We started this morning with breakfast at 7:00 AM. then got on the bus for a tour around the city. There are a number of extinct volcano mounds and from one of these you could view 360
degrees. We took several pictures of Auckland downtown and also the bay and islands around the area.After our drive around the city included driving through a street with some very expensive houses on it and the views of the bay are also incredible.
We passed a school, which has a look of a mission in southern California, and has had some famous people that attended; one of those was Russel Crowe. Also from the top of this volcano cone (yes there is a hollow depression of a cone here) we can also see the "One Tree Hill". 
This is a famous site here and U2 one night when they could not sleep because of jet lag, wrote their song "One tree hill" here.We boarded a harbour cruise boat for a cruise around the bay area. I asked and fortunately it was not a three hour tour. Our cruise included a stop at Rangitoto Island to drop people off and we were also permitted to go ashore for 15 minutes. This island was made from a rising volcano with a summit at 259 meters. There are a number of hiking trails on the island one goes to the summit of the volcano. Other trails go around the island and there are several lava caves that one could explore.
After 15 minutes we left Rangitoto and as we cruised by the strait (on the west side of Rangitoto Island) we could see the sail boats racing in the distance.
Our cruise continued past the city waterfront and under the Auckland bridge. At one time the bridge was only four lanes, two to each side. Then the city hired a contractor (from Japan) to extend the bridge to eight lanes. The contractor literally clipped on two lanes on each of the outside edges of the bridge. The two added pieces are now called "Nippon Clipons". They said it, I didn't make it up.
After the cruise was done, Carmen and I boarded the ferry and went across the bay to Devonport. (As you can see from the picture above, that is Davenport. The volcanic hill on the left is called Mt. Victoria and the one on the right North Head.) Around town we saw a cricket game going on. I took a couple of pictures. There we hiked around and climbed up another of the volcanic cones named North Head.Up on this hill there were canon placements and a couple of pill-boxes for defense of the cities and the bay. Again from atop North Head you can see all around. We were able to see more of the sailing races going on as well as the other boats and beaches. We headed back to the the wharf to get the ferry back to Auckland. We ate a small lunch of chicken nuggets from a vendor at the wharf.
Oh, did I mention that the temperature today is around 30c or about 97f degrees? Well it is because it is hot.
We took the ferry back to Auckland and returned to the hotel, where we are cleaning up to go out later to one of the parks to see the Chinese New Year celebration. We understand there is a Chinese Lantern celebration at night so we'll go around 7:00 PM (it gets dark late, around 8:15 PM -- don't forget, here in the southern hemisphere it is summer) and stay several hours.
After returning to the hotel tonight, we have to get our clothes ready for tomorrow and pack since we are leaving tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM.
Good morning (it is 6:00AM, Sun., Feb 8 in NZ and 11:59AM EST, Sat., Feb 7 US)
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