Sad goodbyes in Auckland...

 December 30, 2024

Auckland, New Zealand

We are losing a lot of friends today as 230 passengers are getting off and 230 are getting on in Auckland. Long Beach to Auckland was a 32-day portion of the 46-day Long Beach to Sydney cruise. Especially good news for us, to offset the pain of leaving several friends behind, is that we now have accumulated enough points to be eligible for---drum roll, please!---free bags of laundry, one for each of us every seven days! No more queuing for the four (only) washers and dryers! It takes so little to make us happy!

Auckland is HOHO territory. Not laughter but the Hop On Hop Off busses that work in most cities around the world (not Wellington, however, but the weather in Wellington is supposed to be terrible so we probably wouldn't do it anyway).

There are two routes, the Red Route and the Blue Route. One ticket entitles you to both routes but you must change busses to go from one to the other. We lucked out with the first Red bus we got because it changed to the Blue route at the changeover location (where we would normally have gotten off the Red but and waited for a Blue bus) so we stayed on. When the Blue bus got back to the changeover, it changed to the Red bus so we never had to move and got the whole two tours.

While we were in AKL, Royal Princess was also in port. We are 450 passengers, Royal Princess is 4275 passengers! Not a good photo but interesting to see the size difference!

Some of our good friends who left the Quest in AKL.

The day before AKL, there was a goodbye and thank you party to thank all the staff who work so hard on board to keep us fed, watered, and clean!

We have been to AKL a few times before so we just wanted to ride and around and sightsee.

“Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.”...

December 29, 2024 

Written on New Year's Day, January 1, 2025

We left Auckland and immobile land for a long voyage on a very rough sea towards Wellington. We'll be arriving there late today (Jan. 1) and staying overnight for the first and probably only time on this long voyage. the seas are quite rough and the ship has placed strategically located sea sickness bags all around the ship, especially by the elevators. So far, Randy and I have not needed them!

In Matiatia, New Zealand, Dec. 29, we did a short and very enjoyable winery tour. Actually, two wineries, Goldie Estate, one of, if not the first, wineries established in Matiatia, and The Shed, established just a little later. Matiatia (the town) did not want wineries in their area and fought against them. Additionally, wine "experts" said wine grapes would not grow well in the area. Oh, how wrong they were. It is not a large area but wine grape growing, and the making of wines is a large proportion of the land use now in Matiatia. New Zealand in general produces only 1% of the wines in the world, and Matiatia only produces 1% of New Zealand's production. Goldie Estate, itself, does not export any wine. The owner said he only produces 2000 cases a year and sells everything at the winery and local shops.

Seabourn lived up to it's (self-proclaimed) reputation of being an "ultra-luxury cruise" company with our tour of 26 people divided into two 24-passenger vans. 

Matiatia is another tender port (we will have a couple more on this voyage) so we had to stuff ourselves into the tenders (never an easy job for a couple of old farts!) before getting to our tour vans.

First our guide showed us a winery that looks more like a resort than a winery, Mudbrick Winery. We did no tasting or touring here.

During our visit to Goldie Estate Winery some of us followed the owner through his vineyard to stunning views over the bay.

The owner's wife runs the public part of the winery while he does all the behind-the-scenes stuff like blending the grapes and deciding what to trim off the grape vines.

Another part of the tasting room. The winery was closed to the public but opened just for us to tour and taste.

They believe is supporting the arts and the artist for this sculpture actually works for the winery in addition to having his own gallery.

The artist is Oliver Stretton-Pow and this is a kinetic sculpture of a heart with grape roots growing out of it. You can see more of his work at oliverstrettonpow.com.

My favorite, surprisingly, was a white, the Goldie Estate Causeway Chardonnay 2021

From this winery to the Shed, a very different experience. Their wine was ok, but nothing special (to me!) and this winery was open to the public while we were there, so not as intimate an experience.

This is the owner...

,,,but he says his son does most of the work!

One really nice thing they offered was a vertical tasting of a 2010 and a 2020 Cabernet/Franc wine.

And a tasting of a 1997 Cab/Merlot wine. Very tasty!

And so we go on to Auckland and it looks to be good weather!

Waka Nui Nui...

 Writing on New Years Eve (for us, anyway!), 2024

We have arrived in New Zealand and our first stop is the Bay of Islands, specifically Waitangi. Randy and I have been to Russell (across the bay in the Bay of Islands name) a couple of times but not to Waitangi. We had a Māori guide for a tour entitled Kerikeri Basin, Puketi Forest, Māori Marae & Kawakawa. I will get to Kawakawa in a bit but suffice it to say that I have NEVER been on a tour that featured a public restroom as a destination!

Kerikeri Basin is just a beautiful little corner of the Bay of Islands:

I just took this photo because it was such a beautiful area. I don't remember why our guide was talking about it. I guess I have trouble paying attention in class!

This is our Māori guide who told WAY more than we wanted to know about his Māori ancestors (going back about 2000 years) and the land they lost, the chiefs he was related to, and the gruesome (really, really, gruesome. You'll have to trust me on this) things those chiefs did in a war.

Canoes, in the Māori language, are called Waka.

One of those chief's war canoes. The man is there so you can see how big it is, make from a Kauri tree.

