Photos - Hilo on the Island of Hawaii

helicopter away!



Piloted by the lovely Scott

Macadamia groves

Hawaii's coast

Pretty clear where previous lava flows have swept through town

barely cool and already people are rebuilding houses

current lava flowing into the ocean and adding real estate

approaching volcano opening

iphone not really up to portraying the blooping lava in the mouth of hell

waterfall, thanks only to the island's rainfall

J and B's excellent adventure
 

Photos - San Fransisco

Sunrise over the Bay Bridge

Wine Tasting in Sonoma

Beazy among the wine flights

Ready to depart as the sun turns west



Lovely San Fransisco

Oh what a marvelous bird is the Pelican;
Its beak can hold more than its belly can

already the fog is swirling in

Bridge looking appropriately Golden

Like Brigadoon, hidden until the next time

Photos - Departure from Vancouver

Bye-Bye!

Moving out

Our ship in Vancouver's harbour

small sea plane taking off as we pass Stanley Park

I can see my house from here!

Good-bye Vancouver

Dad's bon voyage gift

Flowers from Pop and chocolates from Martin

Home Again, Home Again, Jigedy Jig

Two days of exploring Auckland, one excellent, long flight courtesy Air New Zealand, and two sleeps of varying depth and now I feel truly home again. The sun is shining in Vancouver, illuminating the radiance of Autumn colours after what seems like two months of summer tacked onto three months of summer, which itself was tacked onto part of a summer in the UK. Ye gods and little fishes that seems a long time ago! And yet, here I am in my familiar surroundings again, the days at sea attached to the memory bank along with so many other moments from so many trips with so many people.

I will soon post some of the photos I was not able to while on board, and that will have to suffice as the end of the blog. Thanks to all for reading. Those who emailed or commented deserve a special place in heaven.

A Long List to Things to Report

After receiving reams and reams of paper every day in our little mail box (which is one of the very long list of things I am going to reference in our promised post-cruise questionnaire), we have been told our questionnaire will be sent to us by email "in the interests of saving paper". My guess it is more in the interests of limiting responses!

These last few days, it's been quite amusing to hear about people's high and low moments of the trip. The high moments invariably revolve around some on-the-ground experience and the low moments always reference some shortcoming of the ship. Well, except for the poor 87 year-old woman who got in the middle of a fight between two kangaroos and ended up very battered and bruised. That was the low point for her no doubt, but the fact that the ship made her sign something while she was still in shock, and tried to charge her an exorbitant amount to make use of a wheelchair for the rest of her stay until someone intervened brings it back to the gist of the story.

I don't have much to compare it to, cruising not having been my modus operandi for travel to date, so I have been keen to hear Beasy's and other more seasoned cruisers' comments. In general, there is agreement that the ship is safe on the seas, clean and the staff are uniformly wonderfully helpful and pleasant and hardworking.

But, the entertainment is mediocre, the shops are overpriced and poor, the tours are overpriced and (often) poor, the library is a mess, the food is fair but not great, the extra restaurants are not really 'special' and the general décor is shoddy. I am summarising here - the comments were generally more vehement. The best analogy I heard was that it is like staying in a decent Best Western Executive hotel that floats.

So I am not completely won over on cruising. However, being able to sit on our deck and watch the sea and the sky all day long, to connect with the few people we have really enjoyed connecting to, to float in the swimming pool and feel the motion of the sea, to exercise in the (poor) gym and face the bow, seeing miles ahead and watching birds lead the way and to sleep in a bed that rocks and cradles with the motion of the ocean - this I liked very, very much and ache to experience again.

Maybe on a smaller boat, perhaps with sails, one that skips past and through islands that are not so different as to require more time spent on them to get under their skin culturally speaking. One that provides more information about where we are and less about how to spend time doing things other than being at one with that ocean.

It has been the most wonderful trip though - no shortcomings of any greedy corporation could negatively impact the wonderful time we've had, my mom and I, travelling together, listening to each other's stories, sharing each other's thoughts and feeling each other's spirit.  

Star Lost

I know this is hard to believe but I have only had one night when I was able to see the stars clearly the whole time we have been travelling throughout the southern hemisphere. Most nights were either too cloudy or the ship’s lights overwhelmed the skies. You’d think it would be easier on a boat in the middle of the ocean with nothing around it, but they do like their lights, does Holland America! Also, our cabin neighbours keep their balcony light on 24/7 so it’s hard to see starlight from the relative dark of our cabin too. But between Picton and Wellington there were clear skies and it was dark enough to see beyond. There was a glorious array of stars and an almost full moon….but even then, I did not get to see the Southern Cross. I am not sure where it is at this time of year and I suspect that either it is too low in the sky for me to see with the mountains in the way, or it isn’t seeable until much later at night than I am awake. Wifi is such that I am unable to turn on my trusty night sky ap. I have seen it before though so I know it exists. And there is something so lovely about seeing a myriad of stars, so many that they make shadows! Most places on earth provide this of course, but most people on earth live in cities and so rarely get the chance to see the cosmos more vibrant than the land. It’s a very personal thing, seeing so many stars that they cause reflections on the water – one could navigate with them quite easily.

