3/6/15 Auckland, New Zealand

We had an early wake-up call this morning and after breakfast, walked down the street to catch a local bus to the Auckland Museum.  We were met by a local Maori guide, Prince Davis, who was very interesting and explained much of the Maori culture to us.  We were given the traditional Maori greeting which consists of standing forehead and nose together while clasping shoulders.  This is done twice while saying Kia Ora (pronounced key-aura), the typical Maori greeting.  He walked us around the gardens and pointed out many of the ferns and trees that were native as well as some stories from his youth - a very interesting man.  We ended up in a treed area where his wife, Cathie, was waiting with tea and refreshments of grapes, cheese and crackers, and ginger cookies.  They were quite a lovely couple.  As we got back to town, some of the group elected to take a ferry ride around the harbor, but since it was spitting rain, Dave, John, Lana, Nancy from Minnesota, and I decided to poke around the downtown area.  We found a lovely place for lunch and then did a walk about the Queen Street area.  We had heard there was a craft market down by the waterfront on Friday nights so with maps in hand, we went to look for it.  Dave stopped off at the Maritime Museum and we said we would meet up with him later.  We walked a bit and then I stopped to ask for directions and some ladies pointed up back in the direction we had just come from.  Apparently, there was a footbridge that was not clearly marked on the map which cut out a lot of walking.  The Volvo Ocean Race was in town and there was a lot of hoopla going on about that.  We could not seem to find the market, but finally found a janitor in one of the buildings in the area who said there is generally one there on Fridays, but not tonight.  We saw a huge ship down the way and stopped to look at it.  It must have been 350 feet long and 75 feet tall - it hailed from Georgetown, Bermuda.  On our way back over the bridge, we stopped to asked someone about it and learned that it is owned by a Russian who owns a vodka company.  He only uses it 17 days of the year - what a waste!  We stopped into one of the Volvo tents and watched two short movies about the Around the World race.  The people who do this are more than slightly nuts!  There were pictures of men almost being washed overboard, covered in ice, etc.  In one clip, a ship ran aground on a reef off the coast of Africa and were lucky to be alive.  I stopped into a grocery store on the way back to the hotel and bought bananas for dinner as I was still full from lunch.  When I got back to the room, I found that Dave had not had any luck either as he got to the Museum just a half hour before closing so didn't go in.  We got our bags ready for the move tomorrow and then read before going to sleep.  The internet here is sketchy at best so have delayed the blog.