January 6 - Fjordland National Park

I don’t know why but on this cruise I’ve had a much harder time keeping up with writing.  Perhaps it’s because I’m getting older and I move more slowly or maybe it’s because my time management capabilities have disappeared.  Anyway, here I am catching up again.

Since I last wrote we visited the town of Timaru and Stewart Island.  We docked at the former and I took the shuttle into the little town.  It dropped us off at a local farmers’ and artisans’ market.  There was some lovely produce there, especially berries, but since we can’t bring anything like that on or off the ship, there was no point in getting those.  The little town has basically one main street which still had Christmas decorations strung across it.  There were a lot of small shops open and I drifted in and out of them but didn’t see anything of interest.  I have some observations about New Zealand style though.  Many of the women’s dresses and blouses are made in flowery, chintzy fabrics.  Some of the clothes remind me of curtains and upholstery that I used to see in Southern Living magazine years ago.  Another thing I noticed is how friendly the people are here.  In every store that I entered the salespeople greeted me and were eager to help if I needed  anything.   That even included the local branch of the big department store (Farmers) unlike some of the ones back home where you are sometimes hard-pressed to find a salesperson.  I guess it’s a difference in cultures.

Downtown Timaru with its Christmas decorations

On January 5 we anchored off of Stewart Island and the tender ran people in to the little town of Oban.  I stopped there last January and wrote about it.  The tours offered once again were all birdwatching or sea-life watching and again I didn’t take one.  The tiny little town, more of a village really, wasn’t worth going in to see again so I stayed on the ship.  I did go and hear one lecture in person and listened to another on the TV in my cabin.  I guess that counts as something constructive.  Oban was our last actual port in New Zealand.  The only day left is for cruising through Fjordland with the highlight being Milford Sound.

That's Stewart Island. As you can see there's not much there.

January 6 turned out to be a gorgeous sunny day with pretty warm temperatures.  I didn’t get up in time to see Doubtful or Dusky Sounds but I was out and about on deck for our trip up the star, Milford Sound.  I’ve written about it before, but just to recap I’ll repeat a few things.  The area Fjordland is a national park and a UNESCO world heritage site.  It’s one of the largest such areas in the world.  The fjords are the southern terminus of the Southern Alps, which run down the length of the South Island and include the large peaks lining the water.  The Maori believed a demi-god  carved the waterways out.  Captain Cook came here in 1773 during his travels around the South Pacific. He didn’t sail into all of the fjords because he was afraid that in the ones that were quite narrow with very steep sides his ships might find it difficult to sail since they relied on wind.    That was how the sound named Doubtful got its name in fact; he wasn’t sure they would be able to get out once they sailed in.  The most spectacular is Milford Sound.

As I said it was an absolutely beautiful day as we entered the star of the show. Milford is about 9.5 miles long and it’s the only one relatively easily accessible by land as well as by sea.  The others can be reached via steep climbs and tracks only for really avid hikers or ATVs.  There is a visitor center at the head of Milford and so we saw a number of tour boats and even small watercraft like jet skis that people can evidently rent there.  One friend told me that some years ago she and her husband stayed at a lodge the park service runs.  As we sailed slowly along the towering peaks on either side are truly majestic. Along the way we passed Elephant Peak rising nearly 5000 feet from the water and the Lion which is nearly 4000 feet high.  The walls along the way have quite a bit of vegetation and there are a few waterfalls depending on how much rain there has been.  Today I only really saw two, Lady Bowen falls and Stirling falls. In the distance we could see some peaks that are still snow-covered in what is mid-summer here in New Zealand. Near the end of the sound the captain spun the ship around in a couple of places so that everyone could see everything regardless of which side of the ship you were on.  In the late afternoon we retraced our route and sailed out into the Tasman Sea to head northwestward to our next stop in Melbourne. My second visit to New Zealand has come to an end.

These are all photos of parts of Milford Sound. The waterfall is Lady Bowen Falls.

I have a few final thoughts about this place.  Last year I said that Dunedin on the South Island was one of the few places I could actually imagine living if I had to move someplace.  After my visits this year I would have to extend that to include just about any place in the country.  The countryside is beautiful and for the most part doesn’t get exceedingly cold.  The people are warm and friendly and the cities and towns are clean.  The only two drawbacks I can think of are 1) they do have volcanos and earthquakes and 2) they drive on the wrong side of the road.  I don’t think I could ever get used to that!