Here’s something I didn’t know about the southern hemisphere. A sundial works in the opposite way here. But because sundials were originally developed in the northern hemisphere, time moves in what we now call a clockwise direction, as the sun moves to the right. If someone in the southern hemisphere had got to that invention first, it’s quite likely that all our clocks would work in the opposite way, counter-clockwise!

I sometimes wondered why some weathermen/women called storms hurricanes, cyclones or typhoons. Was there a difference? Does the hemisphere have something to do with it? Or is it an East/West thing? Technically, it seems they are all the same form of weather phenomenon. Synonymous you might say. Tropical Storm = Hurricane = Cyclone = Typhoon. The main reason we have different names for them is to indicate where in the world they take place. Storms in the Atlantic and the Northeast Pacific are referred to as Hurricanes. In the Northwest Pacific they are Typhoons, and in the Indian Ocean or South Pacific they are Cyclones. If it's a Tropical Cyclone, for example, it just means the storm started in the seas between the two tropics (Cancer and Capricorn).

But what’s also kinda cool is that the winds in these oceanic storms do swirl in opposite directions, depending on the hemisphere. In the north they swirl counter-clockwise, and in the south they swirl clockwise. This is due to the earth’s rotation, the Coriolis effect. There is not enough of a Coriolis effect between the equator and 5 degrees north or south and so there are no such storms in these areas!

Seven Stops in New Zealand: Day 7 - Auckland

Auckland! Auckland! Land of Aucks. What is an Auck anyway? Doesn’t matter. We’re in Auckland!

Feeling a little discombobulated due to the cold medication swilling around in my system, we set out in scattered clouds, or scattered sunshine, depending on how you look at it. We had a good old stomp around the harbour area of the city: the old Ferry Building, the old Customs House, the not so old coffee shop Ronnies where we had a coffee and I introduced Beasy to Lammingtons. These are soft squares of vanilla cake, covered with chocolate which is itself covered with coconut. My first Lammington was in Va’vau, Tonga in 1989, at a bakery just up from the market. We had never heard of them before but became fast friends of the little things and ate them wherever we found them.

They are now common in both Australia and New Zealand bakeries and cafes, but had escaped our perambulations until today, and we chose a great big one. It’s not actually the most stunning confection you will have ever tasted, but it is tasty, and that’s enough.

We checked out the Maritime Museum and a few of the shops then went back to the ship to divest ourselves of packages and found our confiscated wine from Melbourne had been delivered to our room so we could pack it up. Well it wasn’t good enough to take home, we knew that when we bought it, so we popped it open and had a glass in defiance of the Holland America parent company’s policy. The $18US corkage we would have been charged was more than the wine cost, or was worth, and I’ve been able to smuggle onboard the 4 wines we are able to take back to Canada and earned the respect of my mother in the meantime – worth the price of admission.

Tomorrow we leave the ship and sleep on land for the first time in 6 weeks, so we are packing up and worried about whether what we added would fit into our cases. It looks like we will be ok, and besides we have two more days here to figure things out. Beasy is trying to see if she can fit her little white bed into her suitcase and will no doubt miss it more than anything we’ve seen or experienced. She’s trying to come up with a business idea that includes providing a bed with a soft top, the rocking motion of being on a ship and having it turned down with a chocolate every night. Every night she hears it calling her name and gives herself utterly to the pleasure of lying in its softness, cradling her through the night. We had hoped to have even rougher seas, but have had to accept gentle rocking and the odd shudder instead of anything more dynamic.

In the afternoon we took the ferry across the harbour to Devonport, and sauntered past the cafes, book stores and pubs, admiring the wonderful old villas that look across at the lights of the flashy city and its busy docks. We saw magnificent sailing boats, real racers, along with smaller sailing vessels, speed boats, fishing boats and kayaks, all out on a Sunday afternoon. We sat under a tree and ate tip top ice cream cones until the wind picked up enough to turn us homeward. 

Bizarrely, New Zealand celebrates Guy Fawkes Day, the anniversary of a day a group of angry Catholics tried to blow up the British Parliament in 1605, the failed "gunpowder plot". In England, children traditionally make an effigy of Guy and asked for donations "A penny for the Guy" which are spent on fireworks. On November 5 every year, communities build huge bonfires, burn the effigies, drink hot soup, and oo and ah to a fireworks display. 

