Hi to All,

My blogging morale sort of fell apart yesterday. We were all day at sea with no land in sight, no pictures and no comments at all on my last absorbing blog, which I honestly thought was comment worthy. But, I won’t be discouraged—onward and upward!

With so much time on my hands, I have been reading Bill Bryson’s “In a Sunburned Country,” his travel commentary about Australia. I am about 2/3 of the way through the book and he has already made three trips to Australia because it’s such a time consuming thing to see all of it. The United States and Australia are about the same size, but Australia only has about 22 million people while the US has more like 316 million. So, needless to say, there is a lot of empty space with no decent roads in Australia, which makes it quite hard to travel in comprehensively. Road trips take on a whole new meaning!

This ship, the Viking Orion, is relatively small as far as cruises go—about 950 people on board. Since this is a smaller ship, they have a lot of special lunch and dinner events. Yesterday it was grilled Cuban sandwiches and today it was Italian with freshly made pasta. One day it was Caesar Salad with grilled shrimp, salmon or halibut. One can get something to eat on this ship anytime from 6:30 AM to 12 PM, which is handy if one happens to be a glutton.

Tomorrow we will be in Tasmania. The only thing I really know about Tasmania is that they have an animal there called the Tasmanian Devil, which is now an endangered species. And probably the only reason I knew that is because of the Looney Tunes character, Taz.

I have only one eavesdropping event to report. The other night we were waiting for our reservation at a specialty restaurant on the ship (meaning fancy stuff with a mile long description). As we were standing there, this tiny little man, who I probably had at least 9 inches and 40 pounds on, came racing out of the restaurant, looked right at us and spit out disgustedly, “They only have French wines in this restaurant! Unbelievable! I’m leaving.” Then he raced off. So, is there a group of wine aficionados who detest French wines? I think I must be missing something. Oh, and on a side note, it doesn’t cost extra to eat at this restaurant and wines are complimentary, so no one was forcing him to drink French wine.

Dear Everyone,

We are at sea all day tomorrow and to quite be truthful, I am looking forward to a day of just hanging out—no buses, trains, 4X4s, taxis, speed boats, or trams.

Today we rode on the Dunedin train through the Taieri River Gorge. The weather was lovely all day, but it started to drizzle on the way down, and it turned cloudy and cold—about 55 degrees. I know 55 isn’t that cold, but we thought it would be hot since it’s the middle of the summer here, so we brought only hot weather clothes. Doug has already gone shopping to buy a long-sleeved shirt and a windbreaker. I have one jacket and one sweater with me, and they are getting quite a workout.

As we sailed out of port tonight, someone spotted a gaggle (group?) of the Southern Royal Albatross. Albatross have a wing span of up to eight feet and have been known to fly 10,000 miles at a time. It was too far away and too rainy to take a picture, so I found a couple:

“Water, water everywhere and

All the boards did shrink

Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink”

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Ann’s Eavesdroppers’ Corner

At the beginning of our four wheel drive trip yesterday, a lady completely freaked out because there was a bee on the bus. All of the sudden, she jumped up and screamed, “We have a major problem! There’s a bee on this bus and I’m allergic!” Then she ran off the bus sneaking looks behind her like someone was chasing her. On her way out, one hapless guy said, “It’s in a web” (I took that to mean it was dead), and she yelled in a kind of mean voice, “I don’t care where it is. I’m deathly allergic!”

So, the tour guide got the dead bee out of the bus and told her it was all clear. I heard him ask if she had an Epipen. Reasonable question, right? But she snottily said, “No, I don’t have one with me” like the guy was a complete idiot for asking. So, we are on a four wheel drive trip seeing the back country far away from any medical care and this woman didn’t bring an Epipen for her deadly bee allergy? Does this sound like a smart move to you?

But the bee saga gets even dumber. The guy sitting in front of me (let’s call him John) said that his father was very allergic to bee stings, but John has not been tested because the allergist said that the test could kill him. (Huh?) So, John concluded that he doesn’t know whether he is allergic to bee stings or not. The guy John was talking to asked, “Have you ever been stung by a bee?” John’s answer: “Yes a couple of times but it didn’t really affect me.”

Dear All,

Greetings from Christchurch! It was another day of perfect weather here—around 66 degrees and sunny. The tour we were on today was called the “High Country Explorer.” The first part was a bus ride through Christchurch to get to the Southern Alps (that’s what they call them) with the bus driver, Kris, providing commentary. You probably remember that Christchurch had two fairly large earthquakes, the first in 2010 and the second in 2011. I looked it up when I got back to the ship, and earthquakes are a fairly common occurrence here. In fact, in the last five years, they have had thousands of them from magnitudes of 1.1 to 6.2. Seems a bit iffy.