Goodbye New Zealand!

January 3 - Akaroa, Banks Peninsula, New Zealand

I know my itinerary showed that today I would be in Lyttleton (Christchurch) and indeed that was where we docked, but I went to a fascinating place called Akaroa today. On the advice of two friends who both have lived in New Zealand I went on a small group tour to this place.

I have to first write something about the geology and history of the area I went to today.  I remember about 14 or 15 years ago the area around Christchurch suffered two devastating earthquakes within a few months.  It was all over the news and the pictures of the devastation were incredible.  The area on which Christchurch and my destination today are both built is part of the Banks Peninsula.  This land mass was formed by three volcanoes, now dormant, but all sitting on a significant fault line.  In fact, all of New Zealand, both North and South Islands, sit on geologically active parts of the ring of fire.  Back to the Banks Peninsula.  Initially this was a volcanic island which eventually due to eruptions and emissions became joined with the South Island.  As we traveled on a twisting mountain road I could see the contour of the land where in millennia past lava had flowed down the sides of the volcanoes and as  it cooled formed ripples on the sides of the mountains. It was a very rainy, cloudy day and so it may be hard to see in the photos, but take my word for it.  The hills have gentle folds in them.

Akaroa sits in what would have been the caldera of a volcano and that caldera is now a sheltered harbor opening to the ocean to the south.  The area was settled as all of New Zealand was by various Maori tribes.  After the discovery of the islands by Europeans trade had begun so the indigenous people knew of westerners.  Growing around Akaroa was a particular kind of flax plant which was prized by Europeans because very strong ropes could be made from its fibers.  The local tribes engaged in trade but what they wanted as payment was guns, something new to them and which obviously they couldn’t produce.  The Maori tribes were warriors and the addition of guns made for some brutal tribal battles.  In 1829 in one such battle a tribe from around Akaroa had fought with a tribe on the North Island and many chiefs from the latter had been killed and eaten by the southerners.  In 1830 to avenge that event the northern tribe enlisted the support of an English trading ship called the Elizabeth under the command of Captain John Stewart.  I’m not going to go into the whole story but essentially the Elizabeth was used as a Trojan horse to lull the locals into a false sense of security.  The chief and his family were kidnapped  (later killed) and the settlement was destroyed and hundreds were massacred.  There is an interesting account of the affair at this site https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/maori-european-contact-pre-1840/captain-stewart-and-the-elizabeth  The incident when it became known to the British in Australia plus the interest of the French in settling the Banks Peninsula helped among other things to precipitate the Treaty of Waitangi establishing the relationship between the tribes and the British.

This was a monument commemorating the place where the southern tribes signed the Treaty of Waitangi

We took an hour and half ride across the peninsula to meet our guide  Marie Haley who is a seventh-generation descendant of the French settlers who came to the area in the time I just wrote about.  Marie has a doctorate in native ecology and history and was a font of information.  She took us to various sites around the sheltered bay and recounted  to us the events that occurred there.  The only remnant of the village, then named Takapuneke, is what’s left of an underground cooking pit and the smooth basalt rocks that were used to generate the heat to do the cooking. We saw the place where the English flag was first planted only a few days before the French came and expected to lay claim to the area. 

I know it doesn't look like much but that area near Marie's hand has been documented as the remains of a cooking pit from the Maori tribe and the rock she's holding has been authenticated too.

This and the next two are photos of the Onuku Church built in 1876 on the Maori reserve. It's now a non-denominational chapel registered with Heritage New Zealand as a category 1 historic place.

Marie’s great (times 7) grandfather came as a relatively young man who had served on a whaling ship and stayed in New Zealand.  He lived to be 92, which is remarkable for the time period, and was prolific.  He and his wife had at least 10 children and those children also had many kids.  Marie said that the direct descendants now number close to 8000.  She said that when she went to school she used to check the ancestry of a boy before she went out with him to make sure he wasn’t too closely related to her.  As I said it was a small group (just 6 of us) and we asked about her current family.  She told us that she and her partner met when they were both doing graduate work in of all places Idaho at the University of Idaho.  He is from Balochistan which is an area in south Asia and part of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan.  She had no worries about being related to him.

Use your brain's and eye's filters to see this beautiful old Victorian style house built by one of Marie's many ancestors and now operating as a B&B.

