Although this is our 2nd day in Auckland, this is the day we were originally scheduled to dock here,
Every day comes more bad news. Some are calling this the cursed cruise. As long as we make it to Australia we will just call it a bad cruise. Anyway, today’s bad news is that we apparently have a number of passengers & crew with COVID onboard. We are not told how many but we are strongly advised to wear masks when indoors from now on.
The weather is worse than yesterday but still similar to a typical uk wet and miserable day. In the UK, us Londoners and Southerners are called southern softies by those in the north of England and Scotland - the weather we left the ship in would definitely have been called mild by those “up north”. We wandered around the city sights. Many shops were closed though and some of the tourist sites Dan pointed out as worth visiting were also closed.
Mark did manage to get his hair cut in the barbers who took great delight in describing the incompetence of the mayor and co saying the previous (unannounced) storm was 10 times worse than this one and all this was doing was scaring people and hurting businesses. It made a change from the “been anywhere nice lately” type of conversations you normally get. There is a barbers on board but I didn’t fancy it (or their prices). Pam had a coffee next door whilst she waited. Next up was a trip up Auckland’s Sky Tower. We had both originally planned to skip this and go up Mount Eden instead to get the views of the city. Pamela is not one for heights and dislikes things like cable cars, towers etc… but can handle trains, cars, walks etc.. up high places. Anyway, the weather and general warnings meant Mount Eden joined the missed out on list and Mark tackled the tower alone whilst Pam popped into more shops.
There were viewing levels at floor 50, 51 (a cafe) and 60. The views were pretty decent though would have been spectacular on a clear day (though apparently on these days some people can walk around the outside of the tower with safety harness attached and other nutters could bungee jump off the tower - that would have probably just spoilt my view).
Whilst in the Sky Tower Pam went across the road and up two sets of escalators to an area called Weta Unleashed - this was a place that had workshops about film and tv prop and set making. Unfortunately she was unable to see that as there were no tickets available but instead looked at the shop (called “ The Cave”) where there were exhibits and toys to buy from films and tv series like Stranger Things, The Witcher, Labyrinth, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Then she met Mark at the bottom of the tower.
The rain was getting heavier as we caught buses to Ponsonby and Newmarket - a couple of local suburbs. More shops were closed than open here though Pamela did manage to pick up some more charms on special offer from a Pandora store and we ended up escaping the pouring rain by diving inside the Westfield shopping centre - I am now convinced more than ever that we are actually back in parallel London universe now.
As the afternoon wore on we decided to head back to the ship but managed to catch 2 buses going the wrong way (1 after the other). They are loop buses so go round in a circle but I still cannot figure out how we managed to be caught out twice. Again, it is like the circle line in London.
We made it back onboard and went to dinner to discover that tonight’s entertainment (a special Māori show) had been cancelled and replaced with the film Top Gun Maverick. It appears the general state of emergency advising against travel had put pay to the show. The airport has cancelled all flights so some people due to get onboard in Auckland tomorrow won’t have made it plus some due to get off may be impacted with their travel plans as well.
So another early night with videos and strong wind and rain outside but still no sight of anything we would really call a storm back home. Let’s hope it stays that way. We are really looking forward to getting off this ship in Australia now.
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