"Our Ship" The Dawn Princess, leaves Auckland for Sydney

We opted to see the ship leave Auckland rather than arrive - a good choice. The weather was a bit erratic (as usual) with sun and showers, but mainly sun – thank goodness. The first photograph was taken from Auckland’s North Shore, brunch time, just across the road from our usual cafe, in Birkenhead. Birkenhead is known as the “City of Views” this is looking back towards downtown Auckland and you can just see the tip of the stern of the ship in the centre of the photograph, tucked behind the hotel that looks like a ship! This street in Birkenhead goes down to the ferry.

If you want to find this on the map, it is Hinemoa St and the sandwich board bottom right is pointing to Palm Cafe – where I get my (LARGE) daily fix of coffee and usually a fairly full breakfast. Highly recommended if you are ever over this way.

Mid afternoon, Paula and I headed over to Devonport, to the top of Mount Victoria, ready to watch the Dawn Princess head off on the last leg of this year’s Round the World Cruise, bound for Sydney. We sat in the car (fortunately) as the temperature slipped down to about 14 degrees, staring at the ship which was scheduled to leave at 4pm – that is 1600hours nautically speaking. Gee I am getting the hang of this cruising jargon! We waited patiently and at 16:15, it moved. The clouds were gathering and the sun was somewhat hidden for most of the area but fortunately, the camera did a pretty good job of recording the departure.

The ship passes Devonport Wharf (just visible in the foreground) - and I was waving, flashing the car headlights and generally being a total embarrassment to Paula! Judging by a couple of flashes from the ship, someone was taking a picture or two from the ship, probably wondering who the loony was on land...

After Devonport, the ship turns 180 degrees to port (I think that is left...) and passes in front of Rangitoto Island. The 'toadstools' in the foreground are air vents for the network of tunnels in the mount, a defence post for Auckland when invaders were expected.  Rangitoto is an extinct volcano and can be seen from many different places around Auckland. 

A matter of minutes after this shot, the ship slowed - presumably to let the pilot off, did another turn - to starboard this time and headed off for Sydney.

I hopped back in the car as it was rather chilly and we headed back home.  Now it is time to see what is on the video camera...  The pictures above are all reduced in size from the original 3 or 4mb to about 355kb so if anyone wants any full sized images, just let me know.

A strange feeling watching the ship, knowing that about this time next year, we'll probably be there again waving to the 2011 cruisers probably with a degree of sadness as we won't be there right at the very end of the adventure with them, but also next year, we'll no doubt be catching up with a few passengers first...  We'll probably also be looking forward to 2012 by then.

Farewell Dawn Princess, see you again in about 265 days...