New Zealand – day 10 (Bay of Islands, October 27)
Oh you have got to be kidding! Last day… ALREADY? Seriously?
Ripped off.
Well, in the last 8 days, we’ve gone from the mid-winter cold and rain in Dunedin to our final port of call, the Bay of Islands, and it’s a pleasant 24 degrees Celsius.
Not sure if you could hire a car here or not. I don’t recall seeing a car hire depot anywhere. But, the point was moot, on the grounds that the cruise ship had shuttle buses running back and forth between the wharf at Waitangi, Treaty House, and the township of Paihia (pronounced “pie here”). And that whole loop only took about 15 mins at most.
After alighting at the wharf, we walked to the Treaty House via the beach, a pleasant 10 minute stroll.
The Treaty House is the house where the Maori people (or more specifically, their appointed Chiefs) signed a deal with the Colonials (essentially, the British Government) that stated that the British could colonise the land, but that the land would forever remain the property of the Maori people.
Clearly, they didn’t make the same mistake as the Australian aboriginals.
After we’d checked out the Treaty House (and the accompanying Meeting House, and the Maori war canoes), we caught the shuttle bus around to Paihia and bought ourselves some ferry tickets for the ride across to the town of Russell on the other side of the bay.
Russell is home to the Duke of Marlborough Hotel, New Zealand’s oldest drinking establishment.
We had been advised by some Kiwi friends at home that whilst in New Zealand, we absolutely had to have New Zealand fish and chips, “’cause they’re soooo much better than Aussie fish and chips”. So we made it a point, in Russell, to go and get some fresh cooked fish and chips and a bottle of L&P and go and sit by the bay and enjoy it.
What’s L&P, you ask?
Lemon and Paeroa. It’s a soft drink unique to New Zealand. Quite nice, too!
So, we had our lunch in the sun (yeah, the fish and chips were good… not the BEST I’ve ever had, but certainly up there in the top 5), dropped into the Duke for a quick cider, then reluctantly hopped back on the ferry for the ride back to Paihia, knowing that this was going to be the last trip back to the Sea Princess for this voyage.
All that is left now is 2 days straight sailing home to Sydney.
Meh.
Take me to: Day 9 <-
New Zealand – day 9 (Auckland, October 26)
November 16, 2011 by Bruce · 2 Comments
Shutters Inc listener, photography buddy and all-round nice guy, Mike Hollman (and his lovely wife Vivienne) came and picked up from the wharf in Auckland first thing in the morning.
Mike had agreed to give us a personalised tour of his hometown and its surrounds for the day.
First stop was the suburb of Devonport with its own version of Mount Victoria (what did I tell ya?), which affords the viewer an almost uninterrupted 360 degree view of Auckland. It was here that we stood above some kind of (now non-operational) secret military installation. Said installation required air vents which are shaped like little mushrooms. Someone decided that it would be a great idea to paint them as such.
After Mount Victoria, Mike and Viv took us out to Muriwai Beach to see the gannet colony. The gannets are quite a pretty aquatic bird, with their gold heads and striking blue eyes. Mike and I stood there for about 15 minutes trying to get some good shots of the birds. Not an easy task when your longest lens is a paltry 135mm! Still, I got a few images I was happy with.
Then, on our way back to the car, Mike bumped into a guy he knew, and asked him where was the best place for lunch in this area. This guy stated unequivocally that that would be Beesonline (yes, they sell bee products online… hence the name). Turns out, the guy owned 7 restaurants, hence Mike’s faith in his judgement. So, off to Beesonline we went. And I have to say, these guys need to seriously look after the chef that they have working in their kitchen. Every one of us was blown away with the amazing mix of flavours within our respective dishes. If you’re out that way, DEFINITELY have lunch there!
