Auckland - day two

The three boys did finish The Two Towers, which meant a later bedtime and a resultant later getting up time for Thomas and DJ. Liz and I went ahead and had breakfast alone and brought some food down for the boys. We had just two things on the agenda for the day: visit the All-Blacks Experience and stock up on some essentials.

The All-Blacks Experience is a tourist attraction that focuses on the New Zealand national rugby team, the All-Blacks. It’s pretty fascinating how a small country like New Zealand has dominated international rugby for so long. They touched lightly on the history of rugby in New Zealand, went into in some depth what it means for the players to be selected to the team, and let us do some rugby drills at the end. The coolest part was watching both the All-Blacks and Black Ferns (women’s team) do their pre-game hakas on a huge wide screen.

We had lunch back on the ship and let the boys stay on board while we went back out for some necessity shopping. We figured Auckland was the best chance to stock up ahead of the island hopping that will be our itinerary for the next several weeks. The weather forecast was rather dire, but we avoided any rain while we were out.

Speaking of the weather, the forecast was bad enough to cause a cancellation of our final New Zealand port, Bay of Islands. Winds were forecast to be above 50 mph and Auckland was under a tornado watch. The captain said we’d spend the next day sheltering on the east side of North Island, letting the weather pass and then steering north toward New Caledonia.

With my extended stay in Wellington I wound up with a much longer New Zealand visit than originally planned. I really liked the country. I think “livable” describes it best. It’s beautiful, of course, it isn’t overly crowded, both Wellington and Auckland are very walkable and have good public transit, the air is clean, the people are friendly. Overall high marks from me!Read more