Day 72:

Wednesday, January 8 we started our tour of our last non-USA city for our around-the-world-in-81-days trip. I am writing this blog from home after our Maui stay. After so much go, go, go, we took Auckland at a slower and less jam-packed pace. The weather was warmer than Wellington but still cooler than it had been since we were in Cape Town. I was still in full winter cold mode in the first full month of southern hemisphere summer in New Zealand. There had been a big storm somewhere off the southeastern coast that started when we arrived in Wellington. It brought Antarctic cold with it as it slowly moved northward. Hence the fall/winter type of weather. And my stubbornly persistent cold.

We started our Wednesday with the Auckland Art Gallery. I know it may seem a bit cliché by now for that to be our first stop. It represents one of our key priorities and passions. We are, perhaps, art dilettantes in the sense that we dabble at it somewhat superficially. I feel the word is overly negative. We don’t flounce around art circles spouting fancy art speak about how “in her early years, she evinced the melancholy of her solitary existence through somber tones of Prussian blue overlaying subdued splashes of yellow ochre with shadow and light drawing the viewer down into a sorrowful pool of blahdy blah…”  That said, we can both tell you who our favorite artists are and that we saw a few nice paintings from said artists in Auckland.

The gallery had a special exhibit by Olafur Eliasson called “Your Curious Journey.” It was modern art using different mechanisms to create light and shadow. To get to the special exhibit, we had to pass through a hallway that was some 50 feet long or more and painted yellow, floor, walls and ceiling, with yellow lighting. It was called Yellow Corridor and was an installation “art work” by Eliasson. The effect was strangely hypnotic and disconcerting, almost dizzying with the lack of other colors, even on our own bodies. Throughout the exhibit, Eliasson used lenses, physical structures lighted and shadowed against screens, even ice to create unique optical effects.

The gallery had a decent mix of New Zealand talent and some of the better-known international artists. As I’ve noted many times, among our favorite art styles are impressionism, cubism and surrealism. The museum had a small collection that included pieces by Dali (surrealism), Picasso and Braque (cubism), along with Henri Matisse and Paul Cezanne (impressionism).

I believe there was a Monet there as well. As I recall, it was one of the least impressive (pun intended) Monets I have seen. It was supposed to be water lilies of which he painted many over the years. This version looked like a bunch of splotches of blues with no meaningful shape. To be fair, if you stared long enough, you could just discern slightly darker shaded circles that perhaps represented the lily pads. Maybe. At any rate, there were some other fun pieces that we enjoyed including a crazy cubist sculpture by Jacob Epstein from around 1915. It made me think of a steampunk soldier mashed up with Japanese anime. Its final form was a criticism of WWI and human cruelty. Check it out.

After the museum, we had a bite to eat and made our way to the center of town for a stop at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The Cathedral, not the building, but the catholic title for the place, was established in 1842. The structure itself was built in 1907 replacing the original because it had been outgrown. The building is neo-gothic which accounts for arches in the ceilings and windows, the subtly buttressed outer walls, and the high, pointed steeple. It was less ornate than many cathedrals we have visited.

Two different critics in my head speak. One says that the ornate structures are a waste of spiritually allotted money that could go to helping the poor in the community. That part was impressed with this church as not being so over-the-top fancy. The other critic says this was not one of my favorites, lacking the very ornate touches the other critic likes to bash. Alas, such is the dissonant mental battleground that I call a brain.

I was starting to run down even though it was only a quarter ‘til four. Colds suck. Just in case you didn’t know some of the proper words to describe a cold, that’s one. “Suck.” That is short for “major suckage.” Which is sometimes substituted for “sucks sh…” Alright, alright, you get the picture. I was feeling tired and cranky.

With the little bit of steam I had left, we walked to the waterfront. We had talked about visiting the Maritime Museum, but I had neither steam nor pepper left. We enjoyed a brief walk around the waterfront. There is an interesting pedestrian drawbridge that we watched in operation. And then I died of a viral disease. Not literally. But I died. Figuratively. So, we caught an Uber and crashed at the hotel.

