Day 24: 20231017 Tuesday, October 17, 2023- Auckland New Zealand
The weather has certainly changed from hot and humid American Samoa to cool New Zealand weather with overcast skies and scattered showers. We have previously arrived in Auckland by cruise ship in 2017 as the last port of call in a Melbourne to Auckland cruise. Today, we booked an excursion to Waiheke Island, which is a large island about a 40 minute fast ferry ride outside Auckland Harbor on the Pacific side. The ferry was a comfortable catamaran that cruised at close to 30mph.
Waiheke Island is home to several noted New Zealand wineries so we took a winery tour that visited the Branch and Cable Bay wineries. The Branch winery is situated on the highest part of the island, which is just about the same elevation as the observation deck in the Auckland SkyTower. It had great views all around the island and off the Auckland skyline. They had some very nice cheese boards out and we sampled a sparkling wine, chardonnay, pinot noir and rosé. The pours were quite small and the wines were pretty unremarkable, but the views and the cheeseboards made the stop worthwhile.
We drove past the longest beach on the island and saw several boats with all terrain wheels attached. These were driven hydraulically, so these particular boats, called “SeaLegs” can actually be driven out of these people’s yards, down the street, and down the beach into the water to self launch and self recover. Of course, all these houses were multimillion dollar homes in a very expensive neighborhood.
The Cable Bay winery also had a nice view of the Auckland skyline and impressive meeting facilities which were filled with a very large Chinese tour group when we walked by. Our wine tasting was in a dark subterranean room called the Wine Library, adjacent to their aging room. Both are kept at 15˚C for perfect wine conditioning. There we sampled two white wines and a red, which were fairly unremarkable.
We didn’t think Washington or California had anything to worry about regarding competition from New Zealand wines. The tour was pleasant enough, and we probably both would have enjoyed it more if we weren’t still trying to get over colds.
When going through security after the tour, our drone got flagged by the X-ray operator and confiscated. The operator thought we could get it back for ports of call with details of where it was and was not permissible to operate drones in individual ports of call. Ben had brought it thinking we could get some drone footage at the wineries, but it turned out to be too windy at both winery sites. We’ll have to see if we can get it back for the Bay of Islands tomorrow. Otherwise, we’ll just have to pick it up when we disembark in Sydney.
After returning to the ship, Ben ventured into Auckland to find some cold medicines, only to learn after visiting 4 different pharmacies that New Zealand has banned pseudoephedrine and dextromethorphan, the two only effective ingredients for treating our cold symptoms in the US. We’ll just have to wait for our kids to bring a fresh supply when they arrive in December if anyone else gets a cold during these trips. A fellow passenger said the ship’s dispensary doesn’t have either of those medications, nor antibiotics for bronchitis, so a lot of people are just suffering through. We'll cheat by starting some emergency Cipro we brought for travelers diarrhea. Fortunately, it's also useful for bronchitis and sinusitis.
A group of local Maori performers came on board for a performance in the Princess Theater before the ship cast off, and they did put on a really good show including a terrifying Haka. Fortunately, they didn’t have audience members try to join them.
A new comedian, Andre King, came aboard. He is also Maori and put on a funny show in the Vista lounge, although we had to leave early because we were both getting coughing fits. We also dropped in on some of Tom Ward’s instrumental performance in the Princess Theater. He did some absolutely amazing classical guitar pieces. He has a long peg attached to the bottom of his guitar which allows him to perform standing upright, instead of seated with a foot stool, which is more customary for classical guitar. He used some amazing and innovative techniques to create a wide range of sounds with his guitar, adding great depth to his performance.
We arrive at the Bay of Islands in the North Island of New Zealand tomorrow and have an early excursion. We'll be calling it an early night and hope we both feel better by morning.
