AAT King ending

Well this was the last day of our AAT King tour of New Zealand. We are here in Auckland for several more day. A total of five nights and five day or so.

This was our first stop today at around 10:30 am. We were told we had about an hour and a half before we headed out of there. It was only one hour since we left and two hours since breakfast

It was also supposed to be our l ch stop be we were not really hunger so we decided to walk around the area

They had a clock museum that was not open, but interesting to look through the windows

We were by the River way and harbor. There is talk that they will put on an additional port here to help with the commercial shipping coming in to Auckland

They had this huge sundial out in the plaza

This is one of the last remaining home of the original riverbank town

Sailing boats lined this part of the river

They had one of the best looking kids park I have seem in awhile

As I have seem all over New Zealand murals adorned this wall

They also had a sculpture garden

Like the bird statue above and this one that looks like fish tails to me

Some seemed more representative than other like the one above. I have no idea the symbolism for this one

This one almost reminds me of flight  

There were hundreds of Saul boat on this body of water. Auckland itself is know as the city of sails

These guys just were hard core sheep. I don’t think their wool will make a very good sweater

This is an art museum  was designed so their are very few right angles or straight lines.   New Zealand's first indigenous public art gallery. The Hundertwasser Art Centre, home to the Wairau Māori Art Museum. 

It house Māori art and carving

Next stop was about an hour out of Auckland central business district. It was the Parry Kauri Preserve

It had some of the ways they used to get the Kauri trees out when the cut them

These were the trees that were the native slow growing trees of New Zealand. As it is a very hard wood and wonderful for building. 

This are some of the restored building that were once in the area throughout the timbering time

They had a walking trial, we only got to go a short way on it as we only had 20 minutes here

This is one of the older trees, the McKinney Kauri. It is about 800 years old

While this one is called the Simpson. It is about 600 years old

They are slow growing and at first it was not realized how slowly they grow. 95 percent of the Kauri tree forest are gone now.

This was the bus and the mascot we have spent the last 17 days with

The highlighted route was they way we went on the north island, covering 1381 kilometers on this island 

While the highlighted areas on this maps shows the 2497 kilometers we covered on the South Island . In total 3,878 kilometers. That is just over 2400 miles

This is the group as it was in Auckland the first time we were through here.  The number fluctuated as the South Island had 47 tourists (19 left after that part), the north island only had 36 (8 new members) and those of us that did the whole thing including the Bay of Island was 23 (only 15 of the original ones who started the tour 17 days ago). This picture of of us when we were 36. The guy laying on the ground was our bus driver, Steve

The eagle was the mascot of AAT King which was the tour company

This was our guide Marty. That was his nickname as he had a Māori name also, but I could not recall it.

We said our thanks and gave them their tips and a thank you card as we left the bus for the last time as we opted not to go out for drinks this evening.

The trip was nice and they guys work hard to make it great. We are looking forward to some days of sleeping in and exploring on our own. In the next five days we only have one day tour that will require us to be up early.

Hopefully soon I will be sharing our wandering in Auckland