Then, it was a quick stop at a winery, a quick stop at a function centre (which was closed at the time, but offered some nice photo opportunities… the wooden gate, the lights, the ferns), and then back into Auckland proper where we drove up Mount Eden, another of Auckland’s now-dormant volcanoes. Again, a 360 degree view of Auckland. That’s one thing I noticed about the Kiwi’s… they don’t mind knocking down a few trees so you can get a decent view! After Mount Eden, we headed to the botanic gardens (time for a spot of tree climbing in some Moreton Bay Figs, for Max), then off to the Sky Tower. As the name suggests, this is Auckland’s answer to Sydney’s AMP Tower or Seattle’s Space Needle or any one of a thousand other such phallic monstrosities around the world. We took the elevator up to the viewing platform on the 54th? 56th? floor… can’t remember exactly. It was something like 280 metres above street level anyway. Enough that if you fell, you’d end up with a bit of a headache.
This afforded some nice overhead views of the city, but I found the glass (being as thick as it was for safety reasons) provided some really nasty colour shifts in the images. Thank god for RAW images and post-shot white balance adjustments!
A full-on day, to be sure, but a great day none the less. Even if we’d hired a car ourselves, I doubt we’d have seen as much as Mike managed to fit in for us, so Mike, thanks again, mate! By the way, when you’re done here at my site (and not before!), check out some of Mike’s work.
Take me to: Day 8 <- | -> Day 10
New Zealand – day 8 (Tauranga, October 25)
November 16, 2011 by Bruce · 2 Comments
Tauranga recently made worldwide news due to the running aground on one of its close-to-shore reefs of a huge freighter.
As we were approaching the port and still a few nautical miles offshore, I was up on deck taking some shots of the sunrise. There’s one particular shot in the gallery of the sun just peaking its head over the horizon, shot around the corner at the rear of the ship. What I didn’t know at the time I took that shot was that I was looking right at the stranded freighter. It was only 5-10 mins later that we had altered our position enough to see the freighter, along with all the official ships and tugs and the like. The unfortunate aspect of this whole sorry saga is that the freighter captain was trying to take a shortcut, in order to get into Tauranga quicker.
Once we were onshore, we caught a taxi to our hire car pick up point near the airport (a good 15km away). With the car loaded, we headed southwest toward Rotorua, famous for its geysers (pronounced with an I sound, not an E sound) and hot mud springs. Cath, in her wonderfully efficient style, had researched the area ahead of time and had noted that it we had time, it would be good to make it down to Waiotapu, about another 30km south of Rotorua. Realising we had made good time, we decided to continue on. At Waiotapu, we did a 2km loop walk which took as past a whole range of different sulphur pools and geysers. One of these was called “The Artist’s Palette”, due to the plethora of brilliant colours visible on the surface. I’m confident you’ll identify it for yourself from the images! There was also “The Devil’s Pool”, a small lake so rich in sulphur that it glowed an amazing florescent lime green. Shooting on manual exposure as I have been of late, I found that at ‘correct’ exposure, my camera’s sensor simply could not cope with the intensity of the colour. It was only by shooting at about -1EV that I could get anything close to the real colour of the water. Again, you’ll have no problems identifying “The Devil’s Pool” from the images below.
After the geysers, sulphur lakes and mud pits, we headed into Rotorua for a bite to eat. We ended up at the wonderfully named ‘Fat Dog’ Cafe where I ordered a burger which would have fed a small mid-African village for about 3 days. It was however, an absolutely fantastic burger.
After our gastronomic overload, we waddled off in search of some tourist shops to pick up some souvenirs.
With that out of the way, we jumped back in the car and headed north back toward Tauranga up the west side of Lake Rotorua.
As we were driving into Tauranga, it occurred to me that we still had about 2 hours before we needed to return the hire car, so I suggested we take a drive down the coast to see if we could see anything of the stranded freighter from the beach. I guess I hadn’t really thought about it much, so it came as a bit of a surprise to find that all of the beaches were shut due to the spilled oil drifting in from the reef. As we were driving along, Cath was looking through some brochures and mentioned that there was a tourist attraction called Kiwi360, a little further south at the town of Te Puke. We had time, and nothing better to do, so we headed off. As we drove into the car park at Kiwi360, we saw a small red helicopter sitting on a landing pad. Cath commented that flights were $59 a head, which seemed quite a reasonable price. I have wanted to go in a helicopter all my life and had never to this point had the opportunity. And to top it off, this was October 25th, my birthday! I went inside and asked the lady at the desk who ran the chopper flights, how long, how much notice did we need to give, etc etc. She mentioned that the pilot lived 2 mins down the road and that she would give him a call. A minute late, she informed me that he was on his way here and would be ready to take us up in about 5 minutes! Sweet! He promptly showed up, gave us the safety drill, and took us up for a quick 10min flight over the kiwi orchards, out to the coast, south along the beach a little way (pointing out the oil slicks on the water, and noting how devastating this is going to be to Tauranga’s fishing industry for years to come), and back in over the fields and orchards to our base. It might have been a quick flight, and the reflections off the perspex windscreen rendered a lot of my images less than ideal, but it was fun nonetheless, and a great birthday present.