The second part was a fairly tame 4X4 vehicle drive through the mountains. Lovely scenery.

Finally, we boarded a super-fast jet boat (I read that part in the literature a bit too late), driven by a crazed New Zealand maniac. We commenced speeding up the Waimakariri River, often careening dangerously close to the steep-walled gorge or alternately, perilously close to the gravel bars in the middle or on the sides of the river. These boats need about four feet of water to get going, but then at full speed can skim across water that is only about four inches deep. Since it’s so shallow, it often seemed as if we were going to run up on a gravel bank and be flipped out of the boat. And just to make it more exciting, our crazed boat driver did a number of 360 degree turns that would almost knock us out of the boat, with an aftershock of having 45 degree water splashed all over us. Sometimes it’s hard to draw the line between what’s fun and what’s just plain terrifying. This was one of those times.

Who Knew? Kind of Fun Fact for the Day:

The Waimakariri is a braided river. A braided river or braided channel, consists of a network of river channels, separated by small, often temporary islands, called braid bars. Our tour guide said that braided rivers are only in New Zealand, Alaska and Nepal.

What the heck? No wonder I thought we were in imminent danger! If I had known what a braided river really was, I wouldn’t have set foot in that super-fast jet boat.

Dear All,

Today we are in Wellington, the capitol of New Zealand. Wellington is located at the southern tip of North Island. Tomorrow we head to Christchurch, which is on the South Island. If you aren’t sure of the geography of New Zealand, see map below:

This afternoon we took a bus to the Zealandia Eco Sanctuary. When the settlers came here in the mid 1800’s, they introduced mammals like pigs, dogs, rats, rabbits and of course, the detestable possum. Apparently, this wreaked havoc on the original New Zealand bush and wildlife because until then, most of the birds and so forth did not have many natural enemies. So, twenty years ago, conservationists built an impervious fence around about 500 acres close to Wellington, and are reintroducing many species of wildlife that were extinct, largely birds.

Are you bored yet? I kind of was. But it was actually cool to see what the bush would have looked like before all the slash and burn agriculture.

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For those of you who have read my previous blogs, you know I have both pleasant and not so pleasant experiences with my fellow tourees and tour guides. Today’s experiences:

So, we saw a movie at the beginning of our Zoolander, I mean Zealandia, experience. It showed the indigenous animals like the Moa, a flightless bird who became extinct in about 1445 when they were hunted by the Maori. The Moa was approximately 12 feet tall and weighed about 500 pounds. The whole point of the movie was how many animals/birds were hunted and preyed upon to the point of extinction. They showed CGI (Julie taught me this lingo—Computer Generated Imagery) of the Moa that looked somewhat like the picture below:

So, after the movie, one guy asked our tour guide if the Moa is extinct. Really, dude? Have you seen any prehistoric 500 pound 12 foot high flightless birds around lately? What a dumb ass. (Sorry, Mom.)

Also, another weird moment. At the end of the apparently super realistic movie, our tour guide, Aux (or Ox?) asked us to check our purses and backpacks for lizards, rats or mice before we went into the area with the impervious fence, because nothing like that can be introduced to the inner eco sanctuary. And Aux/Ox was dead serious! So, just to play his little kooky game, I checked. Thankfully, I was transporting none of the above in my Baggallini (translation: tiny purse).

Dear Everyone,

Today we rode The Hawke’s Bay Express around Napier, a sweet little city beside the ocean which has an amazing concentration of Art Deco architecture. Apparently, much of Napier was razed by an earthquake in 1931, and the city was built back in the next three years in the Art Deco style. The Hawkes Bay Express is hard to describe, but it is a lot like the conch tour trams in Key West, but tarted up to look like a train built in the 30’s. And there is only one of these vehicles, built by Richard, a Napier native, and his father. Richard was our tour guide, and his wife, Krista, was his sidekick.

After our thrilling train/tram ride, we walked around the city and admired the Art Deco architecture.

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Random Thoughts:

Napier is an exporting seaport—primarily wool, fruit, wine, lumber and meat. And with the cruises that come in to port, tourism has become another viable source of income.

We expected it to be hot here, but so far we have had beautiful sunny days of mostly low seventies. No humidity, so really perfect weather.

I have noticed that not all of the pictures come through on the email that is generated from my posts. If you want the full-on experience, you need to click on the link to go to the website. You will not want to miss anything on this super exciting trip!

Kia Ora from New Zealand!

