December 29 - We made it to New Zealand!

Oh, dear, once again I’m behind in writing about what I’ve been up to.  My only excuse is that I’m having way too much fun.  We’re earning a reputation of being “The Pack,” because we’re generally together and we laugh a lot.  Two of our members are getting off the ship tomorrow in Auckland and that will be sad, but perhaps we’ll find some new folks.

So, what have we been doing these last couple of days.?  On Saturday, December 28, we anchored in the Bay of Islands which is on the northeast coast near the top of the North Island of New Zealand.  It was a gorgeous, sunny, breezy day with little humidity.  I think we really lucked out.  A front had gone through and just as in Virginia when a low pressure system passes through, sometimes on the back side we get crisp, fresh air. That’s what we had all day.  We took the tender over to Waitangi, at a dock at the Waitangi Yacht Club.  

This is the Bay of Islands. Isn't it beautiful?

I should tell something about the significance of this place.  Very close to where we landed were the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. It is on this site that the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in  February 1840 between the British by Captain William Hobson who represented the Crown and the Maori  chiefs of the North Island.  While not technically a treaty because it was never ratified, it does provide a guideline for biculturalism in modern New Zealand society and it is interpreted as having established a partnership between equals which may not have been the British Crown’s intention at the time.  Anyway, from some of the lectures I’ve heard the British New Zealanders  treated their indigenous population better than the aborigines in Australia have been treated .We didn’t walk through the Treaty Grounds but instead took the ship’s shuttle to the ferry pier for a ride over to the little town of Russell on the other side of the bay.

This critter next to my friend greets people arriving via ferry to the little town of Paihia which is the ferry terminus.

Russell was a charming little place with lots of shops and cafés and pubs.  There’s a tree-lined promenade along the waterfront with a beach below.   It was Saturday and there were lots of New Zealand families here for a summer weekend during the Christmas holidays. We walked in several shops and found some nice scarves with New Zealand flora-inspired prints.  I am determined to learn how to wear scarves to augment my traveling wardrobe.  One of my friends wears them effortlessly and they can dramatically change the look of an outfit.  I want to be able to do that too.

This fearsome face meets you arriving in Russell.

This is Russell along the bayfront.

Some child decided to store his sandals here for safekeeping and it just tickled me.

After wandering for a while, looking in on the very small Maritime Museum, and taking lots of pictures of the beautiful bay we took the ferry back to the other side and headed back to the Quest.  It wasn’t a particularly exciting day to write about, but it was so nice to experience. 

As I write this it’s Sunday December 29 and we had a glorious day in our next stop, Waiheke Island.  This island is close to Auckland and in fact there are people who commute to the city via a 40-minute ferry ride.  As an aside, that means we’re going to basically drift to Auckland tonight because we’re that close.  My friend Colleen, who splits her time between New Zealand and Australia,  organized a girls’ trip to a wonderful vineyard named Mudbrick.  In addition to being an absolutely gorgeous place with great wines, there is a marvelous restaurant.  She made reservations for us to have lunch there.  We took a cab and got to Mudbrick early enough to have a wine-tasting first.  Waiheke Island evidently has just the right climate to produce excellent wines.  It has plenty of sunshine during this hemisphere’s summer and just enough cool nights and rain to produce award-winning Bordeaux wines and Chardonnays. After we had tasted six of Mudbrick’s wines we had lunch outside on the terrace overlooking vineyards nearby. In the distance we could see Auckland’s downtown with its Sky Tower and other tall buildings .  

The terraces at Mudbrick

That's Auckland off in the distance

The grounds around Mudbrick

Also in the distance we could see Rangitoto Island, a shield volcanic cone that is the largest and youngest of the approximately 50 volcanos in the Auckland region.  The volcano, which rises to about 850 feet, was formed in two eruptions only about 600 years ago.  That's pretty new in the world of volcanos. New Zealand is located on the area where the Indo-Australian and Pacific plates meet so it’s right on the Ring of Fire.  Many of the volcanos on the North Island are active while most on the South Island are dormant.  I remember about 5 years ago a volcano on White Island off the coast of the North Island erupted while a group of almost fifty people were visiting.  22 people died including two whose bodies were never found and the other 25 were injured, several of them with severe burns requiring intensive care. I believe a couple from the Richmond area was injured.

Rangitoto Island and volcano

Back to lunch at Mudbrick.  It was exquisite.  We each ordered a 3-course set menu which came beautifully plated and with interesting combinations.  I had a plate of scallop crudo (raw scallop) served with a pistachio cream, koji ice cream (koji is some kind of soybean) and a puréed parsnip sauce.  For my main course I had the fish of the day which was supposed to be a local snapper and then I had the most wonderful meringue and berry dessert.  It was delicious.

Notice just a few wine glasses on the table.

The Solo Ladies Pack

After lunch we headed back in a cab to the tender dock to return to our home for the next two weeks.  Almost all of us were invited to a table hosted by one of our speakers and his wife.  Had it not been for the fact that we liked them and they are leaving tomorrow, I think we all would have missed dinner because we were too full. After dinner I went to hear the marvelous guitarist.  He can make a guitar make sounds I didn’t know were possible.  Following the show, I went to the Club for a nightcap and to say goodbye to some friends getting off tomorrow.

For now it’s time to say Pō marie, Good night.