We spent the day in Auckland today. Pat took care of some girl stuff while I took in a couple museums. The first was the New Zealand National Maritime Museum, which is about 1/2 mile from our hotel on the harbor. While heading down to the museum, I saw this in the harbor:
It was a Celebrity Cruise Lines ship that we had seen in the harbor in Wellington a couple days ago. There is a cruise that originates in Sydney and goes around the two main islands of New Zealand. Pat even recognized a couple people that passed her on the street that had been in her tour group from her day trip to Zealandia in Wellington.
The museum itself was interesting, with the usual collection of nautical memorabilia. There was a large exhibit of Maori sailing canoes, the likes of which I hadn't seen previously.
This is a Baurua, a large ocean-going outrigger canoe that the Maori used to travel longer distances over water. The canoe is 76 feet long, has 950 square feet of sails, and weighs 5 tons. What is interesting is that to tack the canoe, rather than turning the canoe as you would a regular sailing vessel, they "changed ends" and actually moved the mast and steering gear from one end of the canoe to the other, so they could keep the outrigger to the downwind side of the canoe for stability. So they sailed in a series of zigs rather than a series of curves when they were tacking the canoe. This canoe is made with no metal fasteners:
Another interesting exhibit was of the sailing yacht NZL32, nicknamed the "Black Majic". This boat won the America's Cup in 1995 and in doing so, New Zealand became only the second nation other than the USA to win the America's Cup in its 151 years of existance. I can remember when that happened and it sure lit a fire under the Yanks for the next year. Anyway, here she is...
The picture doesn't do the girl justice.
After visiting the Maritime Museum, I took the bus over to the Auckland Museum. The Museum was opened in 1929 to commemorate the 18,000+ New Zealanders who died during WW1. The museum sits high on top of a hill overlooking Auckland and is very impressive from both the inside and the outside. This is a view from the front:
The displays inside the museum were very well done and now commemorate New Zealanders who fought in wars from the Crimean War to the first Gulf War. This skylight commemorated all the former British colonies who sent troops to fight in WW1:
One exhibit I found intriguing regarded Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to reach the top of Mt. Everest in 1953. Hillary was from New Zealand and the museum presented interesting details of the expedition. The climb actually took from April 12 to May 29, 1953 and Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, his Sherpa partner, were the only two men in the expedition force of 22 to actually reach the summit. This plaque portrays the actual route up the mountain and the final climb to the top:
The museum had some of the equipment that Hillary actually used on his climb and a lot of detailed information about the expedition itself.
Anyway, it was very interesting. Tomorrow is our last full day down under as we leave for Tahiti on Thursday afternoon. We're going to do a couple things around Auckland and then head out for the west coast for the rest of the day.
Pat's Paragraph..... Well I had no one boo and hiss about my blog entry yesterday but I also had no one cheer and clap so I guess it was ok. We have really lucked out on the weather this entire trip and can count on 2 fingers when the weather has had us to change our plans. Both times it worked out that we saw or did something we had not planned on and both times, we totally enjoyed the experiences. Today started out cloudy with a chance of rain so I decided to finish my shopping and do a couple girlie things instead of maybe being caught in the rain. When I came outside, the sun had broken through and it was a lovely day with blue skies and white clouds. Walking along the quay, looking at all the sailing ships with their masts and rigging swaying with the gentle rise of the water, you can feel the pull of the sea.
I need to bring you up to date on the 'towel bar' situation. There is definitely a towel bar shortage 'down under'. We had 1, yes it's true, 1 bathroom with 2 towel bars! And it must have been the newest 'edgy' remodeling idea but we have another shower with a central floor drain in the middle of the bathroom. And we Do Not have a shower curtain this time. The water is everywhere when you shower. You can stand perfectly still and barely lather up but the water splashes all over. By the time you have cleaned up the bathroom by drying all the wet surfaces to prevent an accident; the commode, the floor, even the bathroom door, you need another shower! So this is my last potty page report from 'down under'.
