Auckland, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia

Feb 17 – Today we’re in Auckland, New Zealand, quite a cosmopolitan city, large and bustling. This morning we’re headed out into the countryside to see some of the Tasman seacoast. The drive across the island, Auckland is on the Pacific Ocean and our destination, Muriwai Beach, is on the west coast at the Tasman Sea.

On the way we passed through some the fertile wine growing areas of Kumen and Haupai. I have to admit that I have a taste for Australian wines, especially the Shiraz. But I know very little about NZ wines. We also passed large Kiwi fruit growing areas. It was hard to tell them from the wineries as Kiwi grows on a vine as well.

The main difference is that the Kiwi vines are generally grown on much taller supports. That way the Kiwi fruit hangs down right overhead for easy picking. The little fuzzy things were known as Chinese Gooseberries until some enterprising dairy farmers in this region, unhappy with the profits from their milk sales, decided to grow them commercially and changed the name to Kiwi. This was in the 1950s, and by the 1970s they had so many orders that they couldn’t fill them. Profits on the kiwi are now falling as they are being grown in other areas of the world and the prices are coming down. They hope to reestablish their profits by introducing two new kiwis. One is green and smaller, more the size of a grape. It has a lot less fuzz and you eat them skin and all. They have also bread a golden kiwi that has no fuzz and you can eat the skin just like a peach. We’ll have to see how successful they are. Keep an eye out for the new kiwis at the grocery.

When we arrived at Muriwai Beach we went up into the hills overlooking the rugged coast on the west of NZ. At Takapu Ridge Nature Preserve they have the largest colony of Gannets (above, left) found on a mainland anywhere in the world. The birds born this past season were quite large. They are darker in color than the full-grown adults. The adults are mostly white with black with a tan head and black wing edges and tail (right). The new birds migrate to the east coast of Australia and live there for three years until they are ready to mate. Then they return to New Zealand to find a mate and establish a nesting area. Gannets mate for life and live to be about 35 or 40 years old. From the look of the birds they must be very close to leaving for Australia.

The overlook for the gannet colony also overlooks the main beach. All the beaches on the west coast of NZ are black sand and this one on the left is no exception.

After viewing the gannets we headed to Abbotsford Farm for morning tea. They raise Romney sheep, the type whose wool is used in carpets, Angus cattle for beef and have a small herd of fallow deer. Raising deer for their meat is a big deal in NZ. We passed several large deer herds on the way across the island. The way you can tell if a pasture has a deer herd is by the height of the fences. Deer are much better jumpers than cattle or sheep regardless of what you count to get to sleep.

Morning tea was very nice. The tea was great and they had prepared small sandwiches and a variety of pastries. The cheese muffins and the almond pastry were especially good. They had a very unique sandwich. A spear of asparagus wrapped in buttered, brown bread with the crust cut off. It was surprisingly tasty. The farm had a very nice garden with a large variety of flowers and shrubs. There was a huge Gingko tree that did not look at all like the ones we have in CA. The leaf was identical but the tree grew like a regular tree with lots of long branches. It appears to be a different variety than ours because it’s a bisexual plant. The Gingkoes in CA are single sex. I’ll have to see what I can find out about this variety.

After tea the owner gave a demonstration of sheep herding with his two dogs. They were very efficient at moving the sheep from the pen about 100 yards up to the shearing house and keeping them in a tidy group while the owner told us about them. The younger of the two dogs would run down to a watering tank and jump in every now and then to cool off. While he did that he kept his eye on the sheep and if one tried to get out of the pack he would jump out and shake himself off while running the 20 yards to get the errant sheep back in the pack. It was pretty funny.

The owner then sheared one of his sheep for us and then it was back on the bus and home to the ship. Diana and I had the driver drop us off on Queen St. and we walked back to the pier checking out the locals and the shopping. We wanted to be back to the ship by 3PM as they were having a Maori folkloric show aboard. The show was great!! We’ve seen several Maori dance shows and this one was clearly the best.

We now have two days at sea crossing the Tasman to get to Sydney, Australia.

Feb 18 – A restful day at sea today. We gained an hour last night and will gain another tonight as NZ was on daylight savings time and Sydney is in a new time zone. We got the daylight savings hour today and we get the time zone hour tomorrow.

Feb 19 – Another day at sea. Very low key. Time to catch up on picture organization and writing. 25-hour days could get addicting.

Feb 20 – Here we are in Sydney, Australia. We were here two years ago on the Volendam and the weather was much hotter. It’s rainy today and we’re headed up to Koala Park to see the animals of Australia. We went up there last time and Diana wanted to go back again.

