I received this email today from Dreps, he is on the Mariner right now.

Hi everyone,

The tender met the ship in Milford Sound and 30 of us boarded for our excursion. We went on a short ride to the Marina and boarded our motorcoach. The driver, Jock, was a Scotsman and the guide, Graham, was from NZ.

We traveled south through Fiordland National Park to Te Anau. We made several stops for photos. The weather was very nice, though cool.

At Te Anau we went to a bird sanctuary for injured birds, and I have a number of pictures of unusual birds. We had lunch at the Kings Gate Hotel and it was good, though not fancy.

Then we departed for Arrowtown. Along the route there was some road construction and one of the road crew had left his grader with a blade exposed, and it nicked one of our tires and we had an immediate flat. Both Graham and Jock were of retirement age and not in shape to change a bus tire. Fortunately, our Radisson tour guide, Nico (from Belgium), was in good shape and he managed to change the tire. Getting the 10 lug nuts off and finding and mounting the spare and then tightening the lug nuts was quite an operation. I have several pictures. During the tire change, we had gotten off the bus and were walking and standing along the road. It was pretty warm at that point. The whole even took about an hour, but in the end it meant we missed stopping at Arrowtown because we had to get to the jet boat at a certain time.

The jet-boat ride along the Shotover River was great fun. We have a great picture taken by the boat people of our group in the boat. Gail loved it. I liked it too. They do outfit you in a waterproof coat and a life jacket. You go through very narrow gorges and the operators do a number of 360 degree turns. Pretty exciting. The boats were said to be invented in NZ in the 1950s.

Then, we went to Queenstown to check into the St. Moritz Hotel. The hotel was very nice. We had a suite overlooking Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkable Mountains across the lake. The suite had a living room, dining area, kitchen area (including washer/dryer)—I should have brought our laundry! We freshened up and met in the lobby to walk to the Boardwalk Restaurant. Apparently, lots of dignitaries eat there when in Queenstown—there was a picture of Bill Clinton. We had a very good dinner—excellent grouper (which they called groper). Then we walked around the town a little. We should have skipped dessert.

After breakfast at the hotel, we took a gondola ride up to Bob’s Peak. I have some pretty neat pictures. It had rained overnight and the mountains surrounding the town really had quite a bit of snowfall. My acrophobia wasn’t too bad.

Then we drove to Middlemarch via Clyde and Ranfurly. We ran into some very heavy rain, but by the time we arrived at Middlemarch the sun was out for us to board the Taieri Gorge train. It was really a neat trip down to Dunedin and I took lots of photos. A box lunch was served during the train trip.

We arrived at the Dunedin Railway Station and went on a brief sightseeing tour of the city, which is known as the “Edinburgh of the South.” Apparently, the city is laid out like Edinburgh. We also saw the steepest street in the world (they say). Of course, I have pictures. Also stopped at Otago University, which was pretty nice.

We then left for Port Chalmers to reboard the ship, which we did about 5:30 PM.

Today we are docked in Lyttleton, which is about 25 minutes from Christchurch. It is very cool—not sure it’s even 60--and cloudy today, but the 80% chance of rain did not materialize. We took the shuttle provided by the cruise line into Christchurch. Walked around a bit. Took the tram. Did a little shopping. We did walk in the Botanical Gardens, which were nice and must be spectacular when the weather is nicer. We also walked in the Cathedral. Since both Gail and I are still fighting some sort of cold/sinus infection, we decided to come back to the ship for lunch. We are scheduled to depart here for Picton at 6:00 PM. In Picton, we have signed up for a mussel and wine excursion, which involves a lot of time on the water so we are sure hoping the weather improves.

More later.

Thanks for the fantastic update, Dreps! It's always wonderful to virtually "tag along" to great places.

Hope that sinus infection clears itself up quickly. They are nasty business when flying for long distances. I find Sudafed before the flight and, if necessary, the Afrin nose mist helps with the pressurization.

Cheers, Anne

Wonderful post, Dreps.

I do the very same thing, before a flight, Anne. It really does help!

Enjoyed this Dreps! It brought back fun memories of the jet-boat ride along the Shotover River....right Olivia? I believe I posted photos from the WC of Olivia & I, all wet, holding on for dear life!!

Glad you're having such a great time in such a beautiful part of the world!! Thanks for sharing with us.