Day 73:

The Auckland War Memorial Museum is a misnomer. Granted it started as a WWI memorial. And it still houses one full floor dedicated to the remembrance of WWI and WWII. It also serves as a natural history museum and a New Zealand cultural museum. The natural history part has some DINOSAUR exhibits—the measure of any decent natural history museum in my view…just saying. The cultural history part was fantastic. It was the most thorough and detailed exposition of Islandia (the many islands of the coral sea including ANZ) that I have ever seen.

And the dinosaurs. “Good grief, John. We’ve heard enough about dinosaurs already. Yes, we know you have a 12-year-old-nerd stuck inside of you.” Alright, let’s be clear. The neural atypical nerd that is stuck inside of me is 58, is still a nerd, and still loves dinosaurs. And trains. Choo-choo! And video games. And small planes. Now that we have that all cleared up, I can say that the natural history section and the dinosaurs, while always fun, were not the most impressive I have seen on this trip alone. To be fair, there have been only a few dinosaur bones found in New Zealand over the years.

The war memorial portion of the War Memorial—yes, its name is at least partly correct—that portion of the museum was well done though the Islandia section takes first prize. Again, the museum did a reasonably good job of remembering the wars without glorifying them. Less “honor and glory” and more historical account and remembrance. Plus, they had a Japanese Zero and a British Spitfire. Those are WWII fighter planes. See the note above about planes and Mr. Nerd.

After the War Memorial, we headed back downtown. Auckland has its own version of the Weta Workshop. You may recall from our Wellington post that Weta is the company that did most of the props for the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Less the Hobbit given the huge amount of CGI it employed. We didn’t take the tour this time, but we wanted to visit the workshop store. It was well worth the time. The store had loads of fun collectibles. I was sorely tempted to get a pair of Gandalf figurines. They were close to 12” tall. One was Gandalf the Grey, and the other was Gandalf the White. Alas, we lack the space for more collectibles and at a certain point, new collectibles become just more stuff taking up space. And it was still great fun to consider and debate about it.

The workshop had a full-scale sculpture of Smaug the Terrible’s head. Smaug was the dragon from the Hobbit, the one that had taken over the dwarven kingdom of Erebor (AKA The Lonely Mountain). This version of Smaug didn’t breathe fire. Yes, that was a bit of a bummer. It did, however, have excellent yellow cat eyes that moved! And we mustn’t forget Gollum and the trolls. The trolls in Auckland outdid the spectacular trolls in Wellington in two ways. First, they were indoors out of the crazy wind and rain. Second, the lighting created dark, menacing shadows. Good fun!

The workshop was a quick after-lunch stop. We always enjoy getting to take in panoramic views of a city. There’s the Space Needle in Seattle, for example and some great views from Queen Anne hill and Capitol Hill. Brisbane had Mount Coot-Tha which had both a lookout and the botanical gardens. Auckland is fascinating in that it was formed by a series of volcanoes that are still visible around the city. They are hills that just pop up out of the otherwise relatively flat landscape. Hills with caldera craters. How very cool is that???

After Weta, we headed slightly south to the volcano, Mount Eden called Maungawhau in Maori. The volcano last erupted between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago. It was used as a Maori defensive settlement from around the 14th century until 1740 when they moved to a nearby volcano. This isn’t a volcano like Mount St. Helens where a mountain was pushed up by plate tectonics and magma only to have its top blown off. This hill was formed by the lava flow itself. As the volcano erupted, chunks and pieces of magma cooled and formed the hill structure. The caldera is about 150 feet deep while the hill is about 470 feet tall from its base.

When the Maori settled the mountain, they built terraces down the sides for housing and such. They dug pits for food storage. The pits and the terraces are still visible. From the peak as we looked around 360 degrees, we could see the downtown to the north, the dozens of bays where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean nearly surround Auckland, and perhaps a half dozen other volcanic cones. It is such a fascinating panoramic view. I can’t quite put my finger on the little kid feeling that comes with seeing all those volcanoes. Wonder and fascination at the novelty are mixed with awe at the power of the earth to create such places.

We ended our day a bit early again to get some rest so Mr. didn’t take a turn for the worse with his cold.

Day 74:

We had lots of different ideas on our list of things to do in Auckland and we were also running a bit low on touristy steam. We had debated about taking a ferry to either Rangitoto Island or Waiheke Island. Rangitoto Island is the youngest volcanic island in the area, possibly in all of New Zealand. While it is closer to Auckland than Waiheke, it is primitive. There are a couple of boardwalks including one to the volcanic summit. That’s it. No water, no toilets and no food. Basically, you get dropped off by the ferry and fend for yourself for however long you spend there while hoping and praying that the darn ferry decides to come back and pick you up. The day before flying out of the country. With no water. And no toilets. Waiting to be picked up. Is the ferry coming yet? Gosh, I’m thirsty. How long can I drink salt water before it makes me insane?

Yeah, no! If we had another day in Auckland, it would have been fun. Waiheke is known for its beaches and its touristy shopping. We weren’t interested in either. I was trying to keep reasonably warm and dry in the rapidly diminishing hope that I would be well enough to scuba and snorkel in Maui. We opted for a shorter ferry ride over to Devonport, a city on a peninsula immediately northeast of the downtown harbor.

The views of the Auckland piers were stellar. The day was moderately cloudy. We spent probably an hour on the summit just hanging out as we waited for the peeks of sunshine to give us enough light for a couple of good pictures. It was a nice, relaxing time after the hike up the hill.

It was a great choice. Devonport is a quaint town with interesting little stores, good food, some nice beaches and it has two volcanic hills. North Head was used during WWII and after as a defensive artillery battery to protect first from the WWII Japanese fleet and later from the Soviets. If you have ever been to Fort Casey on Whidbey Island, this is like a smaller version of Fort Casey with more tunnels and less artillery.

We both had a fun time exploring the concrete tunnels that snaked around the volcanic peak of North Head. Just like at Fort Casey, the tunnels were originally lit via candles. Open flames and artillery powder are generally not good things to mix together. How they handled that was to have a narrow passageway behind the storage rooms that was a candle hall. Glass windows were inset between the candle hall and the ammo storage rooms. Candles were placed in the windows on the candle hall side to light up the storage rooms.

The candle halls were like secret passages in a haunted building from a 40’s or 50’s black-and-white movie. I’m sure I saw the Phantom of the Opera’s second cousin thrice removed on his mother’s side, the Apparition of the Artilleries lurking down one of those passages. I suppose it’s possible that it was just indigestion from lunch mixed with sinus meds. We will never know.

The views of the Auckland piers were stellar. The day was moderately cloudy. We spent probably an hour on the summit just hanging out as we waited for the peeks of sunshine to give us enough light for a couple of good pictures. It was a nice, relaxing time after the hike up the hill.

We took the ferry back to Auckland for another view opportunity. As with Sydney, Auckland has its own version of Seattle’s Space Needle and San Antonio’s Tower of the Americas the Sky Tower. The top viewing deck sits at over 720 feet off the ground. Compare that to the Space Needle at 520 feet for the observation deck, and the Tower of the Americas at 579 feet. It is an impressive tower.

We wanted to watch the sunset from “the best vantage point in the city.” It is debatable if we succeeded. We saw the sunset. It was terrific. However, the glare from the glass was challenging from a photographic perspective. Even my polarized filter provided only a small bit of help. Nevertheless, we did get some good photos, and it was a nice sunset. The clouds that were hanging around earlier had thinned to a respectable amount such that we were able to watch the sun disappear behind the hills to the west in all of its yellows, oranges and reds.

We spent several hours up in the tower. I had the expectation that a ton of people would want to do the same thing. It was a Friday night which strikes me as a good “go out on the town” kind of night. Sunset was around 8:40. We got to the top shortly after 6. It was an unnecessarily long wait. So, I ate two pieces of cheesecake, sharing one with Faith. She didn’t want any of the second one. I took one for the team and ate the whole thing myself. That’s just the kind of selfless fellow I am.  

