2 Days in Aukland

Yesterday we disembarked the ship and walked along Queen Street. We were looking for an orange baseball cap for our friend Rudy. His birthday is coming up later in the month. We didn’t have any luck. We found a department store and did a little shopping. I bought navy and beige pants and a blouse. Bunny was looking at the shirt first, decided against it, so I took it. Then she ended up buying it too. If they have a twins night on the ship, we’ll be ready for it. We grabbed a quick Taco Bell lunch on the way back to the port to meet our tour. It was an Auckland panorama. We drove by some beautiful places, stopped for a photo op at a couple. Then we went to the War Museum. It was pretty interesting. There was a large Māori section with a meeting house, canoe, and several tikis. There was a room that simulated a volcano eruption. It was a lot like the earthquake simulations we have at home. Then we drove back to the ship. It was a beautiful day, not too warm, with big white clouds. We had dinner with our Canadian friends, Beryl and Ben. She’s 70, he’s 84 and she runs him ragged. He keeps up with her. There was no entertainment so we went to the lounge, met up with our other Canadian friends, had a drink and chatted while the guitarist played.
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Today, which is tomorrow for you, we had a tour called The North Shore and Devonport Village. Again we went to several photo op places. Some of the communities had many Victorian homes.. It was cooler and windy today. We went across the bay bridge and up a mountain for a spectacular overlook. We got lots of photos but the wind was blowing a gale. We could hardly stand up. The tour dropped us in Devonport Village with a ferry ticket to get back to the port. We hit a few shops, ran into Betty and Rudy and went to lunch. We heard there was a chocolate shop on the way to the ferry, so we had to investigate. We all came out with some chocolate.

This evening we 6 went to dinner at Tony’s Lord Nelson Steak House. It was nice to have a good steak dinner away from the ship. Then we came back for a Māori program. It was very good. It ended with a Haka, the dance they do to frighten their enemies. The All Black rugby team does the dance before every match. It’s pretty famous around here.

I’m including the photo of the tile in the bathroom from the Bay of Islands, a pretty skyline picture, a Victorian home, the Māori exhibit, our restaurant, and the Bay Bridge. One more day in this beautiful city. We plan to go up to the top of the tower.