
Christine looking out for enemy ships.
This big gun was a “disappearing” gun. After it shoots, it can be lowered underground. As I understood it, the last time it was used was to welcome Queen Elizabeth to New Zealand in 1953 (or so).
Under the gun and throughout the hills were underground tunnels. I think kids could explore for hours here!
We decided to be kids!
Even the bathrooms were built into the hill.
Auckland area had several old lava flows and inactive volcanoes. The Auckland volcanic field is considered an active field, with the last eruption occurring approximately 600 years ago at Rangitoto. The island in this picture is Rangitoto. We didn’t have time, but I hear it is fun to hike around.
Note the dark clouds in the background.
And darker………..
The rain finally caught up with us!
At lunch, the table next to us was reserved for this special VIP.
Tomorrow after starting the day still on our own, we join our tour group for a tour of both the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Aotearoa stand for New Zealand in the Mãori language
~~~~~Mary~~~~~
Comments
Post a Comment