Monday, February 19, 2018

Auckland to Whangarei

If you’ve got to take a long flight I can tell you the Boeing 787 Dreamliner is the way to go. The seats were comfortable (relatively) for the 13 + hours we were on board.  All our baggage made it to Auckland and we cleared in without any problem. We grabbed our rental car and despite a slight programming glitch with the GPS we found our Airbnb and had a light dinner.

Our first day, Thursday, we took the bus to the Central Business  District (CBD) and spent hours in the Maritime Museum which was most excellent, walked around and had lunch. It was overcast so we didn't go up in the Sky walk tower.  The trees here are enormous; a product of lots of rain and mild temps that rarely get below 50F.





Saturday morning we went to a phenomenal Farmer’s Market and then the rain started so we bagged our plans to go to the Museum of Transportation and Technology. Two hours of driving got us to Whangarei (pronounced Fangaray) and we found our way to Town Basin and the boat.
Ian and Cindy just bought their boat the end of December and there are lots of chores to be done and things to figure out so we've been busy. Carol and I did take the bus to the top of Whangarei Falls and hiked down a few days ago and also saw a huge stand of Kauri trees. We've been getting plenty of exercise between walking a big loop around the river or walking to various stores for needed parts.


This is a view up the river near where we are currently tied up.



Just a nice looking boat. 






Thursday evening about 20 of the cruisers here piled into 6 dinghies and went up river and had lots of hors d’oeuves and wine. Alas, no pics of the hilarity that ensued

Also, Laura Decker, the Dutch girl who sailed around the world at 14 lives here and her red boat GUPPY, is tied up a few yards away from us.

Lots of people have homemade campers and you can pull over anywhere and camp along the road or in designated parking lots.


This past Friday there was a food court event on the canopy bridge with entertainment and finally good weather.  Meanwhile there is a cyclone bouncing around up near Fiji and it is supposed to come near us so we haven't sailed anywhere yet, but once it dissipates we'll leave here and go sailing.




Carl is a character that bought this Hinckley in Georgetown DE a few years ago and somehow has made it all the way to NZ solo. He has a few "projects" he's working on.

This is a small sample of the larger project which will become a new art center here in Whangarei.


1 comment:

Roy G said...

You are living the dream, buddy! I'll be anxiously awaiting blog updates!