I have not brought up much about the hotel or things that are unusual in New Zealand. The people are very nice and helpful. New Zealand has interesting slang terms. Much of those are actually Māori words. It is not unusual to hear Kiwi's speaking a mix of English and Māori. EH added to end of a question or for agreement. "Cloudy EH?" YEAH NAH for not sure of something "Want an soda?" " Yeah Nah" Chur meaning great or awesome. THE WOPS way out of town. It's out in the Wops. CHOCKA something being full or filled up. SUS suspicious. Māori words: AWA word for river. HAKA to dance or a dance. KAI food. MOANA the sea. MOTU mountain. NUI large. WAI water. Seeing and hearing Māori words is normal here. The plugs are different. Everyone has a switch to power on and off the plug. We ordered adapters before this trip because the plugs are different than European plugs. Oh and like in Europe, they are 220 volts not 120 as we have in the US. Up early again but not quite as early as yesterday. We had a nice breakfast at the restaurant. After a quick stop back at the room, we called for a cab to take us to the Auckland Museum. The reason we wanted to go there was to hop on the Blue line bus heading to the Zoo. The cabs have been running about $12 to $14 NZ dollars per trip but I have been giving them a $20 NZ which is the equivalent to a $12 US. Very reasonable cabs so far. Foreshadowing, later that would change. The ride to the zoo was nice and only a short walk from the stop to the entrance. Once inside we started the tour. The zoo is divided into areas dedicated to areas of the world. Native to NZ, Australia, South America, Africa,… Our first area was the ring tailed lemur. Next, the tiger who had just had babies but she was very shy and difficult to find. Then crocodile, Emu, some Australian birds, Lace Monitor lizard… Interesting fish and some plants. Next several types of monkey…. They had a newly introduced Orangutan and one of the older established Orangutan had a 6 month old baby who was starting to get adventurous. At one point, he was high in a tree above mom hanging on by just one hand. We saw two demonstrations. One of Australian lizards and skink plus a huge cockatoo. Another demonstration was of several types of birds that flew over the people watching many times. Several Galapagos tortoise and other turtles. We even got to see a tortoise run. Okay, for a tortoise. There were also very helpful volunteers throughout the zoo helping to find animals and answer questions. The cheetah area was very interesting as the two sisters were being fed. They ran to be put up then someone came out to put chunks of meat throughout the enclosure. Then the cheetahs were let back out to run around finding what was left for them. We all wanted to see the Kiwi. They are a nocturnal animal so the enclosure was very dark. Kiwi are about a foot tall with a body about the size of a football. (not a soccer ball but almost) I got a couple of pictures with the phone as it has a night mode. It worked better than I expected. I just wish they would have held still a bit longer so I could have gotten a less blurry picture. Off to lunch at the zoo cafeteria and then the last section which was dedicated to Africa. There were elephants, rhinos, lions, red pandas, and a very young giraffe baby with the group of giraffes. Some ostriches with one pair that got very frisky while we were there. He put up quite the show before she would let him approach. By the time we finished the last section, Betty was ready to return to the Hotel. Actually, she was probably ready long before that but did not want to stop. We got off the Blue line when it returned to the Auckland Museum and took one of the waiting taxis. This was a big mistake. Instead of the Coop Taxis that have run $12 to $14 NZ, the independent taxi was $26 NZ. Double. Ripped off to say the least. Back at the room Betty was ready to get a shower and relax. Shawna and I went to the bar for a drink and then decided to get something at the restaurant which is connected. Basically just around the corner. Even after finishing our drinks, deciphering the rules of Cricket that was on the bar TV was still impossible. I have heard that Cricket has the most complex rules of any major sport in the world. I can believe it. Dinner at the hotel was fantastic as always. I had the flat bread pizza and Shawna had Prawn cocktail. After that, we shared the Lava Cake. Very nice. Time for bed and a busy day tomorrow when we embark the cruise ship around noon.