Today we visited the Whakarewarewa Maori Culture Center in Rotorua. And no, I have no idea how to pronounce Whakarewarewa. For those of you who work crosswords or know your history of New Zealand, the Maori are the indigenous people who were here about 600 years before the Europeans showed up. Kia Ora is their traditional greeting. At the center we saw a presentation of traditional ceremonies, dances and songs of the Maori people, which was surprisingly entertaining. (I say surprisingly because you just never know what you’re getting yourself into with these deals.) This is a picture:

Not sure what it is all about, but it sure was loud and it looked like they were having a good time.

The other part of the center is a geothermal area, which pretty much reminds me of Yellowstone National Park, but with a completely different landscape.

We were also supposed to see Kiwi Birds there, but it was kind of weird deal. Kiwis are nocturnal, so you don’t see them in the day very often. So in captivity (anyway in this case), the building—really a tunnel—was completely dark and felt a bit like we had entered a Halloween horror house. Doug said he thought he saw one on a nest, but I couldn’t see a dang thing. It just looked like a really bad diorama.

When we are on vacation, Doug always wants to buy a couple of souvenirs to gaze at with fond memories, as well as to take home and junk up our shelves. Today, since our recent Kiwi “sighting” was still fresh, we came back with these with these little guys. In this pic they are enjoying our balcony as we pulled away from shore.

Dear Everyone,

Today was our last day in Aukland. We left the port at 6 PM tonight and tomorrow morning we will wake up in in Rotorua, New Zealand. This morning we rode another ferry over to the North Shore and climbed Victoria Mountain which is actually a dormant volcano. Gorgeous views from the top:

Since we wanted to pack as much fun into today as possible, we took a bus tour of the city this afternoon. Ha! Our cruise line has at least one free guided tour per day with a local guide, and they are well worth the money. He took us to the Wintergardens, which were established in the Victorian Age:

Who Knew? Daily Fun Fact:

Aukland is known as the “City of Sails” and has more boats per capita than almost anywhere else in the world.

Dear All,

Today we boarded our ship around noon. After traveling for a week and schlepping our bags all over, we were ready to get on board, settle in and unpack our clothes. It took us a bit longer to get on because I answered the health survey honestly and said we had spent four nights in Honolulu. Big mistake. They took us aside and “quarantined” us until the ship nurse could come and take our temperature. While we were waiting I worried needlessly that I was running a fever because I was so hot. Luckily, I was heat hot, not fever hot, and we were allowed on. Yay! Not sure why Honolulu was a problem, because people who came from the Continental US were fine to board.

While we were waiting to board, we went shopping to find Doug some sunglasses. I noticed that several places were selling “Possum Merino Cashmere.” Since Merino is a breed of sheep and cashmere is from Kashmir goats, I found this pretend possum product perplexing.

Should possum and luxury ever be in the same advert? I think bloody not!

Who Knew? Daily Fun Fact:

In about 1837, the brushtail possum was introduced in New Zealand to benefit the fur industry. When fur became an unwanted commodity, the possum population had no natural enemies and grew to 70 million. And since they spent their evenings munching though the bush, they became the biggest pest in NZ. Plus, they are really ugly. So there is a cottage industry here to turn their pelts into fine clothing. And the carcasses are either made into a dog food called Possyyum, or shipped to China where they are considered a delicacy. One of the cute little guys pictured below:

Dear All,

Yesterday we had a an 8 1/2 flight from Honolulu to Auckland on New Zealand Air. Things to note:

• We overslept because Doug thought his iPad alarm at 6 AM was a dog barking. I didn’t hear it at all.
• We made it anyway, but without showers and no makeup for me. Yuk!
• I saw a girl in the Honolulu Airport who had stocking seams tattooed down the backs of her legs (see silk stockings with seams, circa WWII).
• Our flight attendant, Michael, had on a tag that said “Wine Specialist.” Totally a New Zealand thing, because there are so many vineyards and wineries here.

So, today. We took a ferry out to Waiheke Island this morning, which is about 30 minutes from the Auckland Pier. When we got there we rented a car and drove around the island. Wineries aplenty and gorgeous scenery, like this:

We stopped at the Man of War Winery for lunch. And just to prove Doug is really here:

So, we loved Waiheke Island, but the slightly disappointing thing about the Aukland Pier and waterfront is that they are busily readying the streets, buildings and so forth for the America’s Cup to be held in 2021. So, a bit of a mess and no pictures, except for the Queen Elizabeth, which is in port here:

Dear Everyone,

Today we spent most of the day at Pearl Harbor. What a sobering place to visit, but so much a part of our history. Approximately 2,400 American soldiers lost their lives there.

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 a date which will live in infamy the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Tomorrow morning we fly out of Honolulu at 9:30 AM on Air New Zealand for a 9 hour flight to Auckland. So, we sadly say “Aloha” to our trip down memory lane in Hawaii.