9/16 - Explore Auckland

 We started the day with a walk around the downtown (aka CBD for Central Business District), then later hopped on a bus to a Maori property to hear from a Maori and learn more about their culture and history.

We stopped at the foot of the Skytower, which is about as tall at the Eiffel tower, Because of the light rail construction,. much of Albert St is closed, so we wandered through the All Blacks building to continue on. 

Sidelight: Jim was a rugby player in college and his team won some west coast championship. The All Blacks came to the US for an exhibition tour and Jim said his team was the first to play them and lost to them, 61-0.

Jim is in the center, but this was not the All Blacks game

 We came to Aotea Square with an arch designed by a Maori artist to represent a welcoming gate. The square is used as a public performance venue.

Detail on the arch

One memorable stop was a small plaza celebrating the suffrage of women in New Zealand in 1883, the first place in the modern world that granted women the right to vote. A woman named Kate Sheppard (possible Sandy relative???)  organized the creation of a petition with so many signatures, it stretched over 270 feet. The artwork on the wall is a tribute to that petition.

We also walked through Albert Park. The streets here celebrate Queen Victoria: the main street is Queen, and there are Victoria and Albert streets too and probably other references I don't recognize.

We returned to the hotel and took a bus to a Maori park, where we were met by Dane, an urban-raised Maori who, at age 50, spent a year learning the Maori language, which had been completely repressed for years. Our group picked a leader and learned a welcoming song and we experienced the typical welcome ritual of the Maori and learned about the culture and much of the repression of the first people. Because they didn't have written language, the exact timing of their arrival can only be estimated to be 1350. This makes New Zealand the youngest country in the world.

The obelisk at the plaza is dedicated to Michael Joseph Savage, the first Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand. He is generally considered to be New Zealand's greatest prime minister.

Dane holding a greenstone (Jade) token of
power, which is used during speeches and
greetings for emphasis. He is wearing
Chicago White Sox short and an Oakland
Raiders cap.

Following the presentation, we walked down the hill for lunch and then bused back to the hotel for what was left of the afternoon, I had thought about going to the Skytower, but decided I had a couple other problems to solve. (OAT uses personal listening devices that use earbuds for the listeners to better hear the tour guide's presentation. I can't use earbuds and there were no over the ear options and my small carry-on bag handle is uncomfortable,) So I went shopping instead and amazingly, was able to solve both problems for less than $20.

We went out for our Welcome Dinner at a seafood restaurant for a lovely end to a busy day.