One more installment from DREPS

Hi again,

Today was fantastic! It was an absolutely beautiful day with bright sunshine. This area has the highest sunshine hours in NZ. (Even here, the weather apparently was not so hot yesterday.) The ship reached Picton about 7:00 AM. We boarded our mini-van at 8:30 AM. After leaving Picton, the van traveled through the Koromiko Valley to a large wine growing area in the Wairau Valley. We continued to Havelock—the mussel capital of the world—which is located in the Southern end of Pelorus Sound.

In Havelock we boarded a chartered catamaran launch and cruised out onto the Pelorus Sound—the largest of the Marlborough Sounds. We had morning tea served with homemade blueberry muffins and cookies and sat back enjoying the scenery, which was really beautiful. Along the way, we saw many mussel farms, and I have great pictures of a boat harvesting mussels. The farms were established since the 1970s in both Kenepuru and Pelorus Sounds.

Then we stopped at Dillon Bell and took a beautiful “bush” walk to Jacobs Bay, which took about 40 minutes. The path we were on followed the foreshore of Pelorus Sound though a native beech forest.

We rejoined the catamaran, and the crew steamed fresh mussels and served them with Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. They were delicious. This was followed by a terrific lunch. They grilled fresh salmon, chicken, and lamb kebabs on the ship, and served the kebabs with fresh asparagus, terrific white potatoes, and a salad with more NZ wines. They also had a plate of sweets and fruits for dessert that included native kiwis.

We then cruised back to Havelock and reboarded the mini-vans. We stopped en route at Mudhouse Village to further sample Marlborough wines, local olive oils, and liquors. Some of us also went to a cherry farm nearby and bought some delicious cherries. I put some in the fridge and in our cabin and intend to have them with my breakfast—I knew I should have brought my cherry pitter!

We returned to the ship at about 3:30 PM. We almost had time to stop at a chocolate factory, but the tour guide was concerned about the time. There almost was a mutiny led by yours truly. We departed Picton at 4:00 PM.

That’s it for today. We’re off to Napier and a Gannet Safari tomorrow. Hope the weather holds.

Another installment from DREPS

Hi everyone,

We landed in Napier about 7:30 AM. Another bright sunny day. It was about 55-60 degrees early this morning, but got into the 70s today.

Eugene pitted some of the cherries he bought yesterday to take them up to breakfast. The minute they see him coming, they start the hunt for blueberries, which they sometimes have, and sometimes they run out. Today they had some.

We had a little unnecessary excitement because we discovered a message that came in during the night from the assisted living facility at which Gail’s mother lives on our door right before we left for our excursion. There was no content to the message, and Gail didn’t have time to call before our excursion (and thought it was 2:30 in the morning there, but bit was 2:30 “yesterday” afternoon). Anyway, to make a long story short, when we returned she called and talked to her mother, who was fine. Her mother didn’t know why they had called. Gail tried again a bit later and it turned out there was an “incident” with the microwave in her mother’s apartment, so they removed it. Why they didn’t contact Gail’s brother, is beyond us. Gail, of course, had this on her mind during our excursion.

Anyway back to the fun part: We got on our 4-wheel drive minivan about 8:30 AM. Our guide was St. John, who pronounces his name sin-gin. From the Port of Napier, we were driven via Clive, to the Summerlee Sheep Station, which borders Cape Kidnappers, where the gannet colony is located. The 11-mile drive is across broad pastures, river beds, and steep gullies that make up the Sheep Station. St. John provided a lot of commentary. The views of Hawke Bay and the Mahia Peninsula were pretty spectacular.

Cape Kidnappers was named by Captain James Cook after local Maori attempted to kidnap a young Tahitian boy from his ship, the Endeavour, in 1769. The area is home to the 15,000 gannet birds that have established themselves there. The gannets are members of the booby family and have distinctive black eye markings and a pale gold crown. We were able to get within a few feet of hundreds of the birds. Most were nesting in serried rows, while others were swooping down and diving into the sea for food. We could see eggs in some nests, but many had hatched, and we could see the baby birds in the nests under a parent, some of chicks were turning from gray to white. On the ground the pairs preen and perform “the dance of the gannet” recognition ritual. They mate for life, and when one returns to its mate—they take turns on the nest—they greet each other by “necking”—it’s pretty neat. I’ve got dozens of pictures, including a few good ones with them soaring. I really do have to take a class in digital photography to get better at tricky shots like that.

