Auckland Not Wankers

I stopped first by the New Zealand Police Headquarters in Auckland. The police in NZ are all national police officers. They are state, federal and local officers all-in-one. That has to be nice not having to get in pissing matches over whose jurisdictio a case is or is not.  It's all on them alone.

I was quickly credentialed so I could go up to their Intelligence Center but, just after a rookie officer, Josh, was ready to take me upstairs a little incident happened only a block away which had everyone running to it. I followed. A garbage truck had caught fire, was well involved and smoking up the whole downtown area.  The Fire Services were quickly on it and we got back to the station.

Josh, 6 months on the job.

The Intell Section, I think they called it something else, was a very advanced monitoring and resourse distribution system that was extremely advanced.  They didn't dispatch cars or officers, rather they monitoreed activity through calls for service, incidents, video cameras all around the city, location of all untits and officers, public news channels and other sources. It would put any NCIS or other TV show police command rooms to shame.  They recomend deployment and advise command and dispatch of events as they occur and where issues are likely to occur.

I wish I could show you but, naturely I wasn't allowed to photograph in the interior. Let's just say, the future is here.  They also had up and running car tag licence-reading set up all over so there is no where to hide a stolen vehicle or known suspect to hide.

They don't carry firearms on their person but, have rifles available in their cars.  They do carry tazers. They also use iPhones for their communications and they love how works for them. They can call in incident reports, do accident reports with photos on the phone and be done with them.  They can do suspect, contact and CI cards on their phones. They can also live stream video feed from their cameras around the city to their phones.

With all this tech they still have the same probles we all have: shortage of proper manpower, politics and agressive people. "P" (Meth) is a major problem here too. One of their sergents was telling me many young officers have their heads down in their phones, say taking a suspect's picture, and you can see from the photo that they are way too close to be safe and their attention is drawn away from a potential threat. The police are all under one department but, one can tell, although they would absolutely never tell anyone this; the Auckland officers are far better and more professional than those wankers down in Wellington.

Getting to Know the Kiwis

My ship makes three ports in New Zealand.  The first on the northern tip of the north island in an area called the Bay of Islands. Count them: 144.  It is apparently the vacation place for New Zealanders: multi-million dollr homes, fantastic views, boats of all kinds and a great local beer called Chumps. I had several - 5% alcohol, Great, great place to chill out and drink with friends.

Next port is Auckland.  I had to meet NZ Customs officals at 0645 onboard to get paperwork looked over so I can stay in NZ a couple nights while I drive to Wellington, about 8 hours south, all driving on the left side of the road with the streering column on the right . I'm spending the night at an Airbnb home on the westcoast, New Plymouth.

I was awakened early by the lights of downtown Auckland right outside my cabin window. My hotal, The Insignia, was berthed less than 9 meters from the Auckland Hilton, sothat my cabin was looking directly across to the main lobby and second floor of the hotel.

I was picked up by the rental car company and off I went.  My first stop was by the police department, which I did a seperate post on. I drove to Auckland, some 8 hours away across the North island.  I stopped for the night at an AirBnB in New Plymouth on the Westcoast.

The drive was incredibelly beautiful. This was so much more insightful than two at sea. I can see why so many people want to move here.  I even saw a few small ranches with American flags at the gate. There is morre cattle than you can imagine, and I've lived in Texas. The cattle are spread out across sparse grasslands. Vegatation is abundant here so the cattle are more concentrated in the fields.

Once I left New Plymouth, on Highway 1 (Hughway 1 is on the eastcoast) for the most part following the coastline.  At times the road was practically hanging over over the waves crashing into the rocks or sands.  It was hard to get the really good pictures because there are few places to pull over and a Kiwi will run over you.

One place I did stop was at a land wind-surfing track. I thought I had a video but I can't find it. Kids were racing around a very large flat track marked off in orange traffic cones. Here is exactly what it looked like. 

I didn't know what these littlle ledges were on all the hills everywhere until I saw one with cattle on it.  They'd worn ledges into the hillside while grazing.

Mt. Taranaki near New Plymouth. I saw it across coastal waters 2 hours before I got there.

View from window at my AirBnB in New Plymouth

Off of Highway 2 which I was on most of the trip. If you look hard you can see the road at the base of mountain and next to the breaking water.

There were so many more photos I wanted to take but, there was just no place to pull over and take a picture. I went through hills similar to the Ozarks, then similar to Appalachia, then much like the Rockies.

The best part of driving was doing 120. The worst was turning on the wiper blades when making a right turn instead of the blinker. The are very few stop signs but, lots of round-abouts (to the left). Most intersections have "Give Way" signs that look like Yield signs.  Very little actually stopping vehicles except in towns with traffic lights. 

Which is another thing: they are so well marked and timed it's unbelieviable. Theiy're all bright LEDs. Bike lanes, seperate paths and a green area in front of each intersection for bikes only, so they're ahead of you when the light changes. Pedestrian crossings are super well marked and signaled.

Notice the speed limit sign.

Once in Wellington I stated in a 1904 house that was just barely hanging onto the side of a hill very near downtown.  It was another AirBnB and it was a very good exerpience. The winding road up too it had to have been built in the 1890s.  It was only wide enough for small cars to pass only if their side mirrors were pulled in.  