We tried the obligatory kiwi juice, which turned out to be quite nice, then headed back to Tauranga in search of a fuel station at which to refuel the hire car. Another cab ride, and we were back at the ship, ready to watch the pilots guide the Sea Princess out the (very narrow) channel into open water.
Take me to: Day 7 <- | -> Day 9
New Zealand – day 7 (Napier, October 24)
November 16, 2011 by Bruce · 2 Comments
Napier is a quaint little town at the southern end of Hawkes Bay, a region known for its beautiful white wines.
Aside from the wine industry flourishing in the vicinity, Napier is also known for its embracing attitude toward its art deco architecture. This is an aspect of the town which has not only been nicely preserved, but actually encouraged to replicate. As a result, you’ll see signage for modern day businesses which reflect the art deco ethos (check out the travel agent sign on a brick wall). Also, there are meticulously restored vintage cars from just about every decade of the 20th century cruising the streets all the time. And these aren’t just show ponies. No sir, these are people’s everyday means of transport. It’s gorgeous to see.
And because Napier is not a large town, we elected to do this day on foot. And in hindsight, I’m glad we did. A lot of the nuance of the town would have been missed had we hired a car for the day.
The building known as the “New Zealand Wine Centre” is a retail wine outlet, but also doubles as a bit of a tourist info centre for those wanting to take in some knowledge of the Hawkes Bay wine industry.
Wandering though it, I had to grab some images of the store. I just loved the way they had set it all up.
The overnight cruise from Napier to Tauranga was the longest “port-hop” we had to do on this trip, and for this reason, we were advised that we needed to be back on the ship by 14:00, ready to sail by 15:00. We were initially concerned that this wouldn’t give us enough time to see Napier, but as it turned out, 5 hours of walking around town was enough!
Take me to: Day 6 <- | -> Day 8
New Zealand – day 6 (Wellington, October 23)
November 16, 2011 by Bruce · 2 Comments
We pulled into port early on the 23rd, had breakky, and disembarked as soon as we could.
Cath had organised a hire car, but we already knew that the car hire place was not close to the wharf at which we had docked.
However, when we asked one of the friendly tourism people welcoming us to Wellington, she took us over to a security guy who said he would get one of the other security guys to drive us to the car hire place if we were happy to wait a minute.
Naturally, we waited, and sure enough, couple of minutes later, this security guy rolls up in a little people mover/minibus and drives us over to the car hire pickup point.
Once we had our wheels, we decided to head northwest out of the city. We were at this point, toying with the idea of trying to do the loop consisting of Wellington > Featherston > Masterton > Palmerston North > back down the west coast to Wellington.
All up, this would have been about a 350km (220 mile) round trip. We decided that no, it was pushing it a bit far. Sure, we could have done the distance, but there wouldn’t have been any time to stop and take photos along the way.
So instead, we headed out to Featherston over a single lane mountain pass (would have been an awesome bike road in dry weather), then headed south around Lake Wairarapa, then back up to Featherston and back into Wellington.
Saw some lovely countryside along the way.
Once back in Wellington, we went and spent a couple of hours in the Te Papa Museum, followed by some Max-time in the park on the foreshore.
Finally, a quick trip up Mount Victoria (is there a town in New Zealand which DOESN’T have a Mount Victoria?) for a stunning view of the city, then refill the car, and return to the wharf.
Again, another day where we were glad we had hired a car and been able to drive ourselves around and see the things we wanted to see, on our own schedule.
Take me to: Day 5 <- | -> Day 7