November 21, Wednesday

November 21, Wednesday

Drove from the airport area to downtown Auckland today to locate the Air Pacific office and try to book a flight out of Fiji to Hawaii.

The view from my room at the Ibis Hotel near the airport

I did not have a great map of Auckland, only a generic area map for the Auckland area which showed where the airport was located and where the downtown area was located, but very few street names, and only a small outline of what the downtown area looked like and the address of the Air Pacific office on 396 Queen Street.  Luckily, that was one of the main ones.  The detail of the airport area that Ibis had given me did not reach very far and I was missing a crucial link between the two detailed maps.  Surely, the route would be clear from the airport to downtown.  Well, it wasn’t as clear as I would have liked and at some point, after exiting the freeway, I ended up on Highway # 12 which was really just a normal city street.  I kept following the sketchy signs to reach downtown and at one point decided that the bulk of the traffic was probably confirmation that I was going in the right direction.  I followed the signs and the traffic onto Highway # 1 and exited almost immediately into the downtown core.  Many of the streets are one ways and I wasn’t sure where on Queen Street that number was.  I ended up turning left and going a few blocks before finally finding numbers on buildings, and of course, I was heading the wrong way and had to double back through a series of one way streets.   About 6 or 8 blocks from where I turned, I found the building and tried to find a parking spot.  Ended up having to drive up and down the hill before finally locating a spot that would allow me to stay 120 minutes.  Hopefully that would be enough to settle my flight problems.

The offices were in a building that did not advertise that Air Pacific Offices were inside it, but a board inside the building, listing all building occupants, did.  I went up to the identified floor to find an empty Air Pacific Office, but it did have travel brochures and not just offices, so that was a good sign.  I had to call out a few times before someone finally answered.  A lady came out a few minutes later and after I explained my problem she said she could not help, that on-line bookings were handled by a third party company, the 0800 number I had already called; the ones who had referred me here.  She dialed the number for me and spoke to someone she knew and passed the phone to me.  I repeated my story to the guy on the phone and he put me on  hold while he tried to locate the information he needed.  The lady sitting in front of me says: “Oh, I can help you with that.”    WHAT?!! Had she not been listening to me when I was telling her what I was attempting to do?  In any case, the only flight I could take off of Fiji, without doubling back, was to Hawaii.  She was able to book my flight for a departure on Sunday December 9.   Now all I needed to do was extend my hotel reservation in Fiji from November 31 to December 9, but I could do that on-line.   AHHHH.  Too bad for me having to spend extra time resting in Fiji.  I cried all day.  NOT !

I still had about one hour before the electronic meter on my parking space ran out so I decided to walk around downtown Auckland, try to locate a tourist information office, try to find a place to park the car for the day and maybe take the “Hop-on, Hop-off” tourist bus.

 Town Hall with the Sky Tower in the background

 Downtown Auckland

Aotea Square,     or more properly “Aotearoa” which, in case I haven’t mentioned it yet, is the Maori name for what we know as New Zealand.

 Art Gallery

The stores are ready for Christmas !

 The newer section of the Art Gallery

Civic Theatre where Mary Poppins is playing.

No luck finding a Tourist Info office and although I had noted a few things I could go see while in Auckland, I wasn’t much in the mood. I was decided to grab some lunch and head for the museum that was located in a huge park, according to my downtown map. It took a few tourist detours to locate the entrance to the park since the closest one had been closed due to construction. I finally found an alternate entrance, found a parking spot, rolled down the windows and ate my lunch.

 "The Domain"

I went in to visit the museum. Again, the driving took me on a few tourist detours because the most direct route on the map was closed due to construction. I drove around through ”The Domain” a large park in the middle of Auckland, found a parking spot near the back entrance, where most tourist busses were parked, and went in for my visit.

 A tree house in the children's section

 Beautifully carved totems

A dug-out canoe with out-rigger

 A traditional communal meeting house

 The inside is the most elaborate I have seen yet

 with both wooden carvings and woven mats on the walls

 Kiwi feather cloak....  no wonder they are endangered !

Detail from another feather cloak

 Tapa Cloth; paper made of mulberry wood, beating and layering the inner bark (they could also use wild fig and breadfruit)

zooming in on the drawing details

 Items used by Sir Edmund Hillary on his climb of Mount Everest in 1953

 NZ traversed by a fault line between the Pacific and Australian Plates. “Both plates are being sub-ducted at opposite ends of the country, squeezing and twisting New Zealand in the middle.”

 Giant Moa, they came in all sizes “Like the kiwi, moa are ratite birds. They share a common ancestor with ratites from other parts of the world. All are flightless: kiwi, emu, ostrich, cassowary, South American rhea.

Moas came in all sizes.  They have been extinct for many years now

 The Kiwi bird and its egg on the right.  Almost as big as its body.

Royal Albatross, picture does not do it justice, he’s HUGE

Fjordland Crested penguin, the ones I saw on Milford Sound.    Little blue on left,   Yellow-eyed on right.

 Giant Rimu Tree, 2.5 meters in diameter, 815 years old, felled in 1920s

 A stained glass window in the War Memorial section of the museum

 skylight and war memorial

 War memorial monument, taken from the upper gallery of the Auckland Museum

 Aukland Skyline and Sky Tower

Aucland Harbour
That was it for my museum visit.  I was in the museum for more than 2 hours and was extremely tired.  I made my way down to the ground level and went outside for a closer look at the War Memorial.

 
 The Auckland Museum

 Only at the back entrance do I see that its original name was “Auckland War Memorial Museum”

I guess the lack of deep sleep was finally catching up to me. I had no interest in going up the Sky Tower in Sky City, or manoeuvring through Auckland downtown streets with the car, so I decided to head back to the hotel. The map I had obtained from the IBIS Hotel showed an arrow on Gillies street, rather than on Broadway, as the road to take to get back to the Airport area. I followed the map, since I did not see any street signs showing the way back to the airport. BAD DECISION. Talk about a tourist detour. I never did find Gillies and I turned on Mountain Road instead relying on my sense of direction to get me back to Highway 1, 12 or 20 but the winding streets obviously through me off. After about half an hour of driving around and stopping to ask for directions, I appeared to be completely lost.

I noticed a sign for Mount Eden, one of the lookouts that provide views of the city. I had found it completely by accident. I drove up the hill as far as I could and parked the car. No views from here, you had to walk the rest of the way up the hill. Not going to happen today! I got back in the car and continued in the direction that my last “helper” had indicated when I stopped to ask for directions.

 View of Auckland from Mount Eden

Somehow, I ended up back in the downtown core! CRAP. I came to a street where I had to turn either right or left. The majority of the cars were turning right, so I decided to follow them. I WAS BACK ON Broadway where I had started out! Well, it wasn’t exactly where I wanted to be, but at least I now knew where I was. YEAH ! ! !

This time I decided to just stay on Broadway, ignore the IBIS map, and hoped that there were would be signs leading me back to Highway # 1. I have no idea how it happened, since I finally caught some signs indicating the route to the airport, but I ended up back on Highway # 12. HOURRAH ! ! ! I was finally back on track and my nerves were completely shot. All I could think of was getting back to the hotel and putting a cold compress on my aching forehead.

While I was driving back to the Ibis Hotel near the airport, I heard on the radio that Mount Tongariro had erupted this afternoon, as predicted earlier. “It is located 20 kilometres (12 miles) to the southwest of Lake Taupo, and is the northernmost of the three active volcanoes that dominate the landscape of the central North Island.” I had been there just a few days ago.

 Sunset from my window at the Ibis Hotel

Spectacular.  Must have something to do with the ash in the air from the volcano.