Checking in from the Tasman Sea

We are told the depth of the ocean here is about 6000 meters.  Having boasted of our beautiful weather in Picton, I have doomed us to five days in a row of cloudy, gloomy skies. <sigh>. 

We New Mexicans start to wither when we don't see sunshine for that many days in a row.  Added to that is a prediction for 6 meter seas tonight. We're fine with that, but we really do wish for a little sunshine.

We have spent the past three sea days adding to our haul of booty; we've earned water bottles, flashlights (aka torches down here), tote bags and magnetic clips.  This due to participation in paper airplane, trivia and golfing contests.  The Thursday Boys Club will be stunned to learn Tom has won two putting events already.

We've become a bit bored with the four sea days, but we have managed to reduce our Netflix list by two movies a day.  Only one more sea day before we arrive in Tasmania!

We continue to be fine, although Cheryl did wake up with a 'sub conjunctival hemorrhage' yesterday morning.  Nothing dangerous, just a burst blood vessel, but I won't be doing too many close-ups for the next 10 days or so.

Not Quite Dunedin

Our onboard intranet is still greeting us with this photo of the pretty town of Dunedin

But that photo is the closest we will get to it today.  Overnight it turned out the wind and waves picked up and we were unable to enter the channel, as the winds were over 50 mph and it would not have been safe to put into port.  And, as we watch out the window, we see the waves getting higher and the clouds thickening.  This photo below was at 7:30 am:

And this is what it looked like three hours later:

Because of the weather, which is now predicted to get even worse and become a gale force, the captain has also cancelled our trip into the fjords of the national park and Milford Sound, which was scheduled for tomorrow.  Instead we are reversing course and sailing back up the east coast of New Zealand, where we will cut through the Cook Strait between the North and South Island.  From there we will head across the Tasman Sea to Hobart, Tasmania to arrive as scheduled on Saturday.  Even so, we have been told to expect rocky seas and stormy weather for the crossing, as the weather on the southwest side is very bad.

Fortunately there is an ample supply of movies on demand, food and trivia contests onboard.  Along with lectures, entertainment, classes and more activities.  We are sad to miss both the Fjordlands and Dunedin, but we have plenty to keep us busy and occupied.  I likely will not post here for a couple of days....but we'll be back when we have something to show you.

Christchurch

We arrived this morning in Akaroa, a nice little port town similar to Picton, only French.  It is the closest current port to Christchurch for cruise tourists.  

Unfortunately, that means a long bus ride to Christchurch.

 Our 10 hour day consisted of 1 hour waiting to board tenders, 1 hour on the tenders, 2 hours waiting for the tour bus (which was over an hour late starting), 1 hour actually touring Christchurch, 2 hours at the Antarctic Center, and 3 hours on the bus between the two cities.

In Christchurch there is still a massive amount of damage from the 2010 earthquakes, whether it is the still boarded-up cathedral while they decide how to repair, the empty gravel lots where buildings have been demolished, or the modern rebuilds adjacent to the older traditional ones. 

Then we were off to the Antarctic Experience with cold, dark and windy simulated weather

And of course, penguins

I'm tired and we have another long day tomorrow... So off to bed I go!

Picton

Greetings from Picton, New Zealand where it is now Sunday afternoon. This is a pretty little port town, with two or three main streets, some shops, some homes, and a lot of trees along the beautiful Queen Charlotte Sound.  Ladies from the visitor center in town gave each arriving woman a mini corsage to wear. It was a very sweet touch and a very kind welcome to their town.

We had a very leisurely day here, wandered about the town and then returned to the ship.  Here are a couple of photos from our day.

During our travels, I have been collecting some interesting photos of quirky things or events. I am going to add them here just because they were kind of fun to see.

The first one is from Wellington, which is such a hilly city it reminds me of San Francisco or Laguna Beach. Many homes are perched so high on the hill that their garages are a couple of streets lower.  In order to reach their homes they either have a very steep walk up a narrow staircase, or in many cases they have their own cable car. We were told there are over 500 private cable cars in the city; here are a couple of photos:

The other thing I wanted to mention is that you can easily find the free Wi-Fi places in any port. Just look for the crowd of people staring at their phones in a cluster.

Windy Wellington

We had a lovely day in what they call Windy Wellington.  

We were fortunate to have a very lovely, sunny day with just a few clouds. After we re-boarded the ship the storm clouds moved back in, but our day was just glorious.

We took a privately booked tour, which ended up with only four people on one of those huge 50 passenger buses.  

Consequently, we were able to go to more places and see more sites than what had been originally planned. We received a nice city tour of Wellington, and a good visit to the Te Papa museum.

One of the sites we saw was old St. Paul's Church, which has a nice memorial to the United States Marine Corps.  The Marines, in World War II, saved New Zealand for our side. Even today the people are very appreciative of the USMC and make a point of telling you so.

After a cable car ride up the mountain and a stop at the rose garden, we returned to our ship for sail away.

LBNL, we won water bottles at Trivia, for those of you who appreciate that onboard drama. 🤓

Rotorua and the Chief

It's now Friday morning in New Zealand, which makes it midday Thursday in the US.  So for your today, which was our yesterday, we took an all day tour in Tauranga from Mount Manganui to Rotorua.  We saw farms and sheep and kiwis growing (think overhead grape arbors).  We saw abundant tree ferns, redwoods, crystal clear rivers and lakes and waterfalls.  At Te Puia, which is a Maori historic area, we saw geysers, fumaroles, mud pots and geologic conditions quite similar to Yellowstone.  

The best event of the day, however, was the Maori dance presentation inside the meeting house. But to get inside the meeting house, the audience "tribe" had to first select a chief, who had to bravely greet the warrior sent out to ascertain if the approaching strangers were friend or foe. I am happy to report that as Audience Chief Tom behaved himself, he was handed the fern leaf and they decided we were friendlies.  

I do have some pictures to post and even a video for posterity.  As soon as I figure out how to post this on the ship wifi, I will work on how to add the pictures.  

Our today, your tomorrow, is a sea day, so we can all recover from our adventures.  Tom is in the Japanese soaking tubs upstairs, I'm in the Coffee House with a cappuccino.  Enjoy your day, today!

It's been a little damp...

The remnants of typhoon Winston have been hanging over the North Island while we have been here in Auckland, making for a drizzly, wet, grey environment.  We haven't much minded that, being from a desert, but after three days one does hanker for a bit of blue sky and some sunshine here and there.  

The locals have been very apologetic about the weather, telling us that up until our arrival it "has been glorious".   Today (Wednesday) is looking a little better with patchy bits of blue finally visible, which will make for a nice day to board our ship.

The accompanying humidity has done some interesting things to our possessions and our selves.  Cheryl's normally dry, limp, sorta wavy hair has turned into a fluffy, curly mop.  The passports, kept inside the room safe, are beginning to curl at the edges.  After six days of travel we decided to launder the clothes we have worn, and it took four cycles in the dryer for each load of wash.  On the other hand, I haven't had to use a single drop of hand lotion, foot cream, hair conditioner, Chapstick or sunscreen.

Yesterday's weather meant we had to forego our intended harbour cruise and we instead headed over to the Auckland Museum where we learned about Maori culture, the battle of Gallipoli, and kiwis.  Kiwis are a bird, a fruit or a person; but they are all round, brown and sorta fuzzy.