Wellington, New Zealand

January 26 was a sea day during which I managed to write the text for the Bay of Islands Blog.  Michael liked it so much that he edited it slightly and used it on his blog (with attribution and my permission.)  We were both using his computer until that point.  My power supply cable was lost somewhere on the way to the Silver Whisper, possibly when I removed the computer from its backpack at the Denver airport.  The computer support specialist, David, was able to order a new cable from Dell for delivery at Auckland. I was most relieved and grateful that it arrived as promised.  I spent a lot of time on the sea day between Auckland and Wellington transferring files and pictures and never did get the blog posted. It is now January 31 as I write this.  We have been busy four days straight visiting Wellington, Akaroa, Dunedin and cruising Dusky and Milford Sounds. I posted the Bay of Island blog this morning.

We docked at Wellington, New Zealand's capital, Sunday January 28.  New Zealand is pretty laid back most of the time but especially so on Sundays.  Our plan was to avoid the tours, explore the downtown, the civic square, and visit the Te Papa Museum.  We accomplished all our objectives. Silversea provided a complimentary shuttle bus to the downtown business district.  Michael and I were on the first one at 9:00 AM. We were in a nearby McDonald's by 9:30 to use the free Wi-Fi and check e-mail.

The Wellington cable car to Kelburn at the top of one of the mountains surrounding the small city was just down an alley from McDonald's.  We purchased round trip tickets and spent a pleasant hour or so wandering the Cable Car Museum, the Botanic Gardens and the Carter Observatory on top. Back in the city, Michael and I strolled east on Lambton Quay to the parliament buildings.  Lambton Quay is a street that runs where the original waterfront was before the Wellington city leaders decided in the late eighteen hundreds to fill part of the harbor to make more land for downtown expansion.  All of New Zealand is earthquake prone.  As a result, stone buildings built on landfill suffer frequent damage.  Interestingly, wooden structures often survive while stone ones do not.  Oddly enough, the second largest wooden building in the world is in Wellington. In general, Wellington architecture is a mix of styles and materials.  Since the major earthquake of 2011, the building codes in all of New Zealand have been revised requiring stronger foundations and earthquake resistant construction. We saw a number of major buildings posted with condemned signs.  There is still controversy whether to demolish them and build new or spend small fortunes retrofitting historic buildings. As a result, many condemned buildings are just sitting there.

Michael and I looked at the current government buildings (steel, stone and glass) and the old government buildings, now used as the courthouse (wooden) then walked on Bunny Street to the railway station.   The terminal is a 1920's structure, somewhat updated and still in daily use.  There appears to be a reasonably vibrant local rail system and some long distance service as well.

We returned to the Whisper for lunch.  Nothing much beyond the aforementioned McDonald's was open on a Wellington Sunday.  After lunch, we took the shuttle bus again to the spot marked on the tourist map as the drop off point for cruise ship tourists.  We were sharing the day in Wellington with tourists from another cruise ship, the Crystal Symphony.  It was amusing that some Crystal passengers each trip tried to get on the Whisper shuttle bus but no Silversea passengers ever tried to board the Crystal shuttle.  There were far more of them so perhaps the odds of them messing up were greater.  I like to think that Silversea passengers are more discriminating.

I had plotted out a route along the shoreline for Michael's and my walk to the TePapa Tongarewa or New Zealand National Museum.  We saw many people out for a Sunday stroll in the waterfront parks.  There were families and groups of young people walking, laughing and talking .  Jumping into the water seemed to be a big sport among the young men.  We saw a sign explaining a complicated looking old steam crane. The towering crane has been partially restored; a preservation group was raising money to complete it.  We came upon a farmers market and food fair near the museum.  The vendors were packing up at 1:00 PM but we saw an array of international fast food that smelled intriguing and wonderfully attractive.  The vegetables on display were very large and colorful.

The museum itself is modern and well done.  Michael and I are not used to so many interactive exhibits but the youngsters were enjoying them a lot. Tired after seeing three extensive exhibits, we found a Wi-Fi hot spot on the second floor.  I sat and rested while Michael called another Boulder friend on Skype. The Silver Whisper was scheduled to sail at 5:30 PM and we wanted to catch the next to last shuttle bus to the ship by 4:00.  In order to get back to the pickup point we needed to leave the museum by 3:30. We made a whirlwind tour of the Maori exhibits for the next half hour and headed back.  The Te Papa is a museum I would like to spend several days exploring sometime.

The weather in often-windy Wellington had been sunny, clear and warm.  We had a marvelous day seeing the sights.  Michael had not been able to dock on his previous cruise visit due to high winds. I was happy that he finally had a chance to see a new place though not a new country.

