The reason we are here in Auckland is so we could fly to the south island of New Zealand and meet up with our friends to hike the Routeburn Track near the Milford Sound (next post). We had a few days before and after our Routeburn track to sightsee and do errands where we had access to lots of choices for provisioning, retailers, boat parts and FOOD!
Literally everyday we would see lots of sailboats in the Auckland harbour. It really is the City of Sails!Prada anyone?All the big accounting firms are here with massive signs on the side of buildings…. Deloitte is right on Queens Street…one of the busiest street downtown.We found the “Food Alley” which is like a food court but consists of only asian food!!!! I didn’t have to “drag” Trevor in…he went willingly ; )
Volvo Ocean Race city- The highlight for me was the Volvo Ocean Race stopover in Auckland. I have been loosely following this race over the years ever since I saw the below video back in 2014.
Now I have been intently following leg 6, Hong Kong to Auckland, closely both because I knew we would be in Auckland and have a chance to see these incredibly cool and huge sailing vessels, but also because they go past Fiji and some of the weather we have been so closely associated with in the south pacific…Currently the Volvo Ocean fleet is headed to Itajai, Brazil on leg 7. This leg they rounded the Cape Horn (the southernmost tip of South America). Unfortunately the fleet has endured multiple emergencies:
Turn the Tide to Plastic – carried out a number of investigations. They have identified the starboard side second spreader root, the component used to attach the spreader to the mast has moved causing the spreader to now be raked further aft on that spreader only, therefore resulting in some rig control and alignment issues.
Vesta 11th Hour – reported that the mast broke and the crew was forced to cut away the broken mast to avoid damage to the hull.
Mapfre – repaired a luff to leech tear in their mainsail as well as earlier damage to their mast track.
Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag: Lost Australian crew member, John Fisher, on Monday March 26th. The sailing community everywhere, but especially here in NZ and Australia, have incredibly heavy hearts as the search for John Fisher ended on March 27th.
On a lighter note and before this tragedy, we did enjoy ourselves at the Volvo Ocean Race city.
The Volvo Ocean Race routeSome crazy facts about being a crew member in the Fleet. The amazing piece to us was that they only eat freeze dried foods and eat 7000 calories a day (12 steaks) but lose up to 26 pounds during Leg 1 (WOW)Each team had some sort of an exhibition to show us how they live or their purpose or thier sponsors.There was a huge stage with live feeds and interviews of the crew members. On this day, the fleet was about to race in the New Zealand Herald in Harbour race.We watched a few boats leave the dock…here is Mapfre, from Spain, with blaring spanish music from the stage speakers and feeling it’s pumping bass through your body …it was awesome to see and hear and feel.We watched most of the race….Trevor being sillyI made him pose for this oneOn our walk back to the boat we saw some racing of another scale….these raio sailboats were super cool….these guys looked SERIOUS!Some downwind sailing to the finish line…it was a great day to be out on the water…both big and small vessels : )
Auckland Arts festival – We ran into the Auckland arts festival on our walk back from the Volvo Ocean race “city”.
Old grain silos….this was the heart of the festival. There was a fun park for the kids, food trucks, and office to purchase tickets to various performances being held around the city. We opted out of the performances as each ticket was about $120…but we enjoyed people watching and the free exhibits.Inside the silos was an art exhibit….not exactly sure of the theme though, we were more intrigued by the inside of the silos themselves…Trevor thought it was pretty cool too…Do you all remember the Light and Bright toy as a kid? This looked very similar…Ahhh…the 80’s : )In 2018, the Child Cancer Foundation sponsored 47 giant owl sculptures uniquely decorated by Kiwi artists have roosted all around Auckland, many created by local school students. to bring storytelling to the streets of Auckland through the Big Hoot.
SV Sky Blue Eyes (Karl and Julie) – As we mentioned in the previous blog post, Karl and Julie kindly let us takeover their reservation at Westhaven Marina….however Cyclone Hola threatened to hit and you never want to take any chances….which created the need for them to come back to Auckland and wait out the storm (again, was a non-event). We felt horrible that we took their slip and they had to scramble to find another slip at another marina so we felt it was the right thing to do to treat them to dinner. Let’s just say I think we all didn’t get out of bed until the afternoon the next day….but totally worth it….we love hanging out with them!