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We have definitely not got our internal clocks set yet. At 4am, we woke and tried to go back to sleep but by 5:30am we were all up. At 6:30am, we went to breakfast at the hotel and it was great. We were very satisfied. We called the Hop-on-Hop-Off company and found out we had to go to the #1 stop first and NOT the one closest to us to join the bus even though we had already bought our tickets online. So we called a taxi to get us downtown. He was very nice and it only cost $20 NZ including tip. That would be just under $13 US Dollars. Cheap for a taxi for three people across town. We missed out on getting a donut. I am amazed at how many US food companies are represented everywhere we have traveled around the world. The Auckland Explorer Bus was a bit of a disappointment. Not the buses or the people but the low number of busses running the route caused long waits. It was not unusual for us to wait 45 minutes or even an hour before the next bus. Lots of wasted time. We toured around town and got off to tour Bastion Point Savage Memorial. It had very pretty views with large open grass areas. Michael Joseph Savage Memorial. Mr. Savage was a Prime Minister who is known to have worked to protect the native people of New Zealand known as the Māori. --- Warning Beginning Rant. --- This area has a terrible history. A Māori, native people of New Zealand, village was on the land for a long time and that seemed to not work for the city officials. They then decided that it would be better to relocate the village members and BURN DOWN THE VILLAGE. Really! And this was in 1952’s. NOT 1800s. Why? Because Queen Elizabeth II was visiting and they thought that the village was “a dreadful eyesore”. Oh and the Queen was coming to show off how good the New Zealand’s race relations were at the time. REALLY! Just to make it clear how ridiculous the people were who ordered the village burned down, they did this less than 10 years after the monument was completed to, Michael Savage, a man who fought for the Māori peoples rights. I guess they liked the memorial just not the people he tried to protect. Well after the land became an unofficial 60 acre park the city council in 1976 thought “Hey that land we forced an entire village of Māori to move to would be a great place for rich people to build homes." It seems the council was surprised when hundreds of Māori came from all over to protest. For 506 days, they stayed on the land. In 1977, the council approved a new plan to leave the land as Sacred and that there would never be anything built on the land. The protesters did not immediately leave and on May 25, 1978, 600 police with some soldiers in army vehicles forced the protesters on buses and bulldozed the protest site. Powerful governments taking advantage of native people is a world wide thing not just something that happened in our country. --- End Rant. --- We waited much longer than expected but finally a bus came to take us down from the point to the SEA LIFE Kelly Tarlton's Aquarium to see Penguins. Yep, not the zoo but the Aquarium. Seems a strange choice but the display was amazing. Kelly Tarlton worked hard to get the Aquarium built. He was a well known diver and archaeologist. The large walk through display in the Aquarium is made from unused sewage tanks. He worked to design an innovative marine Aquarium and that his “tunnel” would four times larger than any other in the world. He died at 47 just under 2 months after the Aquarium's opening. The Aquarium begins with some equipment from an Antarctica expedition. There is a walk-through replica of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Antarctic hut. There are authentic memorabilia of the expedition from over 100 years ago. From there we enter a spinning tunnel of “ice” that really throws off your balance and ends with the Penguins. We were able to watch King and Gentoo Penguins swim, walk about, and be fed just inches on the other side of a glass wall. We were just in time to see the penguins being fed. There was a glass tunnel where you have sharks, rays, and fish all around and above you. From the tunnel we moved to smaller tanks with lots of fish and other animals. We walked out of the Aquarium to the bus stop for another long wait. Our last stop of the day was the Auckland War Memorial Museum. The museum is in the middle of a huge park on an old volcano. It is an impressive museum. There are 3 floors of displays. We start on the ground floor which is dedicated to local history and the Māori people. Also on the ground floor was a restaurant and we were ready for something to eat. The pizza and fish was great. Look close at the contents of the Coke. Outside the USA Coke is JUST Coke. There is no need to have a Chemistry degree to understand the ingredients. Everything has a simple list of contents. Could we have this at home? Please! Oh and it tastes a lot better too. With full stomachs, we start our tour of the museum. The ground floor has a large area dedicated to the Māori people which includes a huge canoe and many displays of carvings and what would have been used in village life. We walked around the corner and there was Moana's boat. Okay, it was the style Māori boat used for the cartoon. Hey, maybe this one. Even a log drum. Sure, I was tempted but no I did not bang the drum. We continued on to see more of the skills the Māori people have at weaving and carving. The second floor is mostly natural history. Animals from dinosaurs to modern animals of New Zealand and other parts of the world. This included the Giant flightless bird that was hunted to extinction by the Māori people long before Europeans “discovered” New Zealand. Those birds were enormous. Much larger than an Ostrich. The entire third floor is dedicated to Wars that New Zealand had been involved which included the World Wars. Betty was just too tired for us to tour that floor. We returned to the hotel by cab as it would have been a long walk back. Back at the hotel to rest and recover for tomorrow. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant. It was very good.