Then on top of that houses weren't or couldn't be built with drives so parking is on the road.  This means who ever gets to a block has the single lane right-of-way and you'll just have to wait.  This also meant because the many 180 degree curves forced cars to give room for wide berth turning or nobody was going anywhere.

On the way out of town.

Fiji, Almost Found a Wife

As usual now, I visited the National Police HQ on the other end of the port city and capital of Sufa. It was casual Friday and most of the officers' uniform shirts were a light blue tropical shirt with police identification on it. We sure could have used that down in Texas.

They were very welcoming and showed me around most of their divisions, even the Commissioner's Office, Internal Affairs and the Gym (where my guide, smiling said the beefy boys workout). My guide was a sweet young Corporal who'd been on the force for 7 years. She is 33 years old when I told I'd been a cop longer than she's been alive she laughed.

Doesn't he remid you of Tommy Chew?

I just loved this woman. Vinaka!

Inside the police compound.

We left the main police headquarters and she took me back to the port where they headquartered another division just for Tourists.  It is even titled Tourist Police. Can you believe that boat-loads of tourists from cruise ships can get drunk, disorderly, pick-pocketed, robbed and lost?  It is a good sized city, crowded, bussling with both women in burkas or shorts and, McDonalds and Burger King. Also, the ride was my first experience at being in a car in left-handed traffic.

My pretty little corporal took me to the giant farmers' market and I bought some Kava. It is a legal cuturally practiced high that leaves you talking funny because your lips are numb. They showed me how to strain it and cold brew a batch.  I didn't drink it because he made it by hand and with the local water.  I'll do it with bottled water later on the ship and see if it gives me the buzz they claim.

She asked where my wife was. After I told her, she said I needed to find a good new wife,  She has also been looking for a good husband.  When I said I could introduce her to some men in the U. S.  She said," What about you?  I told her I had a son older than her. She just laughed and said okay, like it wasn't an issue.

Although I didn't take a long-boat ride up the river and see the falls, what I did see was more what life is like on Fiji.  There are little roadside markets built up against each other on the sidewalks of the main roads everywhere just outside of the downtown area where you can buy just about anything.  There is an area that sells fish, another vegatables and all kinds of others with mixed products.  Traffic is bad and getting worse because there are more and more cars and no room for more or wider roads.  They are afraid of becoming like Japan in this sense.

I saw the area where many of the police live.  I also saw the Army barricks close by. The President of the country is also Commander of the military and there have been four Fijian coups d'etat in the last 30 years. I guess they are about ready for a new one.  I was told most of the people work for the government in some form or another.

There are Police Buses.  They take officers from their stations to their assignment areas and pick up officers that they relieve, I noticed what appeared to be brand new officers downtown directing traffic, a thankless job.  They were still in the police academy and used for grunt work, similar to rookies back home.

There is a drug problem here like most places and the drugs come on the island fron New Zealand and Austraila mostly on yachts but, here's the disconnect: The Fijian Navy tries to intercept the drugs coming in and the police have no maritime units.  They just had a bust the other day of a large haul from a private yacht.

It's a beautiful country though and beautiful people.  However, I stopped at local ATM to get some local currency.  Most places don't use US dollars.  There are all kinds of warnings about theives and pick-pockets, so I was keeping my eyes open.

The bad-actors think they bleand in but, they all look the same everywhere you go.  A local young man dressed more hood-like than normal jumped into line at the ATM behind me.  He tried to manuver up where he could see my pin number entry but I kept moving on him.  The ATM pinged indicated it rejected my card. (It didn't take Visa cards) The man practically disappeared - a dry fishing hole, I guess.

So now on That Note, a little music from when we were about to leave:

Passengers on the ship's balconeys, open decks and railings were all enjoying the concert.

Moce Ni sa moce Fiji

Pago Pago

Back in the USA, American Somoa.  The police station was just off the pier where my ship docked.  It was a great bunch of officers,  I met the Deputy Director and got a tour of the entire operation, talking to everyone in English for a change. I found it funny that they had an FBI man in earlier in the week. I won't say how they felt about his visit but, it is the same as we felt about them most times. I doubt an agent is going to magically uncover information that the local officers who speak Samoan and French as well as English had already obtained.

Their biggest problem is Meth.  Most of it is flown in. You'd think it would be easier to intercept on an island but, there are a million different ways with everything shipped in.

Their Fallen Officers.

I didn't take the $109 tour from the ship out to the beachs like most of the passengers.  I took the local bus out to 2$ Beach.  It was $5.  Also, the cost to swim at the $2 Beach was $5.  Inflation, I guess.

My new nickname is $2 Beach.

The tide was out at $2 Beach but, you can see it's a pretty good one - when the water is in.  It did have a house right on the beach that I'd love to live in (above) By the way, all the burial plots or crips are in the front yards here.

This is the "bus" I rode out on.  They are all like this - a small pick-up chassis and a hand-made wooden coach body with plexiglass windows.

There were so many great pictures I just couldn't put them all on here but, here are quite a few.