February 9,2011

During our week on Aitutaki I had felt a pain slowly developing between my jaw and my teeth. I have had two wisdom teeth removed, but two are still left. The pain was developing close to one of them. Aitutaki was really not the dream location to get a serious dental problem.

It felt more and more like an infection and I managed to keep it sort of under control with an anti-bacterial gel. By the time we had now reached New Zealand the worst pain was gone, but I decided I had to go see a dentist in Auckland. We were going to be in many remote places over the next weeks with fairly low dentist densities.

In the information folder for our room there was an entry under “Dentist” with an address and a telephone number. They opened at 8.

I got up early, threw a couple of sandwiches down my throat, cleaned my teeth thoroughly and headed out into the asphalt jungle. I used the GPS application on the iPhone and it didn’t seem too far. It was not very tempting to use the car. Left side driving in a big city during morning rush hour is not my idea of fun.

A few hundred meters down the road I realized I had been a bit quick in my preparations. I only wore shorts, a t-shirt and sandals, and I realized it was actually fairly cold. I had a look around and I was the odd man out in between Aucklanders in their long pants and shirts, sweaters, or even light jackets, hurrying to work in the morning. It takes time to adjust to a new place and it was clear that my body was in New Zealand, but my intellect was still on a Pacific island.

After a few more blocks I realized the dentist was further away than I had anticipated. Then it started to rain. Excellent. I took cover under a tree to wait it out. It just continued and continued. Judging from the sky the rain could easily last for 3 more days. I capitulated and started to run back again to get  the car. I had been climbing a steep hill and quickly ran down it again in the rain. Then, of course, the rain stopped. What now?

I took a split-second management decision and headed back up the steep hill. At least I was getting some exercise.

Using the GPS app for navigating while walking was surprisingly difficult. When we use it in the car I use a GPS-antenna amplifier which gives a really good signal. Walking with the iPhone between tall buildings, which block out satellites, gave a very different user experience. My position was always lagging and at one point I was on the other side of a park than I thought I was. It took me a while to figure out that the city was in the opposite direction of where I was sure it was. For a moment I thought they had changed the matrix, until i realized it was the GPS signal which was lagging.

After 3 detours I gave up on the GPS part and only used the map in the application as a street map.

At least the rain had stayed away, but I was rather moist from sweating when I finally found the dentist 38 minutes after I had started the expedition. There was a large sign outside:

At least they had good marketing people.

I went inside and there were no less than two secretaries working there. They had capacity, this might just be the right place.

I explained my situation and asked if they could have a look at my teeth. The young smiling woman answered “Certainly. I can book you in a at 10 o’clock. Can you be here then?”

Duh.

Why I didn’t just call them in the first place shall remain one of mankind’s unsolved mysteries.

I walked back again, a bit less stressed this time, with time to breathe in the feeling of Auckland in the early and moist morning

Helene and the kids wanted to take the car to explore Auckland. They prepared to check out while I walked back to the dentist for my 10am appointment. This time I had studied the map and chose a 3rd route which was the fastest so far. It took me 17 minutes, not a bad record improvement at all.

The dentist didn’t figure out what the problem was at first and ended up taking full 3D x-rays of my jaw in a cool machine. Diagnosis: My two remaining wisdom teeth are in a really strange position and a hole has formed between one of them and another tooth.  Small pieces of food slip into the hole at the side of my tooth and infections can occur. The good news was that I had no cavities, the infection was gone and I got them to email me this cool picture which I can show you:

It looks kind of spooky, huh? Look at the strange placement of those wisdom teeth, to the upper far left and right, and how they press against my normal teeth. What a complete waste from the body’s point of view. Creating teeth is expensive. The energy and calcium could have been put to much needed use elsewhere. Bad genes.

The dentist advised me to get the wisdom teeth removed as soon as I got back to Norway and prescribed penicillin for me, in case I got another infection while on the road.

I fetched my penicilling and called Helene. They were still at the apartment-hotel, so I walked back. This time I took height differences into account and found a fourth and even better route which was longer, but faster, since it was essentially flat. Too bad it would be my last time walking between the two places.