No, Tuesday? Ok that is also a surprising thing to say. Yes, we skipped directly from Monday to Wednesday because we crossed the International Date Line headed West. We had a breakfast, a VERY early breakfast on the plane. Since we are arriving at 5am we had to eat by 4am. We did get a very nice meal. A choice of a Cheese Omelet or French Toast which we all decided to try. It was very good and came with some nice sides. Again, the very best food I have ever had on a plane. We are very spoiled now and will judge all other plane food by Air New Zealand standards. No American airline even comes close to the quality. Sad thing to say but very true. Off the plane and off to get our bags and customs. We got our bags and then stopped at the Money exchange to get New Zealand dollars. Today, the NZ dollar is worth about 60 cents in US dollars. Customs was not bad but it still to an hour to process. The customs here looked VERY familiar. Guess that was from watching all the border control shows. In fact the customs agent that worked with us, said they were filming but they must have been in the back because we never saw the camera crew. Our shuttle picked us up outside and we were off to the hotel. Being so early, we asked that they hold our bags till the room would be ready. We took a short walk down to the Rose Café for some coffee. Very nice café with lots of locals. It is also popular with the police and fire department. A half dozen of each stopped off for coffee while we were there. The Rose Park is just across the road so we took a walk and looked at the roses. There are 5000 roses in the garden with a wide variety of colors. Behind Betty is our hotel. We can see the garden from our hotel room balcony. We decided to walk back over to the hotel and were surprised that our room was ready for us. The Rose Hotel is under renovations and our room is one that has already been upgraded. Very nice. I was so impressed with the bathroom that I took photos. We rested and napped then went to the Garden Restaurant which is part of the hotel. The view overlooks the Rose garden. Our food was great. Shawna had pan fried fish, Betty a large salad, and I had a hamburger. All the food was great. Today… Yesterday… Tomorrow ??? Ok when you leave on one day and skip a day entirely it is strange. Time for bed and try to recover from jet lag.
Today, we start our travel to New Zealand and Australia. We have short flight from Amarillo to Houston then we change to an Air New Zealand plane for our long flight to Auckland. Fifteen hours on the nicest airline we have ever flown.
