Entering the Tasman Sea

We are rounding the North Cape at the tip of New Zealand to enter the Tasman Sea this morning. It is gray and raining a bit this morning. We have traveled 9564 miles so far.
Auckland was a beautiful city. The population is over a million so it is not a small place. The city is a mixture of Victorian buildings and modern buildings with many skyscrapers. We took the hop-on hop-off bus around the city to the Sky Tower and got off. We rode the elevator up to all three levels and took some pictures and then had some ‘real’ coffee (I.e. not miserable ship coffee) and then walked about 8 blocks back to the ship.

We were docked right next to the ferry terminal and the ferries ran all day - an amazing number of them and all filled with people.

Last night we had one of the special shows; a group from NZ came onboard and preformed the Maori dances. It was interesting, but when you try to crowd about 600 people into the Cabaret Lounge which only seats about 200 it was a bit too crowded for me. I tried to get a few pictures and then ducked out the back. We had a cocktail on the balcony watching the reflection of the sunset in the buildings and then I hit the bed. Jim stayed out on the balcony reading (with the book light) until we sailed at about 10:00. We are really turning into lazy bums as we slept until 7:00 this morning.

NOTE: I’ve adjusted the date on my computer, but not the time… it still has the Denver time.