We walked a bit around Auckland and headed for the famous Sky Tower.

We took the elevator up. It has a glass window in the floor. Scary stuff:

The tower is 328 meters (1076 feet) high. It is 4 meters higher than the Eiffel tower (I’ll bet you 10 NZD that was done on purpose) and is the tallest free-standing (whatever that means) structure in the southern hemisphere. During its construction a special crane that was attached to the tower had to be built to put in place the top mast (it was too heavy for a helicopter). Then another smaller special crane, also attached to the tower, was built to dismantle the first crane. Then that second crane was dismantled into pieces small enough to transport down using the elevator. Engineering magic!

The observation platform at 220 meters (722 feet) offers some breathtaking views of Auckland. I could hear my camera whisper “panorama…” as soon as we got there:

There was a cruise ship in the harbor:

Daredevils leaning on the glass:

 

They do a kind of bungy jumping from a platform even higher up and we could see people jumping by all the time.

Just outside the entrance to the tower we saw what we all agreed had to be the coolest bus on earth:

Afterwards we headed for the misnamed Auckland War Memorial Museum. We spent 2 hours there, but could have spent a whole day. The museum is located in a huge building with its own park very close to the center of Auckland. The three story building contains an impressive range of different displays. Large parts of the first floor cover Maori and Polynesian history, art and culture. Other parts cover natural history, flora, fauna and geology. It’s a very kid-friendly museum.

Here is the building:

A model showing the all-important Polynesian invention, the outrigger canoe. Adding a stabilizing second hull revolutionized ocean travel.

There was a graphic showing the distribution of Polynesian languages:

Languages and genes are two very important tools for getting information about migrations of peoples. The Polynesian languages are the best proof that Polynesians originated from Taiwan. Of the 4 main language groups of the Austronesian languages, there are languages from all 4 groups spoken by native people on Taiwan, whereas all Austronesian languages spoken outside Taiwan come from only one of these 4 groups. The conclusion is that the people who colonized the Pacific and part of the Indian Ocean came from Taiwan and spoke a language in that group. The Austronesian languages spoken outside Taiwan then evolved from that language,

Subdividing that group again shows that all languages spoken in the Polynesian triangle come from the same subgroup, showing the common origin of the Polynesian culture in the Bismarck Archipelago.

There was much Maori art on display

There was even a complete Maori meeting house, beautifully decorated with carvings.

A genuine Maroi war canoe was on display. It has been built rom a single log and is 25 meters long. It could transport 100 warriors. It was built in 1836 and is the last of the great warrior canoes. It was seized by New Zealand government forces when they invaded Maori land in Waikato in 1863. 132 years after this invasion, in 1995, the Maori of Waikato received compensation amounting to NZD 171 000 000 and a formal apology from Queen Elizabeth II for the unjust confiscation of their land.

Large canoes were built with logs from the Totara tree, which can grow to be 1000 years old. Here is a part of one which was felled when it was 815 years old:

Viktor quality assured the counting of the 815 rings:

There was a model of a moa, the gigantic flightless bird which is now extinct:

They were at the top of the food chain when humans arrived in New Zealand. There were 12 species of them and the largest reached heights of 3.7 meters (12 feet).

They were not afraid of anything, All you had to do to supply your family with abundant meat was to walk over to one and drive yor spear through it. They didn’t stand a chance and it took about 200 years to kill them all.

There were displays of the many species of plants and animals that can only be found on New Zealand. 80% of the species here are endemic (only be found in NZ). To the far left in the middle row below is the giant weta, the worlds largest insect by weight:

An 11-legged starfish:

More cool ocean critters:

What a fantastic museum!

After the museum we hit the road and drove over to the Coromandel peninsula to a small west coast town with the cool name (for Norwegians anyway) “Hahei.” We were driving straght east and could see the sunset in the mirrors of the car (Helene was practicing driving guided by the force only, and kept her eyes shut)

Our rental house looked like it must have been a top-of-the-line beach summer house in the 1970s. There was lots of space and it was close to all the interesting places in the area. Perfect.

See you around, folks.

Eirik

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