I have always been a bit bemused by the fact that a failed terrorist attack is celebrated with childish glee in Jolly Olde England, but I am even more surprised to see how the populace of New Zealand seems to have taken to the event which happened on the other side of the world and eons before any Brit set his lily white foot on these shores. 

But celebrate, or at least commemorate they do, and we ate our last shipboard dinner while looking out the dining room windows and seeing fireworks sparkle above Devonports pretty shores.

Seven Stops in New Zealand: Day 6 - Tauranga

Today did not start out particularly auspiciously.

I had a head cold. It was pouring rain. It was windy and cool. the interesting part of this region is at least 80km away. The tour we booked on the ground promised not much walking and then suddenly we found ourselves part of a walking tour. Our tour guide was as dynamic as a fern.

On the plus side, we did get to Te Puia, the geothermal reserve with its geysers and white crusted rocks steaming with sulphuric air and blooping hot mud pools. I saw my first live kiwi bird in the night house, tending eggs – so cute! And the 25 minute Maori welcome ceremony was held indoors where we could sit in warmth and comfort instead of standing in what was expected to be hot sun. I ate an awesome sausage roll. We drove by the fabulous Government Gardens and Museum in Rotorua, which is closed anyway due to earthquake damage, and there were no end of black swans and pakikos (spelling?) and their babies wandering around the edges of Lake Rotorua. I saw Manuka plants in bloom, heavy with scent, and alive with bees. We sped past kiwi fruit orchards with their tall tree wind-brakes and netting to thwart the many hungry birds, despite the season just recently having ended.

 

So it was a good outing, and another great day, and now we are back in our room, with cups of lemon tea. I had intended to go out to the show and the soul band tonight, to say good-bye to the meagre entertainment options as we wind down, but I do not want to take the chance of infecting someone else, so I shall read in our room and go to bed early, just like my mommy does. for once I won't prevent her from going to bed by 8:30pm!

Seven Stops in New Zealand: Day 5 - Napier

At about 10:30am on February 3, 1931, an enormous earthquake hit tiny Napier, on the east coast of New Zealand’s north island. It leveled all the brick buildings, then burned all the wooden buildings and killed a couple hundred people along the way. But it did create a whole new city.

The plates’ shift resulted in land under a river rising a full 2 metres, which meant the tiny island of Napier was now joined to rich, flat land capable of housing people and businesses for ever more. An island no more, a few very smart people decided to rebuild the city in a new image. The only building of any substance that did not fall in the earthquake was made of reinforced steel, so that was to be the new building medium.

But what style? Another building that had withstood the quake was a good example of the height of fashion, Art Deco. Although this had been a bit too much for the Victorian tastes of the residents before the tragedy, now that they were building a new city from scratch it was seen as a good and practical option.

What about builders? Thanks to the Depression, it was easy to attract thousands of workers who laboured for only 22 months before stepping back from what is essentially the current Napier with its wide downtown streets full of two storey art deco buildings, with leaded glass and exterior decoration to counteract the fact they were all grey concrete, until acrylic paint came around and allowed a palate of soft ice-cream colours and what we now think of as “original” Art Deco finishing. Using streamlines, zigzag and step and other geographic patterns, and aquatic and Maori style flourishes, the little city became an icon.  

In the 1980s, when the downtown was beginning to change a few dedicated citizens formed a foundation and were able to preserve what was there, and even add more. This Art Deco Trust is now a shop, a source of walking tours, and a supporter of all sorts of events, including a 5 day annual Art Deco festival that more than doubles the town’s population.

I happened to find this Trust when looking for something interesting to do for our few short hours in Napier, something that did not require too much walking for Beazy. I found Tony, with his 1939 Packard and this morning, there he was, immaculately dressed and ready to take us off for a bit of a town tour and then wine tasting at Mission Estate, New Zealand’s oldest winery, in nearby Hawke’s Bay. After two splendid hours we were dropped off at the dock, swanning out in front of our cruise-mates, and to the sound of Dixieland, played by a quartet hired to see us off in style.

Boop Boop a Doop!

 

Tony and the '39 Packard

the original island in the distance and the land thrown up by the earthquake,
now making lovely vineyards

Two ladies and their chauffeured car

Bon Voyage!

 

Seven Stops in New Zealand: Day 4 - Wellington

Windy Wellington lived up to billing and white caps bounced along atop blue waves as we nestled into our harbour. For the last few days we have shared dock space with logs of pine, all about the same length (10 or 12 feet) but of varying girths. The smell is wonderful and makes me a wee bit homesick. It’s been great watching all the little machines (we are several storeys above them) move about taking logs off trucks and into piles, then sawdust from piles into trucks. Every four year old’s dream view.

We spent the morning at the excellent Te Papa Museum, primarily in the Maori department. Interesting to see their very elaborate carving and art is always of humans or human-like gods, as there were no animals on this land for them to encounter. Contrast that to our BC coast’s First Nations which were almost entirely about animal, animal-spirit or a transformation from animal to animal/human. Our religions are always based upon what we know and encounter.

