Ahhhhhh, Auckland!

Approaching our berth with the skyline of downtown Auckland in the background. For $200 or so you can do a free fall jump from the Skytower (the pointy tower building).  I'll pass.

ms Amsterdam
February 5-7, 2013

Because of the rough weather around Rarotonga, we headed straight to New Zealand,
arriving in Auckland in gale force winds Tuesday evening about 6 pm. The temperature
was in the low 60s, mostly due to the ripping wind (it nearly knocked me off my pins as
I stood on deck taking pictures), which felt delicious after weeks in the tropics. I even
broke out my new windbreaker (thank you AAA) to wear on deck.

We docked right at the foot of Queens Street in downtown Auckland. The New Zealand
government is very strict about bringing anything alive or once alive ashore; no fruit,
meat, seeds, flowers, shells, animal products are allowed with stiff fines if you dare to
test the law. So we put on long pants, left the forbiddens behind and went ashore.

After so many days at sea and only island visits in between it was a pure delight to walk
down the gangway to a real pier and walk on a real sidewalk. We window-shopped
for a couple of miles up and down Queen Street until dusk, about 8:45 pm. Back in
the stateroom we ignored the sign on the verandah door, "To maintain a comfortable
stateroom temperature, please keep door closed at all times," and propped the door
wide open and enjoyed the cool, fresh air. I'm pretty sure we weren't the only ones to
ignore that directive tonight.

Tomorrow we're going on a Highlights of Auckland tour in the morning and then will
have the afternoon to explore some more. First on the agenda is to get some NZ
dollars. The ship ran out, the exchanges were closed by the time we got ashore this
evening and tomorrow is a bank holiday. We're pretty sure our Visa card will work in
an ATM machine if we can recall the password. Since I found a great yarn shop on our
evening walk that had a sign in the door "Open on the holiday from 10-6" I have plenty
of incentive to remember those four digits!

February 6

The first thing our guide said this morning was, "We love Americans; if it weren't for
your boys in WWII we wouldn't be speaking English today. We'll never forget." Well,
now, that's a first! Did you hear that, France? And this was not an isolated incident. I fell
in love with Auckland just steaming into port but even more so after exploring the city.
It's clean, no graffiti, very friendly people and you can almost understand what they're
saying! We spent some time yesterday looking for "Henny's" shoe store which turned
out to be "Hannah's."

Today was a big holiday commemorating the treaty between the Maoris and English in
the 1800s so it seemed that everyone was either at the beach or out sailing. They call
Auckland the City of Sails and for good reason. Boats, boats, boats everywhere. The
day was just perfect, dry and sunny and not too hot. We visited the Auckland Museum
in the early morning; it has loads of exhibits about the Maori history of NZ. We drove
around part of the harbor then back and forth across the bridge before it was time to get
some NZ dollars and go shopping! The banks might have been closed today, but not
the exchange offices. Between the holiday people and the passengers from the cruise
ships (the Europa and Voyager of the Seas were also in port), Auckland was a busy,
busy place. It's very walkable and the drivers do stop on the red so crossing the street
was not an issue. It's just so hard to remember to look right!

We ate green lipped mussels for dinner (they were HUGE! At least twice as large as
those we can buy in the states) at a waterside restaurant where the America's Cup
boats were docked as the sun was setting. What a perfect day.

February 7

Today we took the 12-minute ferry ride across the harbor to Devonport, which looks like
a Victorian Sausalito. It has a very charming business district with loads of shops, cafes,
pubs and galleries, but it's also home to locals who can commute to Auckland by that
same ferry. (Senior round trip was NZ$9.40 or about US$8)

One of our dinner table companions, another Susan (our waiter thinks we're sisters),
came with us. Poor Jim; he had two Susan's going two different directions and each
coming back with more packages for him to schlep. The wonderful yarn shop and
wonderful quilt shop were separated by an equally wonderful book shop. I was in a state
of bliss and quickly ran through the NZ$ I'd gotten the night before.

To show you how unbelievably nice the people are, I went into the ANZ bank to change
US to NZ and the teller said, "We have to charge you a $5 transaction fee, but the BNZ
does not. It's just a half-block up the street; go there instead." Can you imagine a teller
at the Bank of America telling you to go to the Chase branch instead? So we went up to
the BNZ, got our NZ dollars and a handful of pens! (Pens seem to be scarcer than hen's
teeth on the ship.) And then we gleefully went out to do our bit for the NZ economy. I'm
just one person but I do what I can.

81 people disembarked from the ship yesterday and I'm not sure how many new
passengers are on board now but we're having another passenger/crew emergency
drill at 4:15 this afternoon before we leave this wonderful spot around 5 pm and head to
Tauranga where we will spend tomorrow.

Suddenly we have just a week before we reach Sydney and we disembark to fly home.