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,