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January 2025 (Part 03)

New Zealand Trip - Day Two: Aukland

Adventures By Disney - Day One: Kia Ora

We started our second day with a trip to the gym followed by meeting our ABD guides in the hotel.  A pleasure to meet Tiffany, who was our adventure guide hailing from Logan, Utah, and Nettie, a Maori cultural guide from Aukland.  ABD assigns a theme to each day, and today's was Kia Ora.  This is the traditional Maori greeting meaning to wish life, health, and vitality.  Nancy took this picture with Tiffany to send to Gabby, a guide we've now had in Costa Rica and Ireland.

We wandered around the harbor area, enjoying a visit to the Maritime Museum.  The museum was much bigger than we expected and did a great job presenting boats and history, including a wonderful discussion of Polynesian migration and navigation which allowed them to find and settle New Zealand sometime in the early 1200s (it was the last major island chain settled).  There was also a good section about the early European explorers and colonization, as it was the last Polynesian island the Europeans found and colonized.  Dutch explorer Abel Tasman "discovered" it in 1642, naming it Staten Landt and believing it was part of a series of islands off South America, Dutch cartographers subsequently renamed it to Nova Zealandia, which was Anglicized to New Zealand.  Englishman James Cook led the next expedition to visit and encounter the Maori in 1768, over a hundred years later.  He made three expeditions to New Zealand in 1769-70, 1773 and 1777, mapping the coast and establishing the British claim of sovereignty.  It also covered the strong sailing culture, discussed the invention of jet boats, and immigration over the years.  Really well done.

They had two of the Kiwi America's Cup yachts.  The largest one was outside: KZ-1, a 120 ft monohull which famously lost to a catamaran from Dennis Conner's syndicate in San Diego in 1988.  Inside was NZL-32 Black Magic, an 80 ft monohull which won the Cup 5-0 in 1995.  There was also a copy of the Auld Mug trophy.

Steve was very excited to discover that SailGP was in Aukland, with their race scheduled for the next weekend.  This meant they were out practicing.  Even better, their facility was literally across the street from our hotel and we were able to see them get the boats in and out of the water each day.  This was only the second race of the twelve-month season after the opening race in Dubai, and was their debut race in Aukland.  "The Championship sees rival teams from the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Brazil, Italy, Canada, France, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland and Spain battle it out at iconic venues around the world in short, intense races for a total prize pot of USD $12.8 million."  The teams race identical F50 (Foiling-50 ft) catamarans, whose foiling designs allow the hulls to lift out of the water and hit speeds of up to 60 mph, almost four times the speed of the wind powering them.  The design is adapted from the AC50s used in the America's Cup, with boats costing about $5M and utilizing a modular wingsail.  They have a crew of six people, which must include at least one woman.  Really hoping to see them practice before we leave Aukland, which will be before the race begins.

Naptime, then time for a welcome dinner.  There were a couple people celebrating birthdays over the trip, including Andy.

Tiffany and Nettie gave us a preview of the coming days.  Very excited for this.

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