Papeete to Auckland

It is Saturday and we are in Auckland New Zealand. We have spent 10days traveling from Papeete to New Zealand. The voyage to Bora Bora was short as it is just over the horizon from Papeete, almost due west about 140 miles. The day in Bora Bora was pleasant. It is a beautiful place with dramatic green volcanic peaks and beautiful lagoons. We continued southwest to Raratonga in the Cook Islands. This is a quiet place administered by New Zealand but it is self-governing. It feels very much like Hawaii. Another thousand miles west is Nuku Alofa in the Tongan Islands, just over the date line. The date line is not meridian 180 at this location. We arrived on a Sunday so everything was closed. These islands are flat and seem more Bahamian than Hawaiian. I have a picture of a stone church. These islands also use the New Zealand dollar. Then it was on to Fiji, a rather large group of islands. Fiji is a cauldron of ethnic antagonism, with native islanders struggling to maintain their island in the face of ethnic East Indians, brought many years ago by the British to work the sugar plantations. Of course they are now business men. The islands resemble Hawaii and Tahiti. It’s about 1000 miles due south to Auckland. I show you a picture of our arrival. There was a Princess ship in port. We took an excursion over to the west coast, to the famous black-sand beaches of Kerekere. In town, we visited a park dedicated to Victoria and Albert. How the British Empire has changed in only 100 years! The year 1911 marked the late summer years of the Empire, as Victoria had been crowned as Empress of India in 1875. The catastrophic decision to enter The Great War was only three years into the future. The Kiwi’s participated in the failed Gallipoli campaign. Nowadays, they have a peaceful, safe, and relatively prosperous country in these turbulent times.