Friday, April 6, 2018

Auckland Museum, 2

Continuing our day at the Auckland Museum...
The smaller of two community halls on display

More beautiful carving



More cases upon cases of artifacts

Helpful model #27,692; of a Maori compound and pa (fortified village)



Maori tribes

Great display on the relations among the various Pacific languages (Austranesian
they called them); many, if not most, Maori words look and sound like they came
straight from Hawaii...not exactly nearby

More artifacts

And canoes












































































The larger of the two community halls

Inside

Moving right along...Hillary's ice axe on the
Everest summit climb

Sir Ed

The carving continues upstairs

So how do you explain this to your 2nd graders?

Alas, the only kiwi we saw was dead

Vicki examines a reconstructed Moa, the largest of birds, over
3m tall; extinct since before the Europeans arrived (at least
there's one thing we didn't kill off) 

Various other NZ feathered bi-peds

The kea, one of our favorite birds; "pining for the fiords"

The museum also covers marine life, geology (mostly volcanoes), and, very briefly,
mammals; and many other things

Major exhibits on the NZ role in the various world and other wars; one of the
earliest sea battles in WWII was when the cruisers Exeter, Achilles, and Ajax
cornered the German battleship Graf Spee off the River Plate and saw her
scuttled; the Achilles was an NZ vessel


A major figure in the Battle of Britain was Keith Park, commander of the 11th
fighter group, which saw most of the action of that time; another Kiwi...among
the "happy few"


















Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, which powered the Spitfire, and, later, and more
effectively, the P-51 Mustang
















Near the beginning of our 2018 NZ campaign was a Spitfire; so it is fitting to
see one near the end too

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