 Just one tree!

Some of the detailed carving on the war canoe.

More of the details on the war canoe.

More details.

After the interlude with beautiful scenery we went to a Kauri forest. Kauri trees are closely related to our Sequoia and in many ways, better. They grow very, very large and they shed branches as they grow so they were perfect for the Waka that the Māori needed and also perfect for very long, very straight boards for building houses and large buildings. They are termite resistant and extremely strong. The oldest living tree is 2000 years old and the oldest known of was 4000 years old. They don't deteriorate under water and one has been found, preserved in water for 120,000 years.

A Kauri tree, absolutely straight for a 100 feet or more, and the same diameter under the branches 100 feet up as it is at the base.

The highlight of the tour, however, was our introduction to a Māori "tribe" (sort of like a family but a broader definition of family) in their Marae (pronounced marh-EYE) welcoming ceremony. We were not allowed to take photos of the ceremony itself but could of the building and its beautiful paintings and carvings after the ceremony. The building is made of kauri wood and is planned to last more than a thousand years. There are blank spaces for more carvings to be done every 100 years and the family that will do the carving in 2100 is already identified.

The outside of the Marae. We could not take any photos before the ceremony because of the ceremonial entrance we had to make (shoeless inside, women before men [so they could protect our backs]). Several speeches in Māori, translated by the Chief, then a speech by one of our tour group, then we were welcomed into the tribe and could take photos inside.

One of the female ancestors of the tribe.

Some of the beams (the blanks will be decorated in 2100) that to me are very reminiscent of native art in Alaska.

Then our last stop, the most visited toilet in New Zealand and arguably, the world. Have YOU ever travelled somewhere just to see a toilet? Apparently, a LOT of people do. And they come to the Bay of Islands. An architect, Bundertwasser (quite famous, according to the American architect [who designed about 13 of the worldwide Disneyworlds] we met on board), moved to Kawakawa, decided to help the town build a restroom, and stayed for the rest of his life, helping the town whenever he could.

Part of the exterior of the toilets.

The entrance to the toilets.

In case you can't find the toilets!

Enough of toilets!

So, are you still wondering about the heading of this blog, Waka Nui Nui? We had a discussion with the Māori guide who was talking about the Māori language, the second official language as well as the second most spoken language, and how the elders in Māori society have difficulty talking to the younger generation because of the number of new words being created that the elders don't recognize. Like a ship. First waka meant "canoe" which was the only method of transportation. Then came ship; they were called waka nui (big canoe). Now cruise ships are called waka nui nui, really big canoes. The younger generation is making up words that the elders don't recognize. They like "waka nui nui," it tells them everything they need to know about the cruise ship!

That's all for now. Another sea day tomorrow so I'll write and post photo of our winery trip to Waiheke and to Auckland.

Tonga Adventures...

Writing on New Year’s Eve, 2024

Where to start? We’ve been busily traveling through the South Pacific and have reached New Zealand. When you last heard from me, we were leaving the Society Islands, better known, perhaps, as French Polynesia. We went on to Tonga and then a lot of sea days before reaching New Zealand and our first three stops, Bay of Islands, Matiatia Bay, and Auckland. We are now sailing towards Wellington but will have to miss Kaikoura that we were supposed to visit the day after Wellington. It is not to be, thanks to the weather gods whom we have definitely not been pleasing lately! The good news is that we get to overnight in Wellington. Perhaps we’ll have dinner ashore?

Starting with Tonga. We had a long, ship-sponsored tour of the island. Not the best experience but it was an experience. Oh, boy, was it an experience. We knew the bus would be primitive (we were warned not to expect too much), but I at least thought it would have openable windows considering the temperatures were hovering in the low 90s---and the humidity was in the 90s as well. And the driver seemed to think that parking the bus in the sun was an admirable idea. We did not agree! They miscounted the number of visitors for the show and meal, and since we were in the very back of the bus and thus the last ones off the bus, they had to find seats for us to be able to eat and watch the show. As I said, it was an interesting adventure.

The lowlights highlights:

The women who served our lunch. They also danced for us later.

Same women dancing for us.

The men wore skirt as well.

An artistic use of old bicycle tires.

Flying foxes have a home on Tonga...

...and back we came to our home away from home, beautiful, airconditioned, Seabourn Quest!

We did a few other things on the tour, but none were memorable since I didn't take any photos of them!

Then we had three---or was it four?---sea days and on to beautiful New Zealand in my next post.

Uturoa, Raiatea photos only...

 December 16, 2024

Typical Polynesian town, Uturoa

We dock right in town.

typical young couple.

This is how close we are to town.

Boats are mostly stored like this, raised above the water.

This is a series of photos from a pearl farmer showing us how to implant the seed and how to harvest the black pearls from this area.

Little bit of a nervous walk out to the store on a very narrow walkway.

Randy (we didn't buy any pearls).

Taro, a staple in Polynesia (and Hawaii and the Cook Islands)

We stopped for refreshments with a local family.

The spread of fruits.

Dogs (and chickens) are everywhere.

A "moto" is apparently a very tiny island.

Another moto

And another.

Our tour guide did a hula on the bus for us. It was very beautiful in spite of the uncommon surroundings.