Dear Everyone,
The continuation of Auckland, and our time in Wellington
Auckland Day 4
We get up relatively late, and go to the corner of Queen and
Customs street for a meet up for a walking tour of Auckland. Usually this is the first thing we do in a
new city, but it was delayed by our other activities. I hope at the end of the tour I will
understand the geography of the city a bit better.
Our guide is an Anglo-Irish woman who is a fourth generation
New Zealander. She is very sweet, and is
fluent in Maori - - she greets us in Maori at the beginning with a long
welcoming speech, and she ends the tour with a Maori song.
The north part of the city, alongside the harbor, is flat
for a couple of blocks. That’s because
it is constructed on landfill from some headlands adjoining the harbor. The original harbor was very shallow, and
boats would go aground at low tide. In fact Queen Street is a bit west of the
original harbor - - Queen Street is actually a paved over small river called
the Waihorotiu.
Other than that, Auckland is built on the remainings of (depending who is
counting) 53 volcanos. All of the
volcanos are on the North Island, whereas the South Islands has mountains, glaciers
and earthquakes (the two islands are on different tectonic plates (Pacific and
Australian plates)).
Queen Street is the main north-south spine of Downtown, and
there are all sorts of little alleyways and arcades that extend off of it like
little ribs. A little east of Queen
Street is a brick paved and grass courtyard called Takutai
Square with a series of flat domes, each is supposed to represent an Auckland
volcano, although I thought that perhaps they were rugby world cups. It is
right near the main train station. Auckland
is busy building a subway route that will feed here in the hopes of reducing
central city traffic.
There is plentiful street art, and other public/private
spaces. We have a mid-morning tea break at the Hotel DeBrett, well known for it's art deco interiorl. We go to Vulcan Lane, where
a couple of leaning old buildings are pointed out. I privately decide to come back here for
lunch at a restaurant called the
Occidental that specializes in green-lipped mussels.
Mussels are one of the cheapest foods in New Zealand, and people will often buy
a kilo or two on the way home and steam mussels in a variety of sauces at
home. Karangahape Road was one of the
original Maori roads, who would eat mussels as they walked the road, and toss
the shells aside. This enabled them to see the pathway at night.
We stop at a delicious chocolatier, with a variety of really interesting flavors - - balsalmic vinegar and honey, lemon and thyme, chili, ginger caramel, etc - - we are all allowed to get three flavors
We walk past Albert Park, where a massive Pohutukawa (or
New Zealand Christmas tree) is pointed out - - large branches extend over the side
walk. It is called thus because it has bright red flowers around December. We also admire the Gateway sculpture. Down the hill is the art museum, which we
walk past, back to Queen Street, where we go through a small square in honor of
New Zealand
suffragettes. New Zealand was the
first nation to give women the right to vote in national elections.
We catch a city bus for a 10 minute ride up Queen Street to Karangahape Road. This runs along a ridge around the downtown,
and as I mentioned before, was one of the main Maori routes. It’s now a funky hipster area, or as our tour
guide says, “where the grit meets the glitz”. We walk back into the city
through Meyers Park,
and back down Queen Street until we get to the old town hall (now housing the symphony)
and Aotea Square, which often hosts outdoor concerts, graduation ceremonies, etc. There is a large arch in the square that
represents a Maori entry gate, and if you walk through it, you are supposed to
feel welcomed to New Zealand.
The tour is over, and we head back down Queen Street for our
mussel lunch - - this and the Sri Lankan meal are probably the best I have on
this trip. The mussels are huge - - each
almost as long as my hand. It’s a
Belgian style restaurant, but I’d say that it’s a better version of moules-frites than I have ever had in Belgium.
After lunch we decide to make the hour long walk up to Mt. Eden.
This is a pleasant walk uphill to the highest (extinct) volcano in
Auckland. However, it’s cold, windy, and
clouds drift down so for a while we are walking in fog and spitting rain. Not
so nice. But it clears up by the time we
reach the base of the hill, and we hike up.
There is a walkway around the rim of the caldera with stunning views of
downtown Auckland and the west and east harbors. We are too tired to walk back down, and call
an Uber to take us back to our hotel. We
have some well-deserved cocktails back there.
Cindy is not hungry enough to go out for dinner. Cheryl and I find a nearby take-out kebab place
(after our tour we know where to look!), and we bring some food back and eat it
in our room.
Auckland Day 5
This is the day we visit some local wineries northwest of
the city in the Kumeu
river region. They have small local
vineyards, but most of the grape is grown further south in Hawke’s Bay. This was the area that was hardest hit by the
Cyclone earlier this year; I don’t know how that will affect the next few years
of viniculture. New Zealand’s biggest industries are agriculture, construction,
and tourism - - all badly hit by the pandemic and weather changes. With a population of only 5 million, there is
not a lot of reserve in the economy, and the emergencies have made the
government spend a lot of money. There
is also a big housing shortage here (a starter home probably runs around 350-500k
USD, many young people become temporary ex-pats to earn money elsewhere).
Most of the wineries were started up by Croatian Dalmatians
who immigrated here between the world wars.
They make a lot of white wine, I think mostly with pinot gris, Sauvignon
blanc, or chardonnay. For reds I think
it is mostly pinot noir, but also cabernet, malbec and merlot (as well as all
of the other common varieties). We
visit three different wineries, with a stop at a brewery for lunch. I am not a big fan of white wine in general,
but Cheryl enjoys them. We also stop at
a black sand beach, and pick up some sand in little vials our tour guide hands out. We also sample some Manuka honey. This honey is part of the pharmacopeia in New
Zealand and Australia because of its antibiotic properties (I would have bought
some, but there were no bottles small enough for carry on).
