January 24- Auckland

Last evening as we sailed toward Auckland we saw this beautiful moon from our balcony. We knew today had to come....all good things do end!  We packed last evening and had our luggage outside our door by 10:00PM. We got up early this morning and ate breakfast in the Grand Dining Room. 

The only other option was The Terraces- which is a buffet- and we don't do those unless we have to.

The disembarkation was a seamless as it could possibly be. We were in Nautica Lounge and our color and number ticket was called at about 8:45. We walked through the terminal building, found our luggage, immediately got some help and walked to the bus. The luggage was loaded and we got aboard. Couldn't have been easier!!!!!

We began with only about 20 people on our bus with a driver/guide Kevin who gave us lots of information about Auckland.

We first drove in the harbor area to see the Harbor Bridge. Auckland is called "The City of Sails" because it has the largest number of yachts in the world. He talked about The

 Americas Cup which operated with a gentlemen's agreement for years involving the size and construction of the yachts for this famous race. New Zealand had won it for many years. In the 1980's the New Zealanders

decided to build a different kind of boat and it was larger and carried more sail. The American Team said that was unfair....wasn't breaking a rule just not very gentlemanly. And the New Zealand team won again. The Americans then decided to build a catamaran and of course the Kiwi team said that was unfair. The race was won by the Americans. So the New Zealanders went to the US Supreme Court and won a decision that the catamaran had been unfair. So the Americans got a reversal of the decision on that basis that judges are to rule on the law and there was no law in this- just bad sportsmanship. 

Auckland has a population of 1.4 million people. One third of the people in New Zealand live in Auckland. Currently the wages are low here and each year 25% of the people leave to live in Australia. Our guide said the moral fabric of the country is disappearing because the government is a coalition government and politicians are making compromises and trade-offs to get their things done. The examples he gave certainly indicated that his political persuasion is different than ours. The same sort of tension when you have a diverse population exists here. Nativity Scenes and Christmas Carols cannot be done in public schools.

Wages are low and housing is expensive. We learned from Erica and Sig in Dunedin and had reinforced today that there were no animals native to New Zealand. Sig's idea was this area was underwater and only came out after animals were located or situated..... and then the great land masses separated.  There are lots of native birds.

We stopped at a beautiful piece of land- "The Best in Land" which was the first land given back to a Maori  tribe. We could see their Marae and the connecting buildings. There are some plans to develop a tourist attraction focusing on Maori tradition. Maori language was forbidden to be used until 1952.

We saw the crater of an extinct volcano that has erupted about 15,000 years ago. This area is build on 48 volcanos.

We saw a strange hill called "One Tree Hill" that showed a monument but no tree. There was a Scots man who was so grateful to the community of Auckland for his financial success that he gave the land and planted a tree there. In the 1990's a Maori man came to believe the tree was a statement about European oppression and he took a chain saw to the tree and cut it down. So the monument and the almost bare hill stands as a reminder.

At about 1:00 we arrived at our hotel- The Stamford Plaza- and went right to our room. We will be here for 2 nights and then begin the journey home. 

Tomorrow we will learn more about Auckland. BUT in the meantime we are off to dinner.