NZ cruising day 10: 3 things

my favourite holiday view is always this happy face

And MGM’s smile too... you should see the looks we get travelling with a 9ft tall lion!

... but seriously MGM's smiling face is one of my most cherished things in life. I'm spending just a little time with you to say goodbye to this wonderful, relaxing and sadly too brief holiday. I've spent today reading mostly, such a luxury to have nothing else to do but spend some quality time in a book. 

three (cruising) things

1. 

we love cruising but we are NOT cruising people. Cruising people pre-book shore excursions, shop before stock runs out, have sparkly lanyards and consume a LOT of everything.

2. 

I am born for cruising. I understand how awful it must for anyone susceptible the motion of the boat. It must be so desperate to feel that you just need the boat to stop moving and know it just won't. For me though I LOVE movement, especially when it's a bit rough but then I like roller coasters too. I will really miss the boat rocking me to sleep at night.

3.

I will also miss these little creatures (& the whole room-fairy thing)

this guy wins the 'cute' award but the pig with attitude just cracks me up!

3.

cruising takes the photobombking to a whole new level of crack-me-up.

NZ cruising day 9 sea ... i mean spa ...day

the view from my window this morning

This is my own kind of room-service wherein MGM reads my mind about how I'd like to start the day and quietly goes about making that happen. Lucky - I know it.

today was all about the spa for me

then, after quite a long read whilst the world floated by, i was off to the spa for 90 mins what has become my fave massage - hot rocks.

and after a massage-induced nap, back to the spa for a manicure. I'm actually not at all sure I can do the going back to work thing.

NZ Cruising Day 8: Doughnuts in the Sound

the view from the window

An ersatz sea-day today touring the glorious NZ scenery, watching the wonders of Dusky, Doubtful and Milford sounds from the comfort of our cabin balcony, which is my new fave way to do breakfast btw.

I took soooooo many photos that I no longer know which photo from what sound, so here's a small selection of photos and one story to explain the title of the post.

This photo is from Milford sound, the prettiest of the three we toured today. I can see why it is so well known around the world. The ship stopped here and we thought it was just for a photo op for this pretty waterfall. The smaller tour boats were pulling up right under the waterfall and we knew this monolithic ship could in no way compete with that up close a personal view but our captain had a spectacular trick up his sleeve.

 

he started turning the so we could get a little closer.

and then kept going so we were broadside across the sound for this specky view

and, as the wake implies, we kept going until we had all had a 360 view of the sound. Yes we did a doughnut in the sound, which when you consider the dimensions of this ship is quite a trick. I looked them up for you: 18 decks, gross tonnage 168,666, 348m so basically a small apartment block!

and because i know you want it, here's my photobombKing pic of the day

NZ cruising day 7: Delightful Dunedin

the view from the cabin today

This is a very pretty part of the world. We had a full day in port so we luxuriated in some traditional Allan travelling (following our noses), starting with coffee, cake and a wander in Port Chalmers.

We adjusted our internal treadmills to incline 9 and climbed up to this lovely looking church, which we could see high above nestled into the mountain face. The only thing we got was some good exercise as this, once Presbyterian now Uniting church wasn't open today. 

to overcome his disappointment MGM found some friends to accompany us down the hill.

I like the style of these librarians who are communally creating blankets for locals. The note says knit as many rows as you like (there should be 40 stitches), add some yarn to the basket when you can - what a lovely idea, Libraries are awesome aren't they?

Dunedin is a 20 minute shuttle bus ride away, although I think that was only because our driver, a quaint little old lady, drove like Peter Brock. It probably took everyone else on the boat 40 minutes to get to Dunedin, not complaining it was a fun if slightly surprising trip along a very pretty water's edge roadway.

I think Dunedin is my fave city this trip. very easily walkable, lots to see, so many photos to bomb. Here's a very attractive but not the busiest train station

Near by are Chinese gardens

a small but interesting museum, with interactivity for the kids (which I also enjoyed) including a created interior of a ship, which was a highly authentic experience because i have that sea-traveller on land wobbly thing going on. It was actually a bit too real. I was fascinated by a display of women's clothing through the ages which gave the history of the owner and described this tortuous undergarment as a 'liberating device', looks pretty ouchy to me, those stays are made of whale bone or steel!

