20170129: Auckland Celebrates its Birthday

Sunday, January 29, 2017 Auckland Celebrates its Birthday

By some fortuitous circumstance, we happened to book our Auckland extension to include the weekend that Auckland celebrates its birthday. The waterfront was abuzz with activity. From our balcony, I saw a RIB(Rigid hull Inflatable Boat) towing what looked like 3 tiny wooden boats behind it into the harbor. There were shipping containers and canopies set up all over the open wharf. There were also several jumbotrons set up. Our plan for the day was simply to finish the city walk tour in the National Geographic guidebook.

Janet was hacking and not feeling well, but after dosing her up with guaifenesin, dextromethorphan, Aleve and Tylenol, she felt well enough to venture out of the apartment. We had a beautiful day with blue skies and temperatures in the mid 70's.

I failed to mention one major problem we ran into with our hotel, and that is that it is located next to a nightclub with an open air roof that blasts Beyoncé, Bruno Mars, Rap and techno at 65dB as measured from our balcony. What is hard to understand is this nightclub is allowed to blast that music into the air, echoing off all the surrounding buildings, which are hotels, condos and apartments, until 4:30am every night. That explains the earplugs that we found on our night stands when we first arrived. This would be a perfect set up if you were a Vampire in Auckland, and habitually party from 9pm until 5am. Then you can sleep from 5am to 8pm with no disturbances. However, if you are not a vampire, I would not recommend staying in this hotel unless you are hard of hearing and can take your hearing aids out, and not hear a thing. The music didn't bother Janet at all, but there was no way you could sleep without ear plugs if you had normal hearing.

We had tea, coffee and toast with peanut butter and Vegemite for breakfast, and then walked down Queen street to start our tour. We went to the cruise ship terminal to bum off their Wifi. It turns out our hotel only gives you 1 day of free access, and then you have to sign up with their ISP and pay for any further access. Another reason not to recommend the Quest on Queen. Normally, only cruise ship passengers are allowed in the cruise ship terminal, but a Holland America ship had pulled in overnight, and we just blended in with the Holland America crowd. We had no trouble slipping in through a side door into the lounge area, where we were able to upload pictures and download our emails.

We then started walking through the booths and exhibits on the wharf, and found a ton of free stuff to do. Ben got to try his skill at driving both a container ship loading crane, and straddle loader in simulators for these machines. 

The supervising operator said Ben was a natural. The crane was more straight forward because it is an X-Y-Z operation and we were just picking up a shipping container, lifting it, moving it out over the ship, then back over the dock, and lowering it. You do have to worry about inducing a pendulum swing in the shipping container because of all the mass and inertia involved, but slow and steady gets the job done. The straddle loader, however, was a different story. The operator sits at a right angle to the axis of the loader's movements, so you look to your left to move forward, and look to your right to move backwards. The steering wheels are on the right, so when you move forwards, the steering is reversed, like driving a car in reverse. It took a little bit to adjust, but Ben did manage not to crash into stacks of containers or plunge off the wharf. The crane operator sits over 100' in the air, so judging vertical height is a challenge, while the straddle loader operator is about 40' up, and the cab sways a bit when you accelerate and brake. NZ now has ~40% female stevedores with the mechanical changes to loading and unloading cargo. Job requirements include having a driver's license and not being afraid of heights.

The Port was sponsoring helicopter rides around the harbor, so we were able to take an 8 minute flight for only $50 each. 

Normally, it would be twice that amount. It was a brief but thrilling ride out over the harbor and then circling around the Auckland bridge, flying around the Sky Tower, Port container ship and Auto carrier operations, and then back to the wharf. As we approached, the landing zone looked awfully small but the pilot put it down on a dime.

The Auckland Boy Scouts had set up the wooden boats that Ben had spotted being towed into the harbor, to teach people to row in teams on the water at the head of the wharf. It looked like a good recruiting tool.

There were free harbor cruises and bus tours that we took as well. Each explained Port operations, and while we were there, a huge auto carrier was unloading 8000 vehicles ranging from giant Catepillar Earthmovers to Toyotas. There was also a pair of container ships that the guide said you could tell were headed to Wellington because both ships were equipped with their own cranes that had to be rotated out of the way for the Port's container cranes to operate. 