We had enough to eat and drink during our tour, so we share
a charcuterie board at the hotel.
One thing I wish we had time to do was take the ferry from
Auckland to some of the towns in the bay like Devonport or Waiheke Island. I should add that we were always either in a city, or it was cloudy at night, and I never got a chance to see the Southern night sky.
Auckland – Wellington
We take a quick walk around the hotel area after breakfast
and then board the Road Trips bus to the airport. Our flight for Wellington leaves
in the early afternoon. As we were going through security Cindy notices a group
all dressed in coordinating sweats. Looking around, she and Cheryl quickly
realize that the American team is on the other side of security heading to
their gate. By the time we get up to the gates, there is a big crowd of
well-wishers cheering as they board their plane.
Wellington is a much smaller city – although Auckland has a
population of around 400k and Wellington one of 200k, there are really no
suburbs or exurbs to speak of in Wellington, whereas the Auckland metro is
about 1.5 million. The only business in
Wellington is government, and so it’s a pretty short ride to our hotel.
Wellington is even hillier than Auckland.
In fact, our Novotel
hotel has an elevator in the back that takes you nine levels down to the parallel
street to the hotel entrance.
As usual, on these travel days, we end up at the hotel in
the late-afternoon, and we don’t know where we are or what to do. It’s also cold, windy and a bit rainy out. We
take the elevator down, and wander around in the mid-section of the city. We
have some drinks in one bar, and then walk around and find an English pub. I have Yorkshire pudding, Cindy had lamb bangers
and mash, and Cheryl has a pot pie.
Wellington Day 2
I take a walk around outside to get the scope of where we
live and to scout out some possible restaurants for later. Then we go to the next soccer game. Because of the hills, the bus takes us on a roundabout route
through the city streets - - the drive takes about 20 minutes, even though the
stadium is only about a ten minute walk from the hotel. Of note, the US team is staying at the hotel
next door to us, and a bunch of fans cheer their bus as it departs.
It’s a smaller stadium than Auckland (30-35k compared to 40-45k),
and has many fewer food venues, although we do score some enormous hot
dogs. New Zealand is a big on beef, and is
very serious about their burgers and hotdogs. The FIFA store is a mob scene
again. The game is against the Netherlands.
The teams are pretty evenly matched, although I am told that the referee
is favoring the Netherlands. It is certainly more exciting than the Vietnam
match up, with a lot more on the line.
The US ends up in a 1-1 tie in a close game.
After the game we wander around downtown again, and end up
in a hipster bar, where Cheryl and I share some enormous oysters, and we all
have weird cocktails. Mine is super
bitter, with coffee oil and yuzo kosho. I enjoy it, but I like Malort
also. For dinner we have ramen at a
restaurant near the hotel.
Wellington Day 3
We have most of the morning before we have to go to the
airport to fly home, so we go to Te Papa,
or the Wellington Museum. On the way
there I make a bid to go up the cable car,
but it is temporarily out of service for repairs.
The Te Papa museum is very nice. It's a combo art museum and natural history museum, with a lot on Maori history,
and the interaction of the Maori and other Pacific Islanders with Europeans and
New Zealanders. Many Maori chiefs signed
up with English in the hopes it would stop the different Maori tribes from
fighting with each other. This probably
happened, but the unintended consequence was the Maori losing a lot of their
rights and being exploited by the settlers.
However, the Maori came out a lot better than many other ‘natives’ under
colonialism. Maori is a required
language in New Zealand schools, and almost every street sign and location has
a Maori equivalent. The New Zealand government has given a lot of money for
reparations, and returned a lot of land to the Maori. Maori are still disadvantaged in the justice
system and economically, but it seems their chance for equality is a lot better
than Australian Aborigines or American Indians.
Our flight to Chicago goes well. The seats on Air New Zealand are not quite as
comfortable as those on United, but they truly lie flat - - in fact after
dinner, the attendants pull out each seat and lay down a thin mattress. I have time to watch two movies, the Whale with
Brendan Fraser (the kind of movie Hollywood likes, but probably better as a
stage production), and Dungeons
and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (cute and that’s about it).
We get through customs easily, and we are done. Cheryl is supposed to take a flight out to Baltimore later, but I know it won’t happen; there are thunderstorms to the west. Indeed, she sits on the plane, gets off the plane, put back on a plane, and then finally calls with word of cancellation, and shows up at our house around 1:30 am. We take her to the airport for a 5 pm flight the next day. Indeed, Jasper was flying back to Chicago at the same time from Rhode Island, and his plane is diverted to Detroit, where he spends the night at the airport before an early morning flight to Chicago.
I forgot to mention I saw Tui (parson birds) at Te
Puia
Cindy wanted to add these factoids: We spent three weeks on
this trip with eight flights to five cities with 45 hours of flight time. We sampled 13-15 cuisines, mostly Asian. We were driven (I would not want to drive on
the left) a reasonable amount, definitely over 600 miles, but probably under
1000 miles. We rode in buses, trains,
cars, vans, planes, ferries, and the skyrail.
We underwent a temperature differential of at least 35 F from Cairns to
Wellington (lots of layers!), with only carry-on luggage weighing under 15
pounds - - she is a master of packing!
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