On to Auckland and the Voyager

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A heavy rain overnight settles into a drizzle for our morning stroll to breakfast. Finding a café we enjoy porridge and French toast (covered with fruit) and then try to get our airplane boarding passes at the Air New Zealand office. No such luck but we do get our seat reservations. Passing the WWI Memorial Arch I notice the “Service Above Self” motto prominently displayed and wonder if Rotary International borrowed theirs from this poignant statement. Returning to the hotel our driver picks us up on schedule for the short run to the airport. Checking in is painless at the kiosk where we get boarding passes, bag tags and a kind staffer to assist us. Security is marvelously relaxed without the hassle of our TSA Gestapo and with smiles and kind words to assist. No shoes off or liquids out. The flight is an hour and a half of snacks, beverages and Kiwi trivia on the TV. The safety video is fun as they add humor to keep you interested. Apparently over Christmas holiday they had the staff “dress” in body paint looking like their uniforms. Until the film was almost over you didn’t realize that was all they were “wearing”. It was the only time people couldn’t wait to see the video on the next flight.
In chatting with my other seatmate I learned about Scottish sheep and cattle farming and the economics of EU living. This Scot’s son is farming in NZ and he hosts (temporarily non milking) cows from other farms on his land in the (cold) summer while their owners complete needed maintenance, reseeding, mucking out, etc and the cows calve. On returning the cows to their milking duties he does the same, thereby prolonging the viability of this topsoil starved land. He also shared the difficulties of EU controlled Scottish farming and the amount of bureaucratic paperwork required to produce mutton.
We arrived at our hotel by private limo and sending our bags to the room joined other Americans in the hotel bar for the last quarter and a half of the Super Bowl. Fortunately they were Packers fans so the excitement prevailed. Tomorrow we board the ship to begin the rest of our journey with hopes that Australia’s weather will improve by the time we get there in two weeks or so.
Tuesday morning I walked down to a Rotary Club breakfast in an exclusive club for my meeting makeup opportunity. I enjoyed conversations about our cruise, banking in NZ (the four major banks are owned by Australians, not a new phenomenon since Australia was settled 30 years before NZ and provided the first banks here) and other Rotary subjects. After checking out we walked to town and discovered we could board the ship a couple of hours early. We returned to the hotel by its convenient shuttle and altered the schedule of our limo. Arriving back down at the ship we were greeted and processed expeditiously in time for a lovely lunch on the 11th deck La Veranda Restaurant. Soon our cabin was ready for occupancy and we met our butler, steward and our bags standing by. Of course the bottle of chilled champagne was waiting. We spent the rest of the afternoon getting acquainted with the ship and crew (some of whom we’d met last year on Mariner and they met us with smiles and greetings). The butler returned with our afternoon snack of Prawns (large shrimp) so Mary took a break from the laundry. We’ve learned to use the laundry facilities when they’re available and people are out sightseeing. Tomorrow we get to see the sights as the ship moves to a different pier overnight.

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