We enjoyed another sail out past beautiful scenery while enjoying a beverage on the rear deck.

Auckland, New Zealand

The Silver Whisper arrived at Auckland early on Friday, January 25, 2013.  Similarly to the Bay of Islands, we sailed through many small islands into a relatively sheltered harbor.  Unlike Bay of Islands, however, Auckland is a city.  It is the largest city in New Zealand and has a skyline to prove it.  We docked at Queens Wharf right in the central business district, next to the ferry building. There are only two wharves designed to handle cruise ships. Nearby there are several more wharves with huge cranes for loading and unloading large container ships. Auckland is actually a rather small city.  As we docked, we observed a very large Princess ship at the Princess Wharf to our west and a large shoe box like ship unloading automobiles at the adjacent wharf to the east.  The historic and picturesque ferry building was only a few steps away street side between the two cruise ships.

Michael and I headed to the ferry building as soon as customs agents cleared the ship for passengers to leave.  We planned to take the first ferry to Rangitoto Island, a volcano now restored to natural flora and fauna and preserved by the New Zealand National Trust. We purchased our tickets and waited the half hour until departure by having espresso at a dockside gelato shop that offered free Internet.  It was a relief to check e-mail and find that nothing has happened back home that requires our attention.  Michael was even able to make a Skype phone call to a friend in Boulder.  Our house is o.k.  No pipes burst during a recent cold spell that had Boulder temperatures falling to well below zero Fahrenheit for the first time in about five years.

We had a sunny ferry ride to Rangatoto by way of a stop at Devon, an Auckland suburb. There the ferry picked up a small high school's complement of students and their teachers, also on their way to the nature preserve. We encountered sub groups of them at various points during our hike to the summit of the volcano.  The young people were uniformly polite and friendly.

The hike reminded me of how out of shape I have become living at sea level and eating gourmet food three of four times a day.  I reached the thousand foot summit breathless but happy to have made the climb.  The views of the harbor and surroundings were wonderful.  Michael took some panorama shots with his I-Phone.  We both took lots of regular camera shots too.

The Rangatoto volcano formed some six hundred years ago and has repeatedly had lava flows, as recently as seventy years ago.  The cone is covered with vegetation now but some bare lava remains on the flanks of the volcano.  The indigenous New Zealand plants are strange.  The Auckland region has a sub tropical climate, running to ferns and succulents. Rangatoto has a forest of rare Pohutukowa trees that have red feather like flowers.  They call it the 'Christmas Tree' as it bloom around Christmas time – midsummer here. Native birds and plants have been reintroduced as pests such as rats and possums have been eradicated.  The whole place is fascinating.

Michael and I returned to Auckland just after 1:00 PM.  We set out along the harbor to find a place for a late lunch.  We were tempted by some wonderful looking hot dogs sold from a stand next to the Princess Wharf but we persevered for a few blocks until we found a sidewalk café by the boat basin that served real food as opposed to fast food.  We enjoyed fish and chips made with a local fresh-caught fish and had some local beer.  It was all good.

We strolled around the Viaduct Yacht Basin and climbed to Queen Street, the main shopping street in the city.  Michael and I saw a good bit of the downtown shopping district as we embarked on a quest for a replacement watch battery.  We had tried unsuccessfully to have the battery replaced in Papeete.  Too unusual, they said.  A woman in a local bookstore suggested a jewelry and watch store on lower Queen Street.  I felt out of place in a store selling Rolexes and Pate Philippe high-end watches, asking for a battery for an inexpensive Timex.  The sales clerk said they had it!  The only thing unusual about the watch battery is that is lithium rather than the more common metal hydride.  That merely means more expensive. We returned three quarters of an hour later, paid $25 New Zealand and I had a working everyday watch.

Mission accomplished, Michael and I returned to the Silver Whisper to watch the sail away while sipping cocktails on the rear deck.

Bay of Islands

Finally, real, honest to goodness land appeared on the horizon.  Our Pacific Ocean crossing was complete.  Michael and I woke early Thursday morning to see the headlands of the Bay of Islands on the horizon.  It took a few minutes of staring before I convinced myself that I was seeing substantial land as opposed to another hunk of rock with a reef around it.  The sight of the iconic "hole in the rock" was convincing proof that this was indeed the Bay of Islands.

The sum shone and the temperature was in the comfortable mid seventies.  Silver Whisper anchored well out in the bay.  The tender ride to shore at the Waitangi Wharf took more than the advertised half hour.  Almost a hundred passengers piled aboard the tender.  The helmsman backed us away from the ship.  Suddenly there was a lot of back and forth radio chatter.  The Staff Captain, second in command of the ship, appeared in the tender bay and ordered us to await a safety officer.  Even though the helmsman had piloted a tender ashore to the Waitangi Wharf many times, new regulations require that a safety officer be the first to bring a tender ashore in a new port: another consequence of the wreck of the Costa Concordia.

