Blogs from North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 9

I will probably bore you to death with all my ramblings on today’s travels and thoughts. We leave Auckland behind today and head into the Waikato area. This is a huge farming area with very fertile soil which encourages market gardening and dairy farms. Farming must be a challenge here as there are no flat fields, only rolling hills. There are not many cash crops but lots of herds of cows and some sheep. The Waikato River runs through here and flows a very long distance - it’s a dangerous river as it’s deep. It has a smooth surface tension that conceals an exceptionally fast current underneath. Rural residences do not have wells but store rain water in large tanks behind their houses. Electric power is provided by coal plants which used to be provided with ... read more

This is a picture catchup blog. The internet at the hotel is strong enough for me to send off the pictures so I can get caught up. Prices of everything are high here but $1 NZ is equal to about $.70 Canadian so that lessens the pain a little. A glass of wine is $12-18 and a 500ml glass of beer $11-16. Meals such as the fish & chips we had at the Shakespeare Pub last night are $25. Coffee can be as high as $5 depending where you get it. Today we are driving to Rotarua where there are hot springs and volcanic surface activity and has a high Māori population. Promises to be an exciting day. So stay tuned….... read more

Bonjour à tous, Comme vous pouvez le constaté je suis bien à Auckland. Je n'ai pas d'explication, au texto que j'ai reçu concernant cette panne technique. Je n'en ai pas demandé non plus, beaucoup trop de difficultés à comprendre les australiens. Vol à l'heure, tout ce qui à de plus normal. Juste une bonne crise d'angoisse pour moi, avec ce sms. Le repas du matin, était franchement pas terrible, mais celui pour Auckland, immonde. La boîte repas occupe une moitié de tablette d'avion, c'est dire si c'est copieux. 2 saucisses genre cocktail, une cuillère à café de purée, idem en petits pois, et rien d'autre, même pas de pain. Il ferait mieux de ne rien servir. Comme je vous l'avais dit à Auckland, j'étais prit en charge par un chauffeur, pour me conduire à l'hôtel. RDV ... read more

We were looking forward to exploring Tauranga, particularly because it is the hometown of Cory, who will become our son-in-law in less than 2 months time! The weather, however, did not want to cooperate. We breakfasted and prepared as normal, but today there were no shuttles from the port. We walked down to the bottom of the gangway, and by then I was sopping wet in the rain and the wind, so Tom continued on his mission, and I returned to the ship. I thought I’d go via the computer tech guy to check his hours, but Ricardo was there, and assisting one person in front of me, so I waited. Ricardo found that the pics I’d been taking for the last day and a half on the iPhone were all live shots, and my iPad ... read more

Things I keep forgetting: * yesterday while we were eating brekky we were watching some tiny dolphins in the water beside the shop - turns out they are the smallest dolphins in the world, and named Hector Doplphins. * our sommelier, Janine, was tellling us she lost her dad during covid - not from covid but from dengue fever, all of the hospital beds in the Philippines were taken up by covid patients. * there was a group of staff, wearing their uniforms, at the show the other night. They were the “new contracts”. The new staff get to see a show during their first week. * we keep finding people in lifts who haven’t pressed numbers. Today at lunch time we accidentally pressed the up button again before a full elevator departed so the door ... read more