Auckland

Funny that Auckland reminds me of somewhere... somewhere with lots of trees, water, islands, and ferries. The water here is a different color and I cannot figure that out. When you fly into Seattle on a sunny day, its blue. Here, its green.

We started the day by taking the ferry to Devonport which is like an upscale West Seattle. It's also like West Seattle geographically in that its a peninsula across from downtown Auckland.

on our way to the ferry.. lots of things to remind us of Seattle

We had to wait a few minutes so we walked along the pier where there is a large port. Again, it looks like our port but the equipment that loads the boats are painted blue instead of red. A large red fence borders the cargo area.

There are lots of reminders of the history of the area. The Mauri were here first and there were lots of signs describing what the port used to be.

This mosiac commemorated the sinking of an anti-nuclear Greenpeace boat that was sunk by French spies. The boat was docked north of Auckland in the Bay of Islands and en route to some place that France was testing nukes. Not sure why they got to test their nukes near New Zealand.

We arrived in Devonport and walked along the boardwalk to a navy museum. They had a kids interactive exhibit on courage.

The view finders showed art kids had made about how they dealt with fear.


Here's the thing I learned about New Zealand today. Their military is very small. Right now, it employs ~10,000 people (according to the people at the navy museum who were in the navy but were not soldiers). However, they have fought in most of the major conflicts of the last 100 years -- WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan. One third of the New Zealanders who fought in WWII died there. It is understandable that they are proud of their service. It is hard to imagine how citizens of a country not interested in world domination and really geographically isolated would volunteer to travel to distant countries to die in battles that are not threatening their own safety. It was about their alliances I guess. Now people told me their military is mostly involved in peacekeeping missions rather than combat.

After the museum, we went to Torpedo bay (lots of war memorials and memorabilia everywhere here) to spend some time at the beach. It is almost summer here. It's warm and sunny and the days are long. However, the water reminds you that you are not far from the Antararctic.

Sonia made a shell monument.



But wait! there's more. We headed to MOTAT - the museum of transportation and technology.  That was Jack's request but the guide books recommended it. There were two sections. One section filled with world war II era planes and the other that was a sort of activity village. There was a section on Edmund Hillary -- first person to summit everest. There was another section on innovation in New Zealand. My favorite was the springless trampoline. It was invented by a new zealander who loved trampolines but wanted them to be safe for children.


Other than that, I was underwhelmed by the museum. It seems neglected.  They usually have a tram that transports people between sections of the museum (they are several miles apart) but the tram was broken so we were on a bus. There was a tour guide who usually works on the tram on the bus. He was an older man who had worked in the tourism industry for years. He'd been to Seattle to see the World's Fair in 1962. He had lots of good tips on getting around the city.

Unfortunately, the kids were tired. We couldn't get cash out of an ATM and ended up taking Uber back to our cave-like airbnb. The kids fought the entire car ride. It was miserable.

We are all in separate corners. The kids are listening to audio books and Ryan is researching where we should go tomorrow when we rent the motor home. Travel is not a state of perfection.