We drove off from Logan at 7am. There were some things we needed to pickup before the flight. Lunch with James before he dropped us off at the Amarillo airport to start the trip. The flight to Houston was uneventful but a small plane. When we arrived in Houston, we got a surprise. The “gangway” was an open walkway with a tent cover. Luckily for us it was not raining right then even though everything including the walkway was wet. Why is Houston so cheap not to have actual gangways instead of something the reminds me of a flight in the 70's? It might be reasonable at a very small airport but even Amarillo with only 7 gates has an enclosed gangway for each. Off to the International terminal to find our gate and grab a quick meal at a Mexican restaurant. As always airport food is generally OK but very expensive. The Air New Zealand plane, a 777-300ER, is HUGE. We are in row 49 and there were at least 10 more beyond us with 10 people per row. The plane holds over 360 people and I bet there were about that many people on this flight. Any other airline would have jammed as many rows of seats as possible. The economy seats were better than any other airline we have been on. The gap was bigger so I had plenty of room for my knees. Yes, that includes Southwest or any other airline. It is a limited comparison because I have never flown 1st class or Business. The seats even had a support that could be made to come out from below the seat to give some relief to your lower legs. The gap between seats was much better than even premium on other lines. The flight attendants were dressed up. The women in nice dresses and the men were in three piece suits. They were very helpful and attentive. We had easy access to bathrooms that were nicer than any other plane we had been on. Being tall, I can have some problems using the bathroom on many airlines. After all that, we had the very best food I have EVER had on a plane… PERIOD. The dinner meal was a choice of Beef Stroganoff or Chicken Parmesan with several side dishes. We were also offered New Zealand wine for FREE. The expectation by the airline is that people have wine with dinner and are not charged extra. After dinner, we reclined our chairs and extended our foot rests (each chair had a support for your legs). Put our pillow behind our heads. Blanket over us and tried to sleep. 15 hours later we arrived in New Zealand. NO, we were not in 1st or Business or even Preferred Economy. We were in regular economy which would have been awful on almost any other airlines. We had several firsts. 1. Flying Air New Zealand 2. Crossing the Equator. 3. Crossing the International date line. 4. Loosing a day. No kidding we left on Monday and arrived on Wednesday. Time travel. I guess another first for us anyway. The big downside was the turbulence. It was bad. Not the airline or pilots fault but no fun. It was bad enough that the wings were bouncing and I could hear loud bangs from luggage shifting and bouncing below the cabin. We got as much sleep as we could before the lights came up letting us know it was time for breakfast. It was another nice meal. We are really looking forward to our next trip. It should be warm since we will be in the southern hemisphere which is in summer right now.
Soon after we arrived back in Logan, it gets colder. We get more snow. The deer are frequently visiting the park and walking by on the road. Just a few days later, we warm up, the snow melts, but the deer are still frequently seen. We had a busy December in Logan with lots of snow and cold weather. Visits to Amarillo and Lubbock for Betty's doctor visits. Also, we had some pretty sunrises and sunsets. Weather was cold and we are very happy the skirting around the RV is working for us. Even with the outside temps near zero we are able to stay connected to water and not have a cold floor. We will be planning our next cruise and flights for January 2024.
After a great visit with family and celebrating 45 years of marriage, we head back to Logan. After a stop over in Dallas to change planes, we head out to Amarillo. Well, the people at Southwest still have a sense of humor. And patriotic. Before we arrive, we have a nice sunset.
After a nice visit with Kelly and Leon, we fly out of Orlando to Pensacola. We will be there for Thanksgiving and visiting with family. The three of us will be staying with Michael and Niki and children.
Time to disembark. BOO! Off ship we go. We need to be off by 8:30am. It has been a fantastic month or nearly a month. We left Logan one month ago and have been out of the country for almost an entire month. Starlink was fantastic. It was not great all the time but we were able to make WiFi phone calls almost consistently. With the Upgrade package, I could access anything as if I were on a regular hotspot. Even with 1000 plus passengers, the up and download were consistently 3Mbps even in the middle of the Atlantic. A quick breakfast and then drag our luggage down to the ramp. The line was really long it wrapped up from the ramp through the Rolling Stone lounge almost half way down the ship. Even with all that it only took us 45 minutes to get off through Global Entry which was no faster than the regular line only because there was only one person checking us and 6 or 7 checking everyone else. Even with all that and the cab we made it to the station with plenty of time to spare. Taxi to the Brightline train station. Cab cost us $35. Ok but I think he fudged the numbers a bit and it should have been less than $25. When we got on, we found a family about to sit in our assigned seats on the train. When I told them they said people were in THEIR assigned seats. I let them know that was not our problem. What makes people think, "Someone is in our seats so we will take someone else's"? After we had been out of the station for about 5 minutes, someone came by from the train and checked tickets making sure everyone was in their assigned seats. We had a nice ride and very comfortable. We snacked a bit and napped a bit. The trip to Orlando was about 3 hours. Kelly picked us up at the station which is at the Orlando Airport. Wow, that is a HUGE airport and growing bigger every year. We will stay with Kelly and Leon for 5 days.
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