Then, past a 'mighty impressive birdbath'

up yet another hill to a Presbyterian church - first Europeans here were Scottish.

look closely

this is my favourite one of the day 

he.cracks.me.up

At the Anglican Cathedral is not what I expected

Building began in 1863, you can clearly see the bits they got completed and which have been replaced in the same style over the years but the chancel remained a temporary construction until 1971 when they added a not-at-all-sympathetic addition. 1970s architecture has a lot to answer for - what exactly were they thinking?!

I had just enough time to visit the Art Gallery.

Find my friends, can't help it I love the Aussies

 

and visit with them for a while before returning, by a much more sedate journey to the ship.

here's some more scenery, see you tomorrow

NZ cruising day 6: Wellington (don't blink or you'll miss it)

The view from the  (car) window 

because the view from the cabin  window had few redeeming features, well none actually ...

I'm sure there's a reason for it but this cruise has an odd itinerary. We arrived in Picton (top of the south Island). Then on day 2 we cruised right past Wellington, which is just across Cook straight from Picton (bottom of the north Island), and up the east coast of the North Island to see Napier - nice but as I mentioned a poor man's Bondi, for a whole day. THEN we go back down to Wellington - which is huge and has a lot to offer, for 4 hours before rushing off to Dunedin - which is so far away it takes 17 hours to get to.

odd right? it's not just me thinking this, is it? anyway we spent our limited time in Wellington with a private tour guide (Tim) on a Lord of the Rings tour. It was nice to have a local show us around and I'm really grateful it was just me and Mike with the guide in a very comfy car but LOTR tour it was not.

we drove around the town and the coast, only mention of LOTR was 'so have you seen the movies?' before Tim dropped me off at the Weta Cave Workshop, where the trolls are not to be climbed on and I got the last ticket to do the workshop tour.

Mike & Tim took in a bit more scenery while I took the tour and I would like to point out that whilst it is true that this is the creative space responsible for making a lot of the props etc for LOTR, they are also responsible for much movie magic not just LOTR. The tour was very interesting, the guide good at her job and lively. We got a lot of behind the scene info and saw a lot of props, some of which we could touch, had a great demo from a talented sculptor relating to all the movies they have worked on, for example they made the scar for Hester in Mortal Engines. I haven't seen it yet but I've read the book and the scar is integral to her character THAT was interesting.

When Tim retrieved me from Weta Cave I expected to see a bit of the landscape where the filming was done but, nope we went up to the Mt Victoria lookout 

And then back to the boat. So to sum up, interesting but not what we paid for.  

This was waiting for me on the boat to though so not all disappointment today.

NZ cruising day 5: Napier

the view from the window which, whilst not the most attractive holiday view we've ever had, was certainly interesting ...

The port where we docked for our Napier shore visit is a working port. We spent a fair bit of time today watching the logistical machinations of moving goods around the wide world to which we are otherwise oblivious. Not your usual tourism but fascinating nonetheless.

There were so many options for tours in Napier we panicked and signed up for not one, but we were happy to make our own way to Napier for a walk around this attractive art deco city.
They are very proud of their Art Deco creds which resulted from the rebuilding required after a massive earthquake in the 1930s did this to the town 

They rebuilt in the architectural style of the time, and now are now leveraging it for tourism. The Telegraph office is touted as being a great example of this, to be honest it's not that big of a deal. The town is interesting, but more like Bondi without the beach than the art deco capital of the world (I suspect they gave themselves this title).

There's a cafe culture and a beach front walk

and the ouchiest, rockiest beach I've ever traversed in search of a no-people-in-it photo, those little rocks were bloody hot!

There's a pretty park

and I'm sure there's a lot more to Napier but this was all we had time to see on foot today. 

We came back to the boat and watched the port activity, logging is one of the major exports.

We enjoyed a fantastic view leaving the port, look at this David & Goliath effort on behalf of that little tug pushing our rear end into the right spot for us to line up our exit trajectory!

And the pilot exiting our boat. This little fella (below) pulled alongside and the pilot bungee jumped from that little pokey outy bit on our ship - MGM lined up his cap conveniently so I could direct you to the right bit of the ship.
   

Well at least that is the way I envisaged the pilot leaving the ship. He actually donned hard hat, life vest and a tether and walked from the ship to the Pilot boat, very WHSy but my way would have been way more spectacular and I bet if you offered that as a job perk they'd be fighting applicants off with a big stick.