February 26, 2019 – Auckland, New Zealand
Very calm waters as we cruise into port today. Back to civilization! Our port has a building next to it that houses areas for cruise lines to check in passengers. Entry and exit today is a few steps from our room.
There is a bit of confusion on what time we have to be back on board. I ran into Hamish, our cruise director, and asked about it. Originally we were told 6pm, the online navigator says 5:30, the printed program says 4:15. Hamish said there is a required emergency drill at 4:15 but the ship does not leave until 5:30. “If you miss the drill, you be sent a letter reminding you of requirements of being a passenger…..”. ( I know Sandi is immediately thinking of staff meetings and PD.) Hamish assured me that we could still get on the ship after 4:15 but before 5:30. We will miss the drill.
Plans today include hiking around Rangitoto Island and a visit to the sky tower. We left the ship after breakfast and walked over to the ferry. Almost right next to the ship! First ferry left at 9:15 so we had some time to kill. No food or water could be brought off the ship and Rangitoto has no food or water. Supermarket is our first stop.
The streets of Auckland are alive with folks going to work or visiting. New Zealand has the largest population of Polynesians in the world. That is evident but they are not at all like the Polynesians we saw on the many islands in the South Pacific that we visited. I expected short and wide. Not so!
The city reminded me of San Francisco. Port side city, young people everywhere, bustling economy, high end shops everywhere. A few homeless but not the many tent cities as San Francisco. The NW Metro supermarket was blocks away. We purchased what we needed and went back to the port. The city tempted us to hang around and visit but it could have been Chicago, New York or Seattle. We were here to see the unusual. Hiking up a volcano was the main event.
The ferry pulled out right on schedule. A private girls school was on board with us. They appeared to be middle school aged with all of the laughing and giggling. Still summer vacation here. We chatted it up with some women our age that were visiting from the states. West coast folks. They were very interested in the cruise we were on. HAL had no excursions to Rangitoto. This hike was beyond what most passengers on this cruise could handle.
The entire trip may have been 45 minutes, including loading time, a quick stop to another port, and then across the bay. Felt a lot like Sheplers to Mackinac Island.
Rangitoto is a volcanic island with strict environmental protections. There is to be nothing left on the island. There are no trash containers and there is no food or water. There are many traps around the island to control rodents. We did see a few birds but no other creatures.
We got off the ferry and went right to the trail. Strictly business. Many photo ops along the way. We did take a diversion to the lava caves. Big disappointment. Not worthy of even a photo.
The view from the top was magnificent. One could see the many volcanic islands and the magnificent city of Auckland. We took many photos and decided to head down a different way. Our goal was the 2:30 ferry. Miss it and there was one at 3:30. Miss that and we are on the island all night.
The path down turned into a road used by a tractor pulled trolley. The entire path was crushed volcanic rock. It was quite steep. Terri took a tumble and scraped up her hands a bit. We took it slow and came to the bottom of this road and were back on a trail. The ferry was about 3.5 miles from here. Nice views of the water and very interesting hike.
We stopped for lunch on a bench and relaxed before heading over to the ferry.
Our next stop was the sky tower in the center of Auckland. We felt quite invigorated after the 8 mile hike but not enough to bungee jump off of this tower.
The view from floor 60 allowed views of the entire city. Afterwards we stopped for a drink near the ship and heard the alarm for the mandatory drill at 4:15. Darn.
Back on the ship for the Auckland send off party.
Big day and we packed it in early. Another big day tomorrow.…