Saturday, February 28, 2015


Tauranga, New Zealand – February 22, 2015

As you can see…I am still running a week behind, but we have a couple sea days in route to Sydney, AUS so maybe I can catch up a wee bit

When we arrived in the port for Tauranga, we actually disembarked in the cute village of Mount Maunganui Beach.  It is linked by the harbor bridge to Tauranga.  It was a Sunday, but the shopkeepers opened just for us.  It is named for the inactive volcano, at the head of the harbor.  We had booked an excursion of white water rafting, but sadly it was canceled.  The reason given was because the area has been so dry ending their summer that the river was low….hmmmm????  We are getting a little suspicious.  Instead we walked around the little town and enjoyed the friendly welcoming folks who live there.  New Zealand has to be the friendliest country in the world.

That evening we took advantage of a complimentary excursion to Hobbiton.  As you probably already know, the Lord of the Rings  was filmed in locations all over New Zealand from the mountains around Fijordland on the southwest corner, to the studios in Wellington and outside Tauranga.  In September 1998, Sir Peter Jackson “discovered” the Alexander farm during an aerial search for suitable film sites and chose the farm for the Hobbit’s village.  Thirty-nine Hobbit holes were created from untreated wood and polystyrene. The oak tree that overlooks Bag End was cut down and transported in.  Artificial leavers were brought in from Taiwan and individually wired onto the tree.  Since the original construction materials were not meant to last, the structures were rebuilt in 2009 for The Hobbit Trilogy using permanent materials including an artificial tree made out of steel and silicon.  This entire reconstruction process took two years.  Today the set is maintained to keep the magic of the Shire alive.

It was a really fun evening and a special tribute was done for the 25th Anniversary World Cruise including a message from Julie Andrews, who christened the Serenity before its maiden voyage, and a laser show projected onto a spray fountain of water in the middle of Hobbiton lake.  It was pretty cool.

Hope you enjoy the pictures….the ones after dark are a little harder to see..Sorry.

Cheers!

View from our ship when we pulled into port

Mount Maunganui at the Bay of Plenty, named by Capt. Cook

Our tour guide for Hobbiton.  People from the neighboring communities
dressed as Hobbits guided us through the Shire while explaining how the
site was chosen and how the filming was done.

The houses were built into the surrounding hills.

This one had pretty stain glass...love the mailbox

The small windows represented extensions of the houses underground.
Even the wash is hanging.


Each house had it own particular character.

Guess we're too tall for this one!

One of my favorite

A view across the lake to the Green Dragon Pub and market place

Hey kids....we found a NZ vacation house!

Frodo's house under the "artificial" oak tree

No...I think this is my favorite!

The intro to the evening show made by the Wizard accompanied by Hobbits

Even the dragon was there

Happy 25th Anniversary message from Julie Andrews projected on
a screen of water 
Really nice tribute
Great laser show...all projected on the water screen



Wednesday, February 25, 2015

February 25 - Bay of Islands, Kauri Cliffs & Auckland


Rick and I are doing well; just so busy I have not had time to work on the blog.  Sorry, but thank you to those who have checked in with us since the last posting on  Feb. 14.  Rick has taken so many amazing pictures, it takes me hours to go through them all.

The last I wrote, we were making our way to Bay of Islands, New Zealand having not been able to go ashore at Roratonga.  Well, that cruise-by ended up leading us to a wonderful surprise.  We sailed in to Bay of Islands on February 18. (We have crossed the International Dateline, so we are now a day ahead of the US.)  What a beautiful sight!  The water was dotted with 150 islands of all sizes as we cruised into the bay to anchor.  Some are uninhabitable boulders rising just above the waterline; others are mounds of lava cooled by the cold water, and others that are populated, wooded water mountaintops of 50 acres or more.

Bay of Islands is in the Northland of New Zealand and where European colonization of New Zealand began.  There were battles between the local tribes as well as warfare between the Maoris (who had been in this region since about 1350) and the white settlers. Church missionaries converted the islanders with fervor.  The town of Waitangi, where we went ashore, is the actual birthplace of New Zealand where the historically significant treaty was signed which ended the warring and ensured the Maoris of the rights to their lands and began New Zealand’s entry into the British Empire.

The excursion director was able to put together a few tours.  Most involved the history of the Maori people and the treaty signing. Rick and I elected to take a boat tour of the islands.  (I know, weren’t 18 days on water enough???) We were not disappointed. One of the “must see” sights is the Hole in the Rock; which, as you will see in the photo, resembles an elephant getting a drink of water.  Our Captain sailed us right through the hole!  It was awesome.

Entering Bay of Islands, NZ

Looking toward Waitangi, NZ & Russell Pennisula

One of the beautiful 150 islands

Sheep on the beach!

Approaching Hole in the Rock...nice catamaran!

Entering the hole

Inside

Made it through!  The water inside the hole can be rough at times,
so not everyone gets to go through it.  We were lucky!

An example of a small island

My favorite....new vacation house??