The sail in was pretty rainy we couldn’t see the headlands until we were almost on them. Once we were in the harbor the fog lifted and the visibility improved considerably. Sydney’s passenger harbor is a little way inland from the commercial harbor. In fact, we docked just opposite downtown. Australian immigration and quarantine officers came on board and each passenger had to show up personally to have their passport inspected and hand in the required entry and exit forms. The process was well organized and went quickly.

We are right across from the Opera House again at Circular Quay. The Quay is a center for transportation. Ferries, buses, trains, taxis, water taxis and tour buses are all available right on or at the foot of the pier. Good location for getting around. Our tour doesn’t leave until 1PM so we hopped off in the morning and went just up the hill to “The Rocks” area of Sydney. It’s the oldest district of the city and the spot where it was founded. There are many historic buildings from the city’s beginnings. On the weekends they have a street market (left) and we wanted to take a look at the offerings. Diana found some abalone shell jewelry that is very pretty. We stopped by the tourist information center to get some maps because we have not scheduled a tour for tomorrow. Then it was back to the ship and lunch to prepare for the afternoon tour.

At 1:15PM we were on the bus to Koala Park in one of Sydney’s suburbs. The park has not changed much in 2 years. They have displays of animals and birds unique to Australia. The first thing we saw was a dingo. They are very dog like and do not bark at all. They do howl like coyotes. Although most of them are tan he was white. Seemed well behaved and very alert to his surroundings.

One of the employees was sitting on a bench with a wombat (right). They look like a cross between a huge mouse and a small bear. They are quite skittish but if you sat on the bench beside the wallaby you could pet it as long as you didn’t approach it from the front or touch its head. Apparently they feel threatened by those actions and will bite quickly.

After that we went to the Koala enclosure. The employees brought two Koalas to sit on the fence to be petted and take pictures with. Diana just loves Koalas (right) so we had to meet both of them. I have to admit the little critters are cute and mild mannered.

From there we went up to the bush camp area and had another sheep shearing demonstration and morning tea. Morning tea was Billy tea and damper with syrup (below right). Billy tea is brewed over an open fire by throwing tea into a cowboy style coffee pot. Damper is bread that was baked in the ashes of the fire. They kept the bread from getting ashes in the crust by baking it in an iron Dutch oven style pot that they lined with hot coals. They then put foil over the coals, then the bread dough, then more foil, and then hot coals on top. I don’t know what it is about eating food cooked over a fire outdoors but everything always tastes great. The tea and damper were not exceptions. They served the tea in a tin cup that reminded me of the cup my grandmother kept by the pump in the barnyard so you could get a drink and keep fairly dry.

After that we were free to roam around the park and look at the wallabies of all varieties, kookaburras, fairy penguins (very cute and fairly small), more wombats, echidnas, cassowaries (below left), cockatoos, parrots, and of course kangaroos (below center, with Joey). It was a fun afternoon at the park.

The trip back to the ship was on the Rivercat, a very modern catamaran style ferryboat. This was a great adventure as the rain had held off all the time we were in the park but began pouring when we got on the Rivercat. Of course, being stubborn in nature, I donned my poncho and made the 45-minute ride back down the Parramatta River on the open bow area of the boat. At times it was moving pretty fast and the rain was quite stimulating at high speed. Of course, the poncho not withstanding, I was soaked by the time we arrived at Circular Quay and sloshed quite a bit on the short walk back to the ship.

That evening our travel agent, Cruise Specialists, Inc of Seattle, had arranged for us to have dinner at the Taranga Zoo. They took us to the zoo by bus and we ate in a private banquet room overlooking Sydney Harbor and the zoo. It’s very pretty there with good views of Sydney, the Harbor Bridge and the ship. During pre-dinner drinks, handlers brought up a boa (right) and an echidna (left) for us to see and touch. The echidna is a porcupine like animal with short quills that ranged from very thick to very fine. Only about 10% of the quills are the thick sharp type, the rest are quite hair like.

After viewing the animals, dinner was served. The first course was salmon that had been marinated the way the Mexicans do their fresh seafood salad. The main course was the best banquet chicken I have ever tasted. It was a chicken breast with goat cheese and spices stuffed under the skin. The flavor was wonderful. I was chanting a chocolate mantra hoping to have an effect the chef’s choice of desert. It didn’t work; they served individual Pavlovas (right). You may remember that I spoke rather disparagingly of Australia’s national desert previously. Usually they are way too sweet with not enough substance. This one was an exception. While not as good as a chocolate desert it was very nice indeed. The fruit was perfectly ripened and the meringue cup and cream filling were not overly sweet. The red drops on the plate are strawberry puree and the yellow sauce is passion fruit. The little black dots are passion fruit seeds. Not much flavor but very crunchy. I’ve had to revise my opinion of Pavlovas a little because this one was good.