Human habitation here has only been for the last 800 years or so, making Aotearoa (“the land of the long white cloud”) the last of the islands the Polynesians voyaged to and set up settlements. European settlers came about 600 years later, resulting in its usual uproar and misunderstanding of the traditional way of sorting things out by bloody intertribal warfare. The Maoris asked Queen Victoria to settle things with some sort of law and order, which led to the Treaty of Waitangi signed in 1840. Two versions, on in each language were drawn up, and the Maoris readily signed their copy, understanding that the British Government would run things, while they would still have ownership of their land. What they didn’t know is that the English translation of the Treaty worded things a little differently, which was not realized until land was taken over and build upon, without consent or approval by the Maori. It all had to do with how the word “sovereignty” was defined in each culture. No surprise who won the argument, and the Treaty is controversial to this day.

Things really came on like gangbusters in 1861 when gold was discovered in them thar hills, in central Otago. I didn’t even know New Zealand had had a gold rush, but they did and it changed the islands forever in terms of migration. They did get some things right earlier than other countries did though. The year Canada wrote its confederation document, New Zealand installed four Maori seats in government. Before the 19^th century was done, women were given the right to vote, New Zealand being the first country in the world to do that. As for many colonial nations, the First World War was a defining moment, but suffered terribly in Gallipoli, with the Australians, when ordered by Britain to fight against the better prepared Turkish soldiers. This small country’s casualty rate was one of the largest of any: more than 50% of all its troops were either killed or wounded.

Actually for a country of only 4.5 million, New Zealand really hits above its weight. It excels in sport: always among the world’s best in rugby and sailing: most America’s Cup boats probably include at least one kiwi, and Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to leave rubbish on Mount Everest was a kiwi. The country’s sheep are famous (outnumbering the human population 7 to one) and produce more than just lamb for international dining tables, but also gorgeous merino wool for international bodies. Manuka honey is a world-class wonder product, as is its Sauvignon Blanc, in my opinion! And then there is Whittaker’s Hokey-Pokey, a chocolate treat I now curse Yun for introducing me to because my luggage is not sufficiently large to bring enough of it home!

After the museum, I wandered around this small, hilly capital city, reintroduced myself to the Beehive, a building so named because it not only looks like an old fashioned beehive but also because it houses the Executive Branch of the Government. I took the Cable Car up to take in the magnificent view, and then wandered around the extensive and lovely Botanical Gardens. Camelias, heathers, rhododendrons and roses were all blooming together, something impossible at home, and the air was heady with blossom and leaves. Pollen too, and I am feeling happy to have brought so much antihistamine with me. I never really want to have to use the medical kit I bring, but if I need it I am always glad I erred on the side of hypochondria.

Due to tides (we were told) we had to depart by 3pm, so I was unable to visit author Katherine Mansfield’s house. Next time.

Seven Stops in New Zealand: Day 3 - P-hic-ton

Yeshiree it was a great day here in the Marl-arl-arlborough shounds. We went to P-hic-ton, Blenhemememem, P-hic-ton - did I say that already?

Lemme schplain:

It was a beautiful calm start as we entered the labyrinthine islands and peninsulas of Marlborough Sounds. The sun was warm as our ship backed into a tiny narrow inlet while the inter-island ferries passed by on their way from Picton to Wellington. A bit of a wait for a shuttle bus into town. And then things got interesting.

When we finally alighted by the Picton information centre it was easy to spot the car we’d arranged in advance to take us wine tasting in the Wairau valley, the famed Marlborough region of South Island. For one thing, the hood was up and a posse of old guys were hovering around drooling. For another thing, it was a pale yellow 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air.

Dave cavalierly steered the old boys away as he greeted us and we draped ourselves decorously in the capacious back seat, envied by every person with a y chromosome over the age of 70. We hit the road and let Dave choose wineries based on our preference for small, interesting establishments with dry, quality product. Rock Ferry delivered. As did Lawson’s Dry Hills. As did Bladen. Getting a little squiffy by this time, we asked for something a little more solid and had a delicious small plate of three local cheeses with another glass of wine, at Allan Scott.

Dave of Highlight Tours (he's also got a '67 convertible Mustang and a VW Kombi) 

Then to Whitehaven which serves coffee as well as wine. Good choice Dave. Time for one more winery: Saint Clair. Then to Makana chocolates and back to our shuttle bus and the bevy of aged car enthusiasts who couldn’t wait for us to exit the car so they could take photos of the Bel Air’s interior.

Beazy with a rare empty glass

A bit of shalad, a bit of…. whassat? Oh yeah…. cho-hic-olate. Great day I tell ya. I may not remember it tomorrow but it wash grrr-eat!