Black rocks.  A series of mostly flat lava mounds.


We were so excited when we realized that our plans would bring us back to this part of New Zealand the following day. We had already booked a little “get-away” at Kauri Cliffs Lodge when the ship sat in Auckland for 3 days.  So on Feb. 19, after we docked in Auckland, we headed to the airport and flew back to Bay of Islands.

Kauri Cliffs is one of a trio of New Zealand lodges owned by American, Julian Robertson. It’s sister properties are Cape Kidnappers in Hawke’s Bay and Matakauri in Queenstown.  It is also a working sheep farm.  It has an amazing David Harman designed golf course built along the cliffs.  You can tee off with sheep grazing right in front of you!  Unfortunately, we didn’t have an extra day for golf, because we had booked a deep-sea fishing trip on our only full day, but we would love to go back someday and play a round or two.  We fished on Friday and caught a lot of snapper (but only 1 “keeper”), king fish (which didn’t meet the exact length to keep) and Rick caught a beautiful parrot fish which also had to go back.  It was a great day and the scenery was amazing. The lodge had a BBQ dinner on their pink beach that evening so we donated our catch to the chef for everyone to taste. We joined the ship back in Auckland the next afternoon and sailed that evening for Tauranga.


Cheers!

View from our cottage at Kauri Cliffs Lodge

A view of the cottages from the course

I'm pretending to tee off, so you get the idea of the sheep close to the course

A giant Kauri tree estimated to be tetween 700-900 years old.
 It is the largest Kauri tree on private property in NZ

View to the main house from the course

You don't want to hit long on this par 3

Sunrise the morning we are up early to fish

Rick's King Fish...not quite long enough to keep

Life is good....BBQ on the Pink Beach which is composed of minute pink shells.

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Happy Valentine's Day!

February 14, 2015   Happy Valentine’s Day!

Another sea day….we were suppose to have a port call at Rarotonga, Cook Islands today, but the Capt. decided that the seas were too rough for the tenders to get us to shore…BOO!!!!  Good thing he wasn’t in charge when we were in Antarctica or we would never have gotten off the ship there.  I think it has more to do with the average age and lack of mobility of a large percentage of the passengers on this ship.  We have been rather shocked at the number of walkers and wheelchairs around the ship.  It’s like we are living that ”Senior Forward” going around the internet comparing living on a cruise ship vs. living in assisted living….YIKES! We have learned that World Cruise is code for VERY SENIOR CITIZENS….not all, but a lot.

I decided to combine Tahiti and Bora Bora into one blog post.  We were at Papeete, Tahiti on Wednesday, Feb. 11.  We were so excited to get off the ship and put our feet on land!  Papeete is the administrative capital of French Polynesia.  Our tour that day was an overall look at the highlights of the island.  It was ok, but not nearly what we had anticipated. Friends we’ve met on the ship told us that the other side of the island (which we didn’t see) is prettier and where the hotels and resorts are, but Papeete has the harbor we needed to dock.  So….there you have it.

February 12, we anchored off Bora Bora….BEAUTIFUL!!!  We arrived at 8am and anchored in the atoll which is formed by a the Bora Bora Reef  circling the island, giving it a natural “sea wall”, it was like a huge lake, so calm and so many shades of blue it was unbelievable.  I was so happy that we had chosen riding a jet ski as our excursion.  By 10:00am the wind had picked up and a small rain storm came in.  Four other couples braved the adventure with us and despite the rain and the wind and big waves we had a blast riding the jet skis with our native tour guides on a 3 hour tour all the way around the island.  The rain did stop after the first hour and the sun peeked out a little, but the waves remained pretty wild. As you can tell from the not so flattering pictures, we got soaked!!  Bora Bora is the one place so far on our “we liked to go back to list”.  Only next time we’ll pick the dry season!!

The Captain did announce that to make up for today’s’ non-stop, we will be stopping at another island off of New Zealand the day before we arrive in Auckland….weather permitting.  We’ll see….

We will lose Feb. 18 when we cross the International Dateline and after tonight, we will be 6 hours behind EST.     

Enjoy the pictures.   Cheers!

Our crazy tour guides!!!

One of the other couples took this picture for us.

Soaked to the bone!

One of two beach stops along the way

Taken from the beach with our ship in the background

A beautiful view from the beach in Bora Bora


Arriving in Papeete, Tahiti

Entering the harbor

View of Papeete from our ship as we enter the harbor

Point Venus and the only working lighthouse in the Society Islands.
It was build in 1867 by the father of Robert Louis Stevenson.

The blowhole of Arahoho

The tomb of the last King of Tahiti, Pomare IV.
 Best known for his controversial decision to surrender Tahitian sovereignty
to France in 1880.  His tomb is constructed of coral slabs and lava rocks in a tower-like
shape meant to resemble a Grecian urn,

My Valentine
Taken at the James Norman Hall museum.
Hall is most famous for the Mutiny on the Bounty trilogy.
The museum is an exact replica of his home.