We learned a few other interesting facts about the Akaroa district.  What had once been covered with trees was completely deforested during the last couple of hundred years and instead was being used for raising sheep and cattle.  The terrain is too hilly for more agricultural farming.  Now there is an effort to reforest it and one of the ways that is being used is the introduction of gorse, a thorny evergreen plant.  Gorse is used in places in western Europe and in places like Scotland to form hedgerows to keep cows or sheep in specific pastures.  In the case of the Banks peninsula it is being used to keep animals out of certain areas.  It seems the gorse generates a lot of nitrogen back into the soil and as seeds from local species of trees are spread by wind or birds and fall beneath it, the seeds will germinate or grow.  The gorse will die back and the trees begin to emerge and we could see plots of land where new forests were growing. 

The weather was pretty miserable all day, both windy and wet, so much of what we saw was from the inside of the van we rode in.  My pictures can’t do justice to the spectacular beauty of the place and you have to use your imagination to see beyond the raindrops. There’s probably a way to get rid of those but that’s beyond my capabilities.  In some ways the clouds and the mist added an aura of mystery and magic to the hills and mountains, but I think it would be nice to see Akaroa on a beautiful sunny day too.

I forgot to mention that we had an excellent lunch of fish and chips in a local pub named the Bully Hayes. He was a colorful scoundrel/pirate in the Pacific in the mid-1800's.  The pub was along the waterfront in Akaroa which is a summer vacation spot for New Zealanders.  The town was busy with tourists despite the rainy weather.

January 2, 2025 - Happy New Year from the Lands down under!

I have to get used to writing 2025.  It’s always hard to remember for a few days (weeks).

We spent New Year’s Eve Day sailing down the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island.  It was very bouncy and rocky all day which made for interesting walking around the ship.  We started a new set of cumulative trivia days and it’s a sad state of affairs.  Only three from our former team are left and we’ve picked up some (how shall I put it?) unusual people.  That’s as much as I’ll say for now.  For the first time I can recall I’m tempted to give up playing trivia.

In the evening three friends and I met for champagne and caviar down in the Club.  We had decided to have dinner together rather than going to hosted tables.  That gave us the flexibility to go at our own pace.  We went to dinner in the Colonnade and stayed there until nearly 10 PM.  After dinner we went to the Grand Salon for the New Year’s festivities.  Two of the guest entertainers performed first and then there was a dance party.  The ship was doing a lot of rolling which made for interesting dancing.  I made arrangements to get the three of us each twelve grapes so we could follow the Spanish custom of eating twelve grapes as the clock strikes midnight.  If you eat them all, you are supposed to have a good year.  We gobbled them down so we should be okay for 2025.

New Year's Eve with our lovely headgear

Yesterday the seas were still rough and as a result we didn’t get to Wellington until around 3:30 PM.  It was cloudy and rainy and I decided not to go on the tour I’d booked.  It was a three and a half tour to see the studio where some of the Lord of the Rings films were made.  I figured we’d get back close to 8 PM and I wasn’t in the mood to be out that late. I think I’m getting very lazy but I guess that’s okay on a cruise.  Since our cruise itinerary changed and we were spending the night in Wellington, it was too bad that the tour couldn’t be rescheduled to this morning but I guess with the holiday that wasn’t possible.

Today I didn’t get up until late because I didn’t sleep well and was trying to catch some extra zzz’s.  When I finally got moving I took the shuttle into the center of the city and went for a long walk.  Many places were closed which was okay because I wasn’t looking for anything.  It was just good to get out and walk on stable land for a while.  Downtown looked very clean and modern with a few old buildings that have been preserved.  Had I been more ambitious I could have gone to the museum here, but I just felt like being out in the fresh air for a couple of hours.  I’ll just have to come back another time and see what I missed today.  There was another cruise ship from the Viking cruise line here today too. It’s a little bigger than the Quest but not one of those gigantic ones and it looks very new.

The old government building which is where the shuttle dropped us off

Downtown wasn't really busy.

One of several sculptures along the street

Old Bank Shopping Arcade

We have four more more days here in New Zealand, three in ports and one cruising in Fjordland National Park which is one of the most beautiful places I’ve visited.  Hopefully the weather gods will be with us.  For now that’s all.  I pray that what happened in New Orleans is an outlier and that  the rest of 2025 will bring more peaceful times.