Sunday, December 17th, 8:45pm
Great Ponsonby B&B, Auckland

We've had a great stay in Auckland, with a number of highlights. Yesterday we took a ferry out from the harbour to Waiheke Island, 45 minutes away. It's a lovely tranquil place, dotted with wineries. We rented a car by the ferry terminal there and explored a bit. After a lovely lunch at one of the nearby wineries we worked our way to the eastern end of the island. A World War II gun emplacement, built as part of the Auckland defenses, has been partially restored and is open for visitors. The tour is pretty basic, but very interesting. For $15 we got two admissions, a photocopied sheet of explanatory detail, and a flashlight: the gun emplacement is mostly underground, with long concrete-lined blast tunnels connecting the three guns (along with their hydraulic operating systems and ammunition dumps), spanning several hundred feet. It's all dark, as the lights and electrical systems were all stripped out by vandals in the years following the war. We finished up our day with another wine tasting and a slightly disappointing dinner one of the island villages before dropping off our car and heading back to the city.

Today we didn't have any firm plans, so we were able to spend most of the morning cleaning up our south island plans and making phone calls. We rebooked a couple of days of our itinerary before Christmas to give us a good day kayaking in Milford Sound. With a more overcast day today, we didn't feel much urgency to get out, but wandered downtown towards lunch time on the Link bus and did a quick shopping expedition. We found a fine little shopping mall by the bus terminal and picked up a good solid pair of hiking sandals and a hat for Anne, and another book for me. Then we went across the street to the Maritime Museum. There we found that for a small surcharge we could take a harbour cruise, which was about to leave, so we paid up, boarded, and set off. There was only one other guest on the cruise, a lady from Vancouver, but 6 volunteer crew members! After leaving the dock, our vessel, the Ted Ashby, hoisted sails and sailed down the harbour to the Auckland bridge, where we got to see some intrepid souls bungie jumping from a metal structure suspended below the bridge itself. We also had wonderful close-up views of a replica Polynesian ocean catamaran, apparently a rare sight in the harbour. The museum was fairly small, but quite interesting, particularly a documentary video made of the ENZA New Zealand round-the-world sailing race (completed in under 80 days!).

Tonight is our last night in Auckland, so we're heading back to our room to start packing our bags. We're flying down to Christchurch tomorrow, which isn't very far, but we have to change planes in Wellington so it will still take us a few hours to get there. Looks like the weather will be nice for the next couple of days, but may turn unseasonably cold after that: highs of about 10 degrees centigrade. At least it will feel a bit more like Christmas! All this walking around in short sleeves is very strange for December.
posted by Tom at 2:46 AM | link |