Back Down Thru Auckland

A people ferry passing the neat Bean Rock lighthouse in Auckland harbour

Today we visited 2 museums and drove down thru Auckland out to the Coromandel Peninsula. The museum in Dargaville featured the process of kauri tree gum digging and the lives of the gum diggers – mainly Dalmatians (Yugoslavian people). Included were displays of numerous accordions. The excellent Kauri Museum in Matakohe had everything you ever wanted to know about the kauri tree. Featured were finely crafted furniture made from the kauri tree, polished kauri gum (dried sap), a kauri tree sawmill, and hundreds of photographs from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. As an added bonus for Cathy, they were having a quilt show with dozens of quilts and quilted items on display. I tried to keep Cathy out of this display area but she insisted and spent time taking photos of each and every item.

Then it was time to go down into the center of Auckland to get photos of 2 lighthouses in the harbour. It was much easier to drive this time in the city than when I was first learning to drive on the left side of the road. Auckland is unique in that it has harbours on both sides of the city and is known as the city of sails since it has the greatest concentration of boats per capita in the world. Having been built on a dormant field of nearly 50 volcanoes this city also has the largest Polynesian population in the world.

Display of polished kauri tree gum


A commode made from kauri wood that appeared in the daytime to be a fine chest of drawers


The popular game of bowling being played on one of the bowling fields in Dargaville