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Published: January 20th 2011
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Day 51: (Captain) Cook's Tour
Today, on impulse, I took a three-hour cruise to see the monument to Captain Cook at Ship Cove. Cook anchored there for nearly six months, careening his ship and revictualling.
The cruise, conducted by Beachcomber Cruises, went in a fairly small catamaran, the
Tiri-Cat. As Mel had assured me, I had no trouble boarding her, but her motor vibrated enough to hurt my shoulder, though fortunately not on a troublesome frequency.
As always, most passengers preferred to sit upstairs, but I stayed downstairs on the rear deck. There was padded bench seating there, on top of stowage bins, and it was both comfortable and, for the first two-thirds of the trip, shady.
Mel ran me in to the dock at Picton. From there, we sailed for an hour to reach Ship Cove. We had only 15 minutes there, so I really didn't get a good look at the place. It took me almost exactly half the time to make my way to shore along a very long pier, and then to cross a footbridge carved with Maori symbols to reach the monument itself.
The monument was large and solid and rectangular.
The long pier
to Cook's monument There were historical markers nearby, but I did not have time to read them. The skipper had assured us that if we did not have time to read them, he would lend us copies of the text when we were back on the boat, but sadly I asked him for the material too late, when, as he said, we were nearly in port in Picton again, and he would not give them to me. So I will never know, I suppose, what those historical markers said.
At least two-thirds of those on the boat were planning to walk back from Ship Cove, an all-day walk. That made it much less crowded for the rest of us thereafter! From there, we sailed to Endeavor Inlet and to a number of other bays and coves, dropping more people off on walking-tracks and delivering mail. By the time we got back to Picton, there were only three other original passengers aboard, plus a fourth person who had boarded at one of the mail stops.
"Feeding the pet fish," had been an advertised attraction on the cruise, but, disappointingly, we did not get to feed them, only to watch them being fed.
They were blue cod, and they rose to the surface for the fish-food like goldfish.
We were instructed to climb to the upper deck of the boat to watch the fish-feeding, so I did, rather arduously, but I found that I could not see a thing.
My fellow passengers were pointing and exclaiming over the size of the cod, but for whatever reason I could not see anything at all.
I went back downstairs and went to the door of the boat; from there, I could see the man feeding the fish and could occasionally see the fish rising.
At one of the houses on the mail route, a feature of the dock was a red booth, just the size and shape of an old London telephone booth. When I looked at it closely, however, I was delighted to see that its logo read, "TELEPHISH."
As in Doubtful Sound, there has been an attempt here to turn the islands into predator-free sanctuaries for native flora and fauna. Unlike Doubtful Sound, however, Queen Charlotte Sound is plagued by windblown seeds from pine trees, which are raised for timber on the mainland.
The local conservators handle this
by selectively and individually poisoning the pine trees, which would otherwise outcompete the New Zealand trees and underbrush. They do not remove the dead trees for the same reason that many animal control programs leave spayed feral cats in place on city streets; as long as a dead pine tree is there, no live one will grow in its place. Many of the islands of Queen Charlotte Sound, therefore, were dotted with brown and dead pine trees, stark against the native ferns and flax. I was sorry for them, as they were friends from home, but I suppose we would do the same to an invasive species from New Zealand.
After the cruise, I walked up from the harbor and explored Picton. Picton is a pretty little town with a semi-pedestrianized main street with speed bumps. Fortunately, I was walking, so I did not have to worry about the bumps.
About half the stores along the main street were aimed at tourists. There was a fascinating souvenir shop with wooden souvenirs, some very clever. It was called Geppetto's, and had a life-size likeness of Pinocchio (the Pinocchio of the story, not Disney's) to welcome customers inside.
I
knew that wooden souvenirs were the last thing I should buy; I still remember the agitation I caused to the USDA at home by attempting to bring home some carven coconuts from Dominica. But I almost gave in and bought one anyway: a kiwi with a comical expression on its face. Unfortunately, upon closer examination, it was not just one comical kiwi, but a cluster of them, all on a base, and that made it both too expensive and too large for serious consideration.
There was a hardware store, and there I got yet another replacement cane tip (for 50 cents, this time, rather than Queenstown's five dollars. Did I mention that I don't like Queenstown?) and some epoxy with which I hoped to mend my reading glasses.
Sadly, when I tried it a few hours later, I was unable to get the epoxy to bond with the frames. I hope Buccaneer Lodge will have a use for epoxy; I don't want to try to take it with me.
I also went to the bank, and window-shopped in some of the other stores. I was amused to see the "Flying Haggis" pub, though I did not go in.
Mel had recommended the Seabreeze Cafe, so I had lunch there: locally caught fish and chips. The fish and chips were excellent, and like Queenstown's Hoki Doki they had chilled tap water in a carafe, but the garden salad that also came with the meal was served with a very spicy dressing. It was good despite that, but the heat of the dressing made it hard to eat.
Picton turned out to have extremely advanced public restrooms, the most thoroughly automated units I have ever seen. They were called "Exeloos." You pressed a button to enter the stall, whereupon the door slid back to let you in. A voice told you to press another button to lock the door; when you did, you were told that you would have ten minutes to use the facility. Then the speaker began playing easy-listening music.
The press of another button measured out a precise amount of paper (fortunately, you could press it several times), and a sign on the wall explained that the commode would flush only when you washed your hands or unlocked the door. The handwashing unit was motion-sensitive, and, sure enough, when it was triggered the commode flushed and the door opened.
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