The Road Goes Ever On

Friday, April 6, 2018

Goodbye, Rooby

So at a shopping center near the airport, we finally returned Rooby to her owners/agents. She served well, although we would have done well to rent a somewhat larger, more fully-equipped rig. "Still I'm gonna miss you." Our experience with Cruzy Campers was entirely satisfactory, however, certainly exceeding expectations. (Much practical information on camping in NZ will appear shortly on our website under "Vicki's Practical Guides").

At Orewa

We drove some 8,000k during our 80 days with Rooby

On Auckland Domain

The Auckland Domain is the city's central park, sort of, a huge park-like area that includes the museum and other civic buildings, many trees and sculptures, playing fields, and a conservatory of winter and tropical plants. I spent a last hour there gawking at the various exotics...

Between the two conservatory buildings

Several specimens familiar from my youth in south Florida

Boy will be boys...tormenting a "sensitive plant"

I always thought it was called a shrimp plant; no, a lollipop

Last seen at Kew Garden

OK, so with a last tropical/botanical fix, I am ready to leave
New Zealand

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

Auckland Museum, 1

We visited the Auckland Museum in 2008 and were impressed, particularly with its Maori artifacts and exhibits as well as those from all over Polynesia. We have visited Te Papa Tongarewa, the national museum in Wellington, three times since then, but still have very high regard for the Auckland Museum. From Baylys Beach we drove to the Top 10 in Orewa for a couple more days on the beach, sorting, packing, and closing out our 2018 NZ visit. We spent our last day, April 2nd, in Auckland, mostly at the great Museum on the hill.