Tuesday, 28 January 2025
- We did not have to board the ship until early afternoon, so we decided to tour the
Auckland War Memorial Museum.
A neoclassical building constructed in the 1920s and 1950s, stands on Observatory Hill, the remains of a
dormant
volcano.
Museum collections concentrate on New Zealand history, the history of the Auckland Region,
natural history, and military history.
We began our tour with displays on the military history of New Zealand.
Beautiful stained-glass windows.
A memorial wall to all those New Zealanders killed in WWII.
A Maori carving facial markings much like our guide a day ago.
Cal using his camera in the museum.
Maori statue.
Ancient Maori carving.
A Maori carving which Virginia Ann liked.
Elaborate carvings with tattooed face markings.
Maori man and woman with traditional face markings.
As we were exiting the last exhibit and headed to the gift shop, the power went off in the
entire museum.
Exterior bas-reliefs, carved by Richard Gross (1882-1964) depicting 20th-century armed forces and
personnel,
are in a style that mixes Neo-Greco with Art Deco.
We walked outside with everyone else and waited but the power did not come on so we
walked downhill to the Domain Wintergardens.
The Domain Wintergardens were open and displaying many beautiful flowers.
Cal and the flowers in one of the greenhouses.
The flowers were everywhere.
Pretty red flower.
Virginia Ann enjoying the gardens.
The courtyard between the two giant greenhouses.
The Fern area of the gardens.
Giant water lilies.
Carnivorous pitcher plants reminded us of ours in North Carolina.
Virginia Ann stops on the way to the ship to snap a picture of the old Ferry Terminal. Cal is in front
about to enter the dock area.
The ship pushes back from the dock and we are underway. The Ferry Terminal and the newer ferry docks.
Downtown Auckland gets further away.
Rangitoto Island on the starboard (right) side of the ship. Our cabin is on this side.
On the port (left) side, the city of Auckland can be seen over the North Shore isthmus.