After a wonderful Thai dinner , we headed back to their boat for Margaritas. BTW, Karl is a great bartender!A Sky Blue Eyes special: Margaritas with Modori?! Yummm….the shots of tequila can later (ekks)Karl with his visor and all of a sudden got a full head of hair? Rockin’ it Karl ; )Things got …… SUPER FUN! You should have seen Trevor and I walk back to the boat…or should I say stumble. We also had to climb over the gate of their marina…which had cameras…in seconds Trevor and I were greeted by security. I have no idea how we got out of that one as intoxicated as we were but we did. Thank goodness. on a positive note: we were thankful their security is in good form.
Provisioning and supplies – Our strategy was to provision most of our non-perishable items for our next cruising season here in Auckland…there are more choices and options here than in the Opua area (very small towns). Additionally, we suspect lots of other cruisers will be provisioning themselves and we didn’t want to find ourselves without items we wanted. We didn’t get everything on our list as time was limited before we had to leave Auckland but we at least made a dent in the list.
From our research, our next cruising grounds will likely not have good quality oil so Trevor ordered about 20 gallons of oil… hopefully enough to change the Perkins (engine) and generator for the next year. The cool part was that they delivered it right to our boat!!! Now that is service : )This photo does not include the paper products we purchased, AND we haven’t even bought beer or wine….we were worried everything would not fit in the van…. but it did obviously. Provisioning is a serious task: knowing how much you use of an item, anticipation of foods not available in the countries we plan to visit, and a realistic perspective of what we want to eat for a year? However, with that said, this is the third time we have done a major provision (California, US and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico) so you would think it would get easier…NOT!!!!
Last night in Auckland with Marek – We met Marek a few months ago with our friend Laurel from our buddy boat SV Fandango. Laurel and marek stayed at Hotel Slow Flight in Whangamata and we celebrated Lunar New Year and Marek’s 27th birthday. Since, Laurel headed back to SV Fandango back in Tahiti, French Polynesia…but Marek is here in NZ on a 2 year work visa. He actually stayed, with his dad visiting from the US, on Slow Flight while we were hiking the Routeburn Track to watch over Slow Flight. When we returned from the hike, Marek helped us by driving us places to get food/provisions (above) in between working…we are thankful to him and all his help…Thank you Marek!!!!
We just can’t get enough Mexican food!!! Karl and Julie suggested we try this place, The Mexican Cafe near the Skytower…so we thought on our last night why not!Happy hour! Tacos for $5 each…a pretty good price for NZ. $12 jug of margaritas (though I can’t imagine why we needed another margarita night after hanging with SV Sky Blue Eyes) but it was still so good…glutton for punishment!Cerveza shelfieHeaded to The Fiddlers Irish Bar Marek knew of for some pool….these guys were good!Then to top the night off we headed to the Viaduct area to Danny Doolan’s where there was a live band and lots of hip folks…it was the place to be….our space was soon full of these young volleyball players who we were told won the nationals last year. They sung every word of all the American songs played! Later that night we chatted with an electrical and mechanical engineers of a 70 meter yacht, and then a great local Kiwi family on holiday about our boat travels. Trevor and I left around 1am…Marek said he didn’t return to the boat until 4am…. a great night had by all!
Westhaven Marina day – the day we left… had to check out the “Free Sausages” that were being offered at the Westhaven Marina Day. There were different vendors cooking up sausages as we walked the promenade…we must of had 3-4 sausages by the time we got to the end of it. Can’t beat a free lunch! IT was about 2 pm and we needed to cast off so on to Opua, Bay of Islands to prepare for our next cruising season.
This guy offered us a free bike ride down the promenade….I opted to walk…Marek and Trevor gave it a run (lol)
It’s been a whirlwind here in Auckland but we had so much fun and really one of the best 2 weeks here in NZ! Sorry to see you go but it’s back to the grind…Slow Flight style : )
Maybe the Skytower reminds of the Space Needle in Seattle, WA…but I loved looking at it, almost mesmerized by it…we will miss you Auckland!