Eventually the other ship's tender appeared around the Whisper's bow.  Some minutes of maneuvering passed and a safety officer jumped from one tender to the other.  He displaced the helmsman at the controls and piloted us to shore as per the new regulations.

Waitangi Wharf sits in isolation by the Waitangi Yacht Club and a now dowdy upscale hotel, at the entrance to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds.  The area is a National Trust site commemorating the 1840 treaty between the Maori chieftains and the British that established New Zealand as a British colony and ultimately a nation.  The wharf is scenic in the extreme. Shuttle buses waited to take us across a narrow one-lane bridge to the very touristy town of Paihia. 

The New Zealand summer holiday runs from Christmas through January.  Paihia was full of tourists from all over New Zealand and Australia celebrating the last week of their summer break.  Tour buses filled the street.  Mobile homes and vans filled the parking lots a block from the main street.  A helicopter took off and landed every ten to fifteen minutes taking tourists "flightseeing" around the bay.

Michael and I paused briefly to view the artisanal merchandise on sale in tents on the village green then set out to hike to the top of a scenic overlook nearby.  Less than a block from the main road, we were essentially alone.  Paihia is a very small place with few streets inland from the shore shops and beaches.  Half a mile from the shore, we were in wilderness.  We walked up School Street, past the Paihia School, many bed and breakfasts and rental cottages and came to the head of a well-marked hiking trail. 

The trail began in a boggy area, full of plants I had never seen before and soon climbed steeply.  We walked through trees, giant ferns and bushes that were totally unfamiliar.  An hour of strenuous exercise and we arrived at a lookout point where we could see our ship in the bay and could view islands in various shades of green dotted all about.  We couldn't linger because we had to be back at Waitangi Wharf by 12:30 PM to take our scheduled tour.  As we exited the trail, we passed two young New Zealanders starting the walk.  The woman was wearing flip-flops and the young man was barefoot.  Michael made a comment about his lack of footwear and the young man said he was wearing "Samoan sandals."  New Zealanders really are not afraid of anything but apparently do not think highly of Samoans.  Then again, no one in the Pacific seems to think highly of Samoans.

Our tour of the Kawiti Glow Worm Caves and Kawakawa actually took us in a large circle east, south, west and back north to Paihia.  We saw the glowworms as we walked through the cave, a private, family run operation by descendants of a Maori warrior chief. The ceiling and walls are occupied by tens of thousands of unique creatures that emit a blue green light. 

During a scenic drive from the cave during which we saw a Maori burial grounds and our first emu in the wild, we stopped in the small town of Kawakawa.  Originally established as a coal-mining town, it developed into a tourist destination after the mines shut down.  An immigrant named Handwasser built a bizarre public toilet that looks as if Art Deco met Salvador Dali. The toilets and an excursion train down the middle of the street draw visitors who Michael says are easily amused from all over New Zealand.

The tour continued west and north through the countryside and through some small towns hard hit by the closing of a dairy processing plant and a meat packing plant.  The North Island of New Zealand raises dairy and beef cattle.  Consolidation and modernization have led to high unemployment.  Modern plants are fewer in number and hire fewer workers per plant.  Our bus driver, formerly a local welder, hopes that expansion of the timber industry will bring jobs back to the area.

The last stop on our tour was at the Haruru Falls.  This was a miniature Niagra-like waterfall by the bridge at Haruru Road.  We all piled out of the bus and took pictures. I think it is the largest waterfall on the North Island.

Unintended Consequences 1/23/2013

Today, as nothing much is happening aboard Silver Whisper, I thought it may be amusing to reflect on a number of things that have happened on our cruise through the South Pacific.  We have come nearly seven thousand miles from Los Angeles and have seen a lot of empty ocean.  The color of the water changes from time to time.  Occasionally a bird appears.  We have visited only five islands in almost three weeks.  Two of those visits were rain drenched; two others rain splashed. Two thirds of our sea days have been at least partly rainy, but oddly enough we have had a great time with lectures, cooking demonstrations and much comfortable reading by the pool between rain showers.  But as a result of the many sea days, small happenings aboard ship become the subject of raging gossip.  We tend to magnify things well beyond their real importance. Though, some things really are important.