After about half an hour with the gannets, we returned to a rest area that had a nice house and beautiful garden that included beautiful lemon, mandarin orange, and grapefruit trees. There we were supposed to be served a morning tea, but we really had an excellent light lunch: Asparagus sandwiches, ham and cheese sandwiches, smoked salmon, etc. They also had interesting drinks, including kiwi juiceand blackberry juice. (I wasn’t crazy about the kiwi juice.) In addition, they had cookies filled with fig—much better than fig newtons, carrot cake, chocolate cake, lots of fresh fruit, and the largest, most delicious strawberries I ever tasted. The strawberries were from a nearby farm.

On the way back to the ship, we made a quick tour of the center of Napier and saw a number of its Art Deco buildings. Napier had been leveled by an earthquake—I think in the 1920s or 30s—so when it was rebuilt, much of it was done Art Deco style. It looked like a very nice resort town.

When we returned to the ship, I made the mistake of suggesting we check out lunch, where I ate more than I should have, following our “light” lunch.

We departed Napier relatively early (2:00 PM) because of the distance to our next port, Tauranga.

Tonight is formal night, and the menu is fairly fancy: lobster tail, chateaubriand, etc.

Well, tomorrow will be a long day. We land in Tauranga and have an 8-hour excursion to Rotorua to see geysers and Maori culture. When we get back we have to pack, so I’m not sure if I’ll get a report in, but I’ll try.

That’s it for now,

From DREPS

Just had dinner and have to finish packing, but want to send one last report.

Today was another great weather day. Am sure it got into the mid-70s. We landed at Tauranga about 7:00 AM. We boarded the motor coach about 8:30 AM and headed for Rotorua. It is a “spa town” that was established at the turn of the century. It has a lot of thermal activity and traditional Maori culture.

We headed south from Tauranga and travelled through the world’s largest and richest kiwi fruit growing area of Te Puke. We stopped at Rainbow Springs, which was sort of a nature preserve where they had huge rainbow (and other) trout swimming in crystal clear spring-fed pools. We also saw NZ’s nocturnal bird, the kiwi—though all I could get a picture of was a “stuffed” one. There were also very rare Tuatara lizards. (I did see a live one, but it was too dark to photograph.)

Then we stopped at the Agrodome where we saw a very entertaining sheep show. All types of sheep were on display (live ones) and they were paraded on stage. There was a demonstration of sheering, and the emcee was very funny. There were also highly trained sheep dogs, who demonstrated their skill.

After the Agrodome, we had a very good buffet lunch at a hotel and following lunch there was a Maori concert that featured songs and dances. After lunch, we visited the Whakarewarewa Thermal Reserve, where you see several geysers and mud pools.

On the way back to the ship, the bus went by some very nice beach front homes. We returned to the ship about 5:30 PM, and the Mariner sailed for Auckland at 6:00 PM.

We should be off the ship by 10:00 AM tomorrow. Hopefully, we will be able to check into the Auckland Hilton in the morning. We’ll do Auckland tomorrow, and then rent a car the next day to drive up to Bay of Islands to stay at the Tio Bay Lodge for one night. We’ll return to Auckland the next day (Wednesday) for our evening flight back to the States. We arrive home late Wednesday night.

Dreps,
I enjoyed reading all about New Zealand. Your descriptions were so detailed I could really picture it. Thanks for taking the time to share.

Eugene, I too have enjoyed all of your posts. Sounds like you keep yourselves busy and see it all! Hope to hear more about Bay of Islands when you return home. I missed that port by a day or so when I was there.

Eugene - Thanks for the day by day reports. It's been several years since I last visited New Zealand and I now remember why I loved it so much...well, besides the fact that my best friend, Ngaire, is from there! It is such a beautiful country and the people could not be friendlier. And I do remember how delicious their "teas" were with fabulous cakes, cookies, and muffins...yum! The Shotover River in Queenstown still remains my favorite excursion -- I have never laughed as hard as I did on that boat. Ron would love to see some of your gannet shots...you didn't mention the smell...perhaps the gannets bathed for your visit?
Sounds like you had a wonderful time and it appears you had good weather when it counted. Have a safe trip back!

Eugene - loved the reports, thanks for doing them!

Masaki