Exploring New Zealand, March 2016, Part 5

As a decade birthday gift for Erick, we signed up for "Exploring Australia and New Zealand," a University of Michigan Alumni tour coordinated by Odysseys International. This post covers our trip from Rotorua to Auckland by bus with a visit to the Ruakuri Cave, our time in Auckland, and our departure for home. (You can click on a photo to see a larger version.).

Day 21: On the bus trip from Rotorua to Auckland, we passed through Fitzgerald glade with its native trees and noted the grass-covered, limestone mounds characteristic of the area.

Approaching the Ruakuri Cave

Visiting the Ruakuri Cave (cave of two dogs) with our cave guide, Angus, was a real treat.  It’s one of the many glow worm caves in New Zealand.  Glow worms aren’t like our lightning bugs/fireflies.  They are the larval form of a small fungus gnat. The cave formations were spectacular, with the walls colored purple in places by manganese dioxide.

Spiral walkway into the cave

Depending on the lighting, the purple color of the manganese dioxide deposits on the cave's limestone walls is often visible:

A trace of the subterranean river that runs through the cave 

Fossil shell in the rock

Sign posted by a land owner who didn't want cave explorers to end up on his property

A section of the cave lit by glow worms

Glow worms with their "fishing lines" extended to
catch insects, including adult fungus gnats

Returning from our cave walk, our group sang "Hail to the Victors"
- great acoustics for a rousing rendition of the Michigan fight song! 

Our lunch stop was at Ronnie’s in nearby Otorohanga.  From there the ride to Auckland continued.

When we arrived in Auckland, part of the group took a walk with Rosie to orient ourselves to the city’s dining, shopping and waterfront areas.  Erick & I had dinner at Café Hanoi – our first experience of a Vietnamese restaurant, and a good one.

View from our room at the Stamford Plaza hotel

Waterfront near Maritime Museum 

Sky Tower

The Ferry Building

Gateway sculpture - Albert Park entrance

Day 22: Our 3-hour sightseeing bus tour took us around Auckland with a stop at the Auckland Fish Market, and drives through both the high and low income residential areas.

Container shipping at the port

More seafood than we'd ever seen in one place:

Live eel

Aiming for sustainable fisheries

We continued along the water's edge:

Volcanic cone islands

Our drive through residential areas took us through both upscale ,,,,

Young cricket players 

...and public housing areas:

A Maori meeting area

A retirement community

When we arrived at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, there was a youth cricket match in progress on the grounds.  I visited the Maori exhibit, and Erick visited the natural history level. He learned that Auckland has 48 volcanoes, the youngest being 800 years old, and is located in an active fault area.

More Maori artifacts from the museum's collection:

Entrance carving 

Hei-tikis associated with Maori people from around New Zealand

Portraits of Maoris by Goldie & Lindauer

Maori village model

On our own for the afternoon, we opted for a visit to the Maritime Museum on the waterfront.  We saw everything from Maori and other Polynesian canoes and outriggers to Americas Cup yachts.

View of the Maritime museum from our lunch spot
(The Culpeper - seafood sliders - oysters and local fish)

Waka decorative carving

Weaving representing flowing tides

Illustration of a manned war canoe

Green turtle shells

Shark hunting rattle

Polynesian outrigger

New Zealand's one and only woman lighthouse keeper

Model ship collections:

Knots display

Time-keeping for navigation:

The prize-winning H4 watch - a breakthrough for determining longitude

A "time ball"

Old shipping posters

New Zealand's oldest working steamboat - the small boat with the red smoke stack

And in more recent history:

The NZL-32 America's Cup yacht, Black Magic, that won the 1995 race

The day ended with a farewell to New Zealand and the tour, dinner at our hotel, the Stamford Plaza. We couldn’t stretch our goodbyes for too long because our wake up call the next morning was scheduled for 3:30 am.  We can’t say enough good things about our Odysseys Unlimited tour guide, Rosie Stewart, or our 20 UM Alumni traveling companions, or our tour bus drivers Pete, Wayne, Scott and Keith. They made a great tour even better.

Day 23 & 24: Rosie saw us off at the airport in Auckland. From there, we flew 3 hours to Sydney for a scheduled 11:30 am 12-hour connecting return flight to LA. The flight that day was cancelled because of mechanical problems.

Not our plane - but I couldn't resist taking a photo of this Qantas
plane with boxing gloves added to the logo

And after quite a long wait for decisions about who would be able to take the next flight scheduled for several hours later, Qantas put us up in a hotel overnight, gave us taxi, dinner and lunch vouchers, and booked us on a 3 pm direct flight to San Francisco the next day. That shortened our time in the air, eliminating the former LA to San Francisco leg of the trip.

Our last hangout in Auckland, the Ibis hotel near the airport

We picked up a day crossing the international dateline and arrived home before noon on the same day of the week that we left Sydney.

At home, we were greeted by a bit of rain - welcome in these parts - and a full rainbow: