We flew to Auckland on Tuesday 18 November and spent 4 days checking the sights and enjoying our wonderful waterfront apartment. We stayed at a 2 storey penthouse apartment on Prince's Wharf with superb views of Auckland Harbour.
We hired a car and travelled across to the Coromandel Peninsular with its magnificent coastal scenery on both the protected western side and rugged east coast. Cook stayed here for 12 days in 1769 to observe the passage of Mercury across the sun. Cooks Beach is a beautiful stretch of sand.
When we finally left Auckland on Friday to join the cruise, all we had to do was to walk across to the other side of the pier.
The ship is the MS Volendam, part of the Holland America line. It is very luxurious with the only problem being how to avoid putting on weight with all the wonderful food. It is 3 1/2 laps of the boat to 1 mile and we completed 7 laps this morning before breakfast. May need to do a few more laps later!
We spent the 1st day at sea and passed the Mercury Islands that we had visited on our car trip. We then sailed on to White Island, about 50 km off the coast. This is NZ most active volcano and it was spewing forth lots of smoke. A very barren and inhospitable place.
Last night was a formal dinner and we all looked very spiffy. We even managed 2 free glasses of champagne courtesy of the captain.
This is our first port of call at Tauranga with the town being about 10 minutes drive from the port. As it is Sunday, lots of places are shut but a few have opened especially for the cruise ship.
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5 comments:
Of course if I had any idea how far a mile was (note was, not is. We don't use them any more...) I'd know how far you'd walked!
You've escaped some particularly ghastly weather here. 9 degrees when we went out this morning.
Don't you know that food eaten on a cruise ship is calorie free? Have fun :)
Matt asked me to amend my post.
Unless it was a nautical mile in which case one nautical mile is equal to 1.852 kilometres.
We wallked a long way! Perhaps the distance around the ship is 1 mile in port and 1 nautical mile when at sea!
I'd go with that, great answer. Not only is food calorie free at sea, but distance walked for exercise is also longer! Brilliant! :)
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