Day 101 - Auckland

Day 101 – Auckland – Saturday 25/8/2012

Weather – Mostly cloudy 13C – 17C

Sunrise – 6.31am

Sunset – 5.48pm

Time difference – plus 2 hours ex Sydney.

During the early hours of the morning Sun Princess followed various southerly courses through the Jellicoe Channel towards the Pilot boarding ground. At about 5.45am, when about 3 miles west of Billy Goat Point on Motutapu Island, embarked the harbour pilot for Auckland. We entered Ringitoto Channel and followed the buoyed route into Auckland Harbour.

Our first familiar port in over 3 months of sailing round the world. Auckland has that Aussie feel so much that it almost feels like we are home already (though I am sure Kiwis would disagree strongly :). We wandered up to the buffet to break our fast, and bumped into a few friends, who did a resounding Happy Birthday song for Ross.

We had no agenda today, so we waltzed around the city. We had carried a bag of clothes off with us, to donate to one of the charity bins , or similar – gotta get that luggage weight down a bit for the flight home. Donna spotted a hairdresser open early, and had a much wanted tidy up, and right next door was a Recycling Boutique ( a much nicer word than Op Shop) , so we donated our clothes there.

Found some free wifi for a quick catch up, and to try and clear the outbox a little. I have over 100 emails sitting in the outbox, each with a photo attachment, so I was hoping to clear the outbox today, a forlorn hope as it turned out. I did get about 10 away, before I accidently deleted about 25 grrrrr.

We had arranged meet son-in-law, Wayne, for Lunch today. He is with the RAAF, and here in Auckland on exercise, so it was good timing for a catch up. We went to the Brewery Hotel, where I tried a local brew, and had a Brewers Pie (of course). It was a nice lunch, we had wanted a plain pub lunch, and thats what we got, a good and hearty one too :)

We did a bit of shopping, before Wayne headed home, and then back on board. I tried to work out which photo emails I deleted, and set them up in the can again, some folk may get a double up, but I am sure they wont mind.

Quite a big contingent of folk joining the ship for the last 3 nights home, about 200 I believe. The average age of the passengers reduced significantly, with quite a few young families joining.

Tonight we had a birthday dinner for Ross, attended by some of the gang. It was a lovely evening, and a nice way to end a nice day

At 8pm we moved astern into the channel, then swung the bow to port before retracing our tracks through the Rangitoto Channel. An interesting occurrence tonight, at 9pm, so about an hour after we left port, we noticed the ship stopped, reversed for about 5 minutes, and then went forward again. Now I wonder what that was about? We then continued on, back into the open sea towards our next, and final port of call, Bay of Islands.