Auckland- a complicated city.

 Three days in Auckland will require some time- to digest -and  to comment.  The first thing that grabs your attention is that there are volcanoes everywhere! Over 50, the most recent poked up in the bay only 700 years ago. 


The Auckland volcanoes are of a type that only erupts once - who knew. So there is a large volcano in the middle of the city housing the Auckland Museum on one side of the crater, multiple cricket fields in the center, and housing on the other side of the rim.

The second thing is that Auckland is a city that combines good and bad elements of places like NYC and Seattle - vibrant sailing community, fish markets, scenery, Fifth and Madison Avenue shopping,  multi cultural population, but inefficient and self serving government, unhoused people, and haves and have nots. 





Auckland University; probably high school students at bus stop; Asian women at a Sunday Market; and a view of the expensive yachts with an accidental passer by.

The school system has public and private; both funded to a certain level by the government and with parents adding up to US$37,000 /year to provide PhD level teachers in elementary schools!  

A government owned container terminal recently wrote off a US $50 million automation container transport experiment (the machines that move the containers around on the wharf) after a stacking accident Think of a self driving vehicle moving a container!  Wonder if Ned Ludd was there!

More later. 


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