It was a good day, although a wet one.

Feb 21 – Today we are on our own. We started off getting passes to the hop-on-hop-off Sydney Explorer Bus. It makes a two-hour circuit of the city making 26 stops. You can get off at any of the stops and then catch the next one 20 minutes later. It was a great way to see the city and get from site to site. We made almost the entire circuit before getting off at the Star Casino.

Although I don’t really gamble I do collect casino chips. They are cheap yet unique souvenirs. I went to the cashier’s cage to get chips like I do in the USA and was told that the casino only sells chips at the tables and they only accept paper money. As the smallest denomination of bill here is $5 I had to buy at least that much in chips. I went to a table that was not busy and the dealer sold me one $2, two $1 and 4 $0.25 chips. I wanted to keep one each of the $2 and $1 chips so I was trying to find a way to get rid of the other chips. The smallest bet on any of the tables was $5 that was not going to work. I finally went back to the cashier’s cage and went to the same teller that couldn’t sell me chips. I said, “You might have thought you were off the hook but I’m back and now I want some Australian coins.” He laughed and sorted through his cash drawer to find me some nice specimens. He did give me a 50-cent piece that was minted to celebrate 100 year of Australian confederation. I hadn’t seen one of these and it had a very nice design on the reverse. The obverse, of course, was QEII, the queen, not the ship. I sold everything back to him but 2 of the quarter chips. I gave them to the two men at our dinner table, Eric and Max.

After that we walked along the harbor to the Harbourside (yes, they do spell it the British way) Center. It has shops and restaurants. There was a sushi bar with a conveyor belt on which individual servings of sushi rode on small colored plates. This was very nostalgic because when I was working in Gardena a lot I used to go to Tokyo Sushi and it had the same set up. When you were done eating the cashier counted the number and color of the plates you had piled up to figure your bill. Much less expensive that a regular sushi bar for very good sushi. Diana went into some of the shops that sold Australian merchandise and I watched the Aussies as they passed by. Great fun!!

From there we caught the monorail to the Queen Victoria Building. It’s a wonderful Victorian style structure that used to be an office building but has gotten a second life as an upscale shopping mall. They have two wonderful clocks there.

One is completely dedicated to Australian history. It tells the time, date and day. From top to bottom it has: 1. a gold 6 sided dome on which two of the sides open like a car trunk every hour to display rotating dioramas with various events from Sydney’s life; 2. a band of dioramas that are always visible that portray events from the first landing of Captain Cook to the dealings of the Europeans with the Aborigines (An Aboriginal man walks around this circle and pauses at each diorama as it lights up), 3. 4 narrow bands that show the hour, minute, day of the week of and date, 4. a row of 12 oval shaped landscapes showing sections of the Australian coastline, 5. a row of clocks below the landscapes that show the time in various places and 6. a cube clock with 4 faces each pointing a different direction.

The other is dedicated to English history. The top is shaped like a castle and every few minutes some heralds come up on the corner towers and blow trumpets that announce a new historical diorama has opened on the side of the castle, King John signing the Magna Carta or Henry VIII and his six wives, for example. This clock is more modern and is dedicated to Queen Elizabeth II. The clock faces hang below the castle.

On the top floor of the building they have a full size, jade Chinese two-wheeled carriage on display. Only the wheels were not made of jade. Apparently it was the wedding carriage of one of the emperors of China. At the other end of the top floor they had replicas of the Crown Jewels of England on display. They were nice but nothing compared to the originals but they did allow photographs.

After we left the QVB we walked back to the ship down George Street. We had to find somewhere to buy laundry soap as Diana has become allergic to the ships soap. I also wanted to buy some of Darrell Lea’s soft, fresh licorice. On the advice of a friend I bought some last time we were here and it’s the best licorice I’ve every tasted. Unfortunately, it spoils quickly so I won’t be able to get any home. It lasts about 1 month if it is not opened and about 2 weeks after it’s opened.

Having accomplished our mission we headed home. On the way we stopped into the Fortune of War Pub (right) at The Rocks near the ship. We were hot and thirsty. Diana had a ginger ale and I asked the landlord which of his beers on tap were Australian. He drew himself up to his full height and replied that all his draft beers were Australian. I asked him which he would recommend and he said Cambridge Draught and I ordered one. It was very good and I told him so. He replied, “That’s what I drink myself, too much if you ask the Missus!” All three of us had a laugh at that one. Then it was back to the ship for dinner.

Now the BNOTD. The zoom toggle on my digital camera has stopped working. The only pictures I can take are wide angel. This is not good. I may try to replace it in Hong Kong. Until then the pictures you get will be severely edited.

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(c) Rod Longenberger - 2005