The recent earthquakes in Wellington had knocked their cranes out of commission, so containers had to be manually unloaded by smaller ships with cranes designed for use in smaller ports without container ship cranes. There were straddle loaders zipping around like giant prehistoric long legged creatures that our tour bus was dodging. The harbor cruise was in a large catamaran that could hold 500 passengers. It was quite roomy, and we had no trouble finding comfortable seats. They highlighted the port operations, and as we toured the waterfront, one large container ship was arriving, one was leaving, and harbor security boats were buzzing around because of heighten security and all the helicopter operations. In addition to the helicopter rides, a rescue helicopter was also doing demonstrations. Amidst all the chaos we passed an 18' fishing boat with a family out jigging for dinner. When we cruised slowly around the container ship operations from the water, we saw someone on shore hook into and land a skate. They popped it into a cooler. The Maori apparently aren't as picky about what they keep as we might be.

We worked our way along the waterfront and saw several historic buildings on the National Geographic guidebook's recommended route and also saw several Wakas, or Maori war canoes. You could learn how to paddle and go out on one if you wanted to. At that point, we were hot, and tired, so we were happy to watch other people get yelled at by fierce looking Maori instructors as they learned how to paddle in sync. The Boy Scouts were probably much less intimidating than these Maori instructors. We also enjoyed watching people jumping off these enormous sea stairs that we saw from the Sky Tower the prior day. 

From the top of the steps, it was a 20' drop into the water, but the kids would start at the lower stairs, and they try to work up the courage to go higher and higher. A few made the maximum 20' drop, and boy, did they make a huge splash. Some of those kids were built like Samoans. We ended up circling back to our hotel, completing the guide book tour, and ended up at the Burger King across the street from our hotel to rehydrate and use their wifi. We were welcomed to find real Heinz ketchup packets in the bag with our French fries, but the Coca Cola tasted weird, like it had a hint of cloves, not unlike the weird tomato sauce that we had to buy at Lake Rotorua to go with our chips (French fries) there. Burger King appears to have the cheapest food in Auckland because you can get a burger, fries, drink and sundae for $5 AUD, which is less than $4 US. The next cheapest lunches we ever saw in Auckland were $10-11 per person. We returned to the hotel so that Janet could nap and recover.

During our bus port tour, we passed a large Countdown supermarket on the waterfront, so Ben went to see about buying some Tim Tams, which are "Biscuits" with two crunchy wafers held together with and dipped in chocolate that are quintessential Australian and New Zealand favorites, just like Vegemite. The Aussies and Kiwis on the ship raved about them, and complained there were none on board.

As he walked along the waterfront, Ben did find a Chinese restaurant tucked in behind a fence in an alley. It was an odd location, but there were a lot of Chinese people in there and the menu sandwich board out front had no English on it- just a bunch of Chinese detailing Chinese New Years banquet options. Their take out menu had both Xiao-Long Bao and noodles, so Ben got some take out for dinner. The supermarket was huge, and he did find Tim Tams to bring home. Oddly, as Ben was checking out at the supermarket, the man ahead of him in line bought two single cans of Heineken beer. This guy was obviously into his mid 50's but the clerk had to call and have a store manager approve the purchase. That caused a bit of a delay. I'm sure the Aussies would have never bothered to card someone at a bar, let alone require a store supervisor to approve all alcohol purchases made in a large supermarket.

Janet woke from her nap recovered to some degree, and redosing medications helped get her up and running. We could see the Jumbotrons on the wharf from our balcony, and hear that the Auckland Symphony and Choir were performing. You could hear the music blasting from the speakers on the wharf, although not quite as loudly as it had be blasting from the nightclub next door every night. The concert was scheduled to run from 6-10pm, and it was about 6:30 when Ben got back with Chinese Take out and Tim Tams. We had a nice dinner in the apartment, got dressed and walked down to the wharf to get a closer look and listen of the concert. The wharf was full of people. 

Some had brought blankets and folding chairs to sit on, while every horizontal surface (benches, chairs, bollards, and concrete blocks) were covered with people, but for the most part, the crowd was very civil. It was like a Boston Pops concert. The climax of the concert included a laser light show accentuated by a fog screen generated by a Kiwi naval vessel tied up at the dock, and fireworks to John Williams' Star Wars music. 

The Kiwis and Aussies are both very big into John Williams, Indiana Jones and Star Wars. It was a great send off for us. The Aussies threw a huge deck party on our last night on the Golden Princess, and the Kiwi's threw a huge party on the waterfront for us on our last night in Auckland. You could get used to this kind of treatment. And the ultimate icing on the cake was that the annoying nightclub next door was closed, perhaps for Sunday or for the Auckland day celebrations, so our last night in Auckland was without the annoying ruckus and earplugs. Ahhhhh.