We stayed at least an hour after sunset trying to get a good view of the Southern Cross. This is the constellation Crux that is so famous in the far south. I mentioned the glare on the windows vis-à-vis sunset photo challenges. Let me tell you, star pictures…not happening. They turned on a set of lights beneath the observation level and we could barely see the stars. We tried both of the main observation decks with no luck. We had been trying to get pictures of the Southern Cross since before we arrived in Brisbane. It was too far south most of the time before we would tire out.

We had one last shot. This was it. If we didn’t get to see in on Friday, our flight to Maui was Saturday night before the stars were scheduled to come up. We tried to request an earlier showing, but the star masters were having none of that business. It was Friday or bust. About six blocks east of the Sky Tower is the Albert Park. We didn’t know when we left for it, but Albert Park is on a hill. And while it was fairly bright, it was not so bright as to rob us of our chance.

There in the far southern sky, hanging low in the sky was Crux. Crux sits just below the constellation Centaurus. At 10 PM on Friday, January 10 in Auckland it was almost due south and about 10 to 15 degrees above the horizon. I didn’t know before we went that the cross is upside down. If you look at Crux on the New Zealand and Australian flags, it is positioned right-side up. The cross bar is near the top of the pole. However, in the sky, it is a St Peter’s cross. St Peter was said to be crucified upside down. It was attributed as an act of humility that he didn’t wish to be crucified in the same manner as Jesus.

While the Southern Cross was super cool to see, Venus was ascendant. Venus showed up before any other light in the sky except for the moon. It was the brightest throughout the evening in the northwest of the sky. Mars also made an impressive entry, though not so early and not so bright with its redness versus the blue-white of Venus.  

Day 75:

Saturday, January 11, was our last day outside of the United States for our around-the-world trip. We checked out of our hotel around 10 and caught an Uber to the airport. We checked our bags into luggage storage and then caught another Uber to the Auckland Botanic Gardens. The airport is 20 minutes south of downtown. The Botanic Gardens are further south than the airport.

Our flight wasn’t until 11:30 PM so we had almost a full day to spend. We arrived at the gardens around 11 AM. I would probably rate the San Antonio Gardens above Auckland. The Auckland Gardens were nice though they paled in comparison to the gardens in Brisbane. In fact, I think the only gardens I’ve ever visited that were more impressive than Brisbane were the gardens in Fort Worth, Texas.

Don’t get me wrong. The Auckland Gardens were decent and fun. We took our time wandering through the different paths. While feeling modest in overall presentation of groomed gardens, the grounds are huge at 156 acres, owing to an off-leash area and a large forest area at the northeast. We passed through the edibles, the native plants area and the edge of the palms section before we started to get hungry.

To the northeast, the forested area flows without a break into Totara Park. The park has a café and lunch was calling. Service was super slow, but for once, we didn’t mind. The Botanic Gardens were scheduled to close at 5 PM and we had already seen over half. We took our time for lunch and headed back over to catch the rest of the gardens.

The last of the gardens included the magnolias (not blooming which is a bummer because magnolia blossoms are among the most amazingly fragrant I’ve ever smelled), the camelias, the rose gardens, the African plants and a rock garden. It is always remarkable to see how tall the rocks grow when properly watered. Okay, that’s a bad dad joke. I know. Faith didn’t laugh at it either. The first time I told it. Or the fifth. Or any in between. As I’ve said before, bad dad jokes…bad dad. Kind of like the Bad Santa only more of a nerd.

We closed out the park and still had a good four hours to kill. So, we took an Uber to a nearby movie theater and watched Den of Thieves 2: Pantera. It was okay. It was a good distraction for a couple of hours. I’m not a movie critic so I’ll let you decide that one for yourself. We both thought it was okay. The gardens were better.

We finished our time in New Zealand with a quick bite of BBQ for dinner and hanging out at the airport. New Zealand was good fun, particularly Hobbiton, the geysers, and the Weta Workshops. Auckland is a lovely city surrounded by water. The volcanoes make the landscape almost surrealistic at times--an interesting mix of primitive and modern.

- See you in Maui –