Land Ho! I see New Zealand

It was another long 5 Sea Days from Sydney Australia to Tauranga, New Zealand. We travelled over the North end of the North Island, and down the east Coast, past Auckland to Tauranga. This is the largest city in the Bay of Plenty. This huge Bay (161 miles of open coastline) was named by James Cook because of the enormous amount of resources supplied by the indigenous Māori settlements.

The Bay has numerous islands, including the active Whakaari/White Mountain volcano. Whakaari is New Zealand's most active cone volcano and has been built up by continuous volcanic activity over the past 150,000 years. It has been in a nearly continuous stage of releasing volcanic gas at least, since it was sighted by James Cook in 1769. It erupted in 2019 and resulted in 22 deaths and 25 injuries primarily of tourists from a nearby cruise ship who were exploring the island at the time. We could see the quiet island from our ship and from some of the tours that we took. However, this is the sight we saw as we were pulling out of the Bay of Plenty on our way to Wellington. It continued for a couple more days but this evening was the most they had seen for a while. Glad we were leaving.

Many of us took a Golf Cart Ride along a piece of New Zealand's rail history. Our ride was in cleverly adapted Golf Carts which were self-driven along rail tracks. We were in a 4 seater Golf Cart. Our "driver" had a Go foot pedal, a brake pedal, and an on-off key. Yes, there was a steering wheel but it was simply a toy. I was our designated "navigator". I held the 2-way radio and communicated with our Tour Leader/Guide. Since we were in the last car of our 10 car Train, my job was to say "Roger" whenever the Leader asked if we were doing OK back there. One time I did respond "Sorry, we are catching up after we stopped at the Saloon". Since all Carts had their own Radio, I heard a lot of chuckling. Our 3rd team member was in charge of Photography since neither the Driver nor the Navigator could focus on picture taking. The scenery was beautiful. We stopped along the way to visit the Gumboot Fence. There were several hundred boots nailed to the fence. We stopped for lunch and were provided a true Kiwi box lunch of Meat Pies and fruit. Alas, only juice to drink. We also discovered that Putin had stopped by the latrine. I was the only member of our 40 person group who was honored with a gift at the end of the trip - An honest to goodness Rail Road Spike. Tag reads "I rode the rails and I have this 90 year old railroad spike to prove it". Our Tour Guide/Leader Owner of Awakeri Rail Adventures was a 30 year retired policeman who was a fun flirt. I may have a boyfriend in NZ when I return in 3.5 years.

While I was living in N Carolina I volunteered with an international sailing group out of the UK. I was the Beaufort Port Officer for the Ocean Cruising Club (OCC) and as such I met any member cruiser who might sail into Beaufort or Morehead City. There are over 250 OCC Port Officers around the world and I had dinner with one in Tauranga. I contacted Bruce by e-mail and then he met me after the Train ride. He and I went for pizza and beer at a wonderful local hangout. Then his wife and some friends of their daughter joined us. It was a great night - pizza, beer, and new friends. They walked me back thru the town as it was shutting down for the night. Reminded me so much of Beaufort after the busy day is over and the quiet peacefulness takes over. All Aboard that evening was at 10:00pm so I had to be home while the porchlight was still on. We pulled out of Tauranga as the moon came up and my heart was full.

And then....another 5 days at sea. Ordinarily this would be a 5 day trip down to the southern-most tip of the North Island but we (VVR) had not met one of the NZ requirements to enter New Zealand waters. They had allowed us one day in Tauranga and then we had to go off-shore 13 miles to get our ship bottom cleaned. Opps. Somebody screwed up. So out we went. And then, of course, bad weather was rolling in and just try to imagine being under water trying to scrape a 680 ft hull in rolling seas. No happy divers. So instead of the 2 days forecasted to complete the job and another day for them to take pictures and send into the "officials", we got to spend 4 days bobbing around out at sea. It was not too bad for most of us, but those with tours planned or flights to catch were really not happy. But we finally passed inspection and forged on to Wellington.

However, as occasionally happens on cruise ships, we had our first helicopter evacuation while we were offshore. One of our residents had a medical emergency and we were all told to bring our balcony furniture and any loose items into our cabin for a helicopter arrival. It turned out that the arrival, lowering of the medic, and the lifting of the patient all happened above my balcony. I can happily say that the patient is doing well and expects to return to the Odyssey next week. The medical team, Captain, and Crew were highly praised for their good work. It turned out that the wife was not allowed to take pictures so she was thrilled to get these pictures after it was all done.

I did accomplish a couple of things off of my long list of things to do while at sea. It was definitely getting colder and I was not happy. Not only was it too rough to go walking around the Deck 5 open deck, it was also too damn cold. So, it was definitely time to pull out everything from under my bed and find my winter clothes. Found quite a bit of stuff that I had forgotten I had, but the gloves, long sleeved shirts, 2 sweaters, and jackets were a happy find. And Sea Days are a perfect time to have cocktail parties on the balcony before the sun goes down.

Cocktails & Sunsets

Wellington is the Capital city of New Zealand. And for what it is worth - it is the world's southernmost capital of a sovereign state. And is the world's windiest city by average wind speed. It also has a huge botanical garden. And for someone who DOES NOT count their steps per day, I can confirm that I walked 15,679 steps in one day in Wellington. We did the Gardens, hunted for a liquor store, drug store, grocery store and even a cheap Junk Jewelry store (more on why later). Marathon shopping day and my tired legs agreed.

Our first stop on the South island was the small town of Lyttleton which was a 25 minute bus ride from Christchurch. The port of Lyttleton reminded me of the Morehead City port because there were thousands of pine tree logs waiting to be placed into container ships and shipped overseas for processing before being send back to NZ for processing into particle board or other products. The street picture boasts that this is the Steepest Road in the world.. Looks a lot like Lombardi Street in San Francisco. I did not walk it!

Speaking of walking...another marathon walking day for me.....all over downtown Christchurch. It is a beautiful old town but was hit by an earthquake in 2022 and devastated buildings that they thought were quake-proof. Lovely river running through town and we stopped for a cool cocktail before catching the bus back to Lyletton.

Continuing our trek south we headed to Dunedin and a real train ride this time. We had 3 bus loads of us taking a 4.5 hour train ride through the interior of the South Island. The 1st picture is the beautiful train station. We rode through mountains, valleys with river rapids, saw homes where people truly lived off-the-grid, a beautiful horse farm and race track, and little bitty train stops that are still used by people who want to go backing, fishing or just hiking thru this beautiful area. And I thought Texas had wide-open-spaces. New Zealanders would laugh at the size of our Ranches.

After leaving Dunedin and New Zealand we headed west for, how many Sea Days? Yep..5 more Sea Days until we get to Melbourne, Australia. On our first night out about 100 residents participated in a Mystery Night - A Mystery Among the Gods. I was assigned to be Vesta, the Roman Goddess of the Hearth. Half of the residents were Roman and the other half were Greek but we were all Gods and Goddesses. If you were Greek, you wore a white Toga. If you were Roman, you wore Maroon and Gold. The party began at 3:00 in the afternoon and ended around 11:00pm. Costumes were made by residents with sewing machines, accessories (tiara'a, bracelets, earrings, arm bands, etc) were loaned, borrowed or bought by all of us to share. All done in the name of fun. As you can see, we had a Greek God who was the God of Uranus - white Toga with a brown spot on the back of his Toga (he put the brown spot on himself - we didn't ask).

And so I say goodnight as we head back to Australia for a long exploration around this amazing continent.