Silver Whisper was scheduled to stop at Rarotonga in the Cook Islands on Saturday, January 19.  The day was mostly bright and sunny.  We saw a few showers on the island's mountain center as we approached but they quickly burned off.  By the time we arrived at the anchorage we were in brilliant sunshine. Rarotonga has no sheltered anchorage.  It is a mostly round volcanic island with reefs close in to its rocky shore.  The tiny pier near the town of Avarua had a breakwater big enough only for a tender to land. The ship remained offshore in moderate swell, unable to anchor or launch its tenders.  After the Silver Whisper hovered at the anchorage point for a few minutes, the Captain came on the loudspeaker system to announce that it would not be safe to launch any tenders due to the swell.  We would be heading straight to New Zealand, two thousand miles away.

Michael and I took some pictures of Rarotonga as viewed from the sea.  Notice the picture of the tender handlers waiting for the order that never came to lower the tender.   This was a close as we were going to get.  Michael had been at the same exact place four years ago in late 2008 with the exact same result. Mark, the Shore Concierge, told us that he was 0 for three attempts at landing.  There is good reason that Rarotonga is considered a remote and inaccessible island.  The unintended consequence of missing Rarotonga is that we will have a full day at our next anchorage, New Zealand's Bay of Islands, instead of the planned half day stop. This part is good.

The event that triggered my starting this blog entry with the title Unintended Consequences wasn't as good.  It has to do with the ineptitude of the laundry department.  More than a week ago, right after our afternoon in Nuku Hiva, I discovered that a pair of my pants was missing from the afternoon laundry delivery.  One of the privileges of having more than 100 paid days on Silversea is that one gets free laundry.  Every two or three days we hang a bag of dirty laundry outside our door in the morning and sometime that afternoon it reappears in our closet, clean and pressed. Nice - when it works.  Our butler is in charge of pickup and delivery.  The laundry department, somewhere in the bowels of the ship does the work. 

This time an item was missing.  I gave our butler a description of the missing pants (tan).  Several hours later a pair of XXL gym shorts (dirty white) appeared.  I sent them back with a better description of the missing pants.  We waited a few days and escalated the problem to the Guest Relations Manager.  This was when we found out that there was a problem of misdelivered laundry on the entire ship.  My pants remained missing for well over a week.  Michael was of the opinion that they had been placed in another passenger's closet, possibly one who had left the ship at Papeete or even a world cruiser, and wouldn't be discovered until that passenger unpacked, or possibly months later when she tried to wear them and they were too small.

We negotiated a credit for the value of the pants and almost forgot the incident.  Except. . .

One evening, a day after a recent formal dinner, a pair of pantyhose was missing.  By now I was carefully checking the items returned against the list included when the laundry was sent.  Our butler found them almost immediately.  Two days ago Michael wanted to wear his special Dilbert tee shirt ("I'm not unemployed, I'm a consultant.") We could not find it anywhere in the closet. It had been sent to be washed in one of the early laundries. I went to the Guest Relations Manager.  She remembered Michael wearing it.  She immediately phoned the laundry and I heard her say "It is? Have it sent to suite 423."  Apparently it had been hanging on the wall in the laundry awaiting someone's identification.

Last evening, as I was leaving the suite for dinner, the Housekeeping Manager came bouncing down the hallway, my pants on a hanger in her hand.  Another passenger had, indeed, found them in her closet.  Fortunately for all it was sooner rather than later.

I mentioned unintended consequences.  We had been told that the laundry crew was new.  The traditional Chinese laundrymen had been replaced with inexperienced Indonesians.  Laundry had been constantly misdelivered all over the ship.  They were to put it charitably, "in training."  Actually they weren't tagging the items correctly.  The full story seems to be: after the cruise ship Concordia struck a rock and turned over in the Mediterranean last year safety and security standards have been increased worldwide.  Silversea's Chinese laundry contractor employed people who did not speak any English.  They couldn't understand when safety drills were in progress. At least some English is now required so that everyone can understand and participate in the safety drills.  Hence the increased English requirement meant Silversea hired a new contractor who supplied staff that understands English.  They just can't do laundry very well.

Another unintended consequence: sitting on the port side of the pool deck had become somewhat unpleasant because food service carts and workers are constantly bringing food and taking away empty pans from the newly expanded pool food service.  We can now get breakfast, lunch, midday snacks and dinner by the pool.  The hot rocks dinner I mentioned in an earlier post is wonderful.  Lunch often has a "surprise" special presentation – paella, Panini, barbeque to name a few.  These are uniformly excellent.  The problem is that the ship was not designed with a way to get the food to and from the service elevator at the rear to the grill and serving station at the front of the pool deck.  The food is terrific; the traffic back and forth, not.  Compared to the laundry issues, however, this is a small quibble.    When one is at sea for so long, everything becomes a big deal.

Our long sea crossing of the Pacific will be over tomorrow when we will be reaching New Zealand where we will be spending the better part of a week.

 

 

Nuku Hiva

Rangiroa

Moorea