January 25- The Ultimate Auckland

We had a glorious day today. Slept like logs, ate a great breakfast and met our guide who will "take care of us" for these two days. His name is Taco, and he knows lots and lots about the area. 

First we drove in the city. We saw the harbor, the downtown, the lovely buildings, and then we drove up on Mt Eden where we had been yesterday. There is the crater of a volcano that erupted thousands of years ago. Signs are everywhere saying stay off the crater because it is fragile. Yesterday at the bottom of the crater someone had used rocks to write BOLO- whatever that means. Today that word was gone and someone else had written 2 words but we could not quite read them. Obviously people don't pay attention to the signs.

We went into the fancy neighborhoods and looked at magnificent houses with million dollar views. We stopped at The Fish Pot Cafe and had a delicious lunch of Fish and Chips. The beach at Mission Bay across from the restaurant was so beautiful.

 Lots of families were enjoying the beautiful day.

We again drove to the harbor and visited the Maritime Museum. We saw lots of canoes used by the Maori people in their journeys, ship models of historic ships, and other stuff connected with sailing.

We saw the replica of the trophy for the Americas Cup. 

We boarded a 49 foot yacht called "The Pride of Auckland" and sailed away. We sailed near historic ships, modern yachts, and even some of the New Zealand Navy.

From the water we saw a wonderful view of The Sky Tower between The Hilton Hotel and some of those fancy condos. The view from the water was very different.

Along with a couple of bridges where bungee jumping is permitted in Auckland, a person can do a controlled descent from The Sky Tower. We saw two people do that and it looked terribly scary. They were feet first in a harness, and they hung in the air and had their photo made. Next they disappeared from sight in about 11 seconds. We also saw people dressed in orange jumpsuits walk around the outside edge of the tower. This is the 2nd tallest tower in the southern hemisphere. People do the strangest things for entertainment. We are going to have lunch in that tower tomorrow so we'll let you know how it feels to eat while people go by outside the windows screaming. 

Our sailing and our total day was just wonderful. 

And the evening ended with terrific fireworks over the harbor and viewable from our room. It was the kick-off for a week-end Anniversary Celebration...not sure what anniversary it was but the fireworks were great. Wonderful ending to a great and interesting day.