Day 24 & 25 - January 27 & 28, 2025 - Monday & Tuesday - Sea Day & Waitangi, NZ

 Monday started off with rain, so my opening photo is of today, Tuesday.  This is the sunrise as we were just off the coast of NZ near Waitangi.

Although Monday started off with rain, it quickly cleared up and we had a quite lovely day.  I attended a couple of excellent presentations.   The first was by the Viking Resident Historian, Dr. Bryan Babcock.

Dr. Babcock provided some interesting facts, history and lore about our oceans which compromise such a large part of our earth.  It is hard to grasp the size of the Pacific Ocean.  We have now spent 14 full days on the Pacific and except for within a few miles of the islands we have visited, none of us have spotted a single ship.  You do feel quite alone out here!

The second lecture was by Dr. Claudia Hackbarth entitled "Glaciers as Remodelers of the Land".  She is an excellent lecturer.  I wish all of my college professors and been half as good.

This was an interesting chart.  What a surprise, all the mainstream news channels would lead you to believe climate change just started in the past 40 years! -grin-

I try to refrain from posting too many food photos, but this one is for my friend Bill Maudling in Greensboro, NC.  Actually this is not a photo of food, but what was left after I finished my large bowl of "Seafood Broth".

Just mussel, claim and prawn shells remain...

The bar at the main pool had a great display of the beers available.  I spoke to the bartender and he said they did this because the NFL playoff were being shown on the huge monitor at the pool.

Now for today.  Prior to the photo of the sun rising, I took some photos of the moon before it was washed out of the sky by the sun.  Do you notice anything different from how the crescent moon looks from the US?

The orientation is different because in the southern hemisphere you are upside down in relation to how we normally view the moon.  The phases are the same in both hemispheres, just the appearance varies depending on your latitude.

Now back to Waitangi.  This is our second visit to this historic location.  On our first visit 10 years ago we took a ferry across the bay to the town of Russel an did a lot of hiking.  

The Treaty of Waitangi was first signed at Waitangi on February 6, 1840. It is also the place where the Declaration of Independence of New Zealand was signed five years earlier, on October 28, 1835. This document was ratified by the British Crown the following year (1836).  Our guide told us that next week on the anniversary of the signing, 70,000 people were expected.  Considering that the official Waitangi area has a population of only around 60 persons, that is quite a crowd.  Fortunately there are a number of towns in the area.  This will be like a 4th of July event for us.

Today we did the included Viking tour.  We had no idea what to expect but it was really a nice tour.  We made a giant loop through the country side and passed through several towns and visited their famous Rainbow Falls.

I'll show a few photos with minimum comment.

Our route as recorded on Geo Tracker

    

The map on Google Maps  - The blue dot is where the ship is tendered.

After viewing some beautiful scenery from the coach, we stopped in Pakaraka for a rest room break.  It is a very colorful and interesting town.  This is our guide, Ray's home.  He was a butcher here before retiring and becoming a driver/guide.

This was Ray's former business.  I thought the "Homekill" was interesting.  I have never seen that term before.  He explained that didn't mean your spouse, it referred to slaughtered farm animals.  If you didn't know, a hangi is food cooked in a ground pit lined with hot stones.  Hangi is not a type of food but rather the method it is cooked.

One of the more unique places to visit is the public bathrooms here.

Entrance to the men's toilet.

This was not a good place to "go" if you have bashful kidneys!

This is not a great photo, but it is of a kiwi farm.  It covered acres and acres.  It was fully enclosed with netting.  The plants looked like a grape vineyard with the fruit growing above a center "lane".  He said they used low carts to move under the plants to pick the fruit.

Gas is expensive.  With their loyalty card the cost for regular is 2.76 NZ$ per liter.  With todays  exchange rate, that amounts to $5.91 per gallon US.

We were fortunate that it was a sunny day, it rained most of last week here.  We were able to see the abundant rainbows!  The falls are just under 100 feet tall.

This impressive building was built in 1832-1836. The Stone Store is New Zealand's oldest intact stone building and its earliest surviving warehouse. It was the most substantial building in the early Church Missionary Society (CMS) settlement at Kerikeri, which had been founded in 1819 by the Reverend Samuel Marsden  Located close to the shoreline, the structure was built as a central storage depot for the many CMS missions in the region, providing storage for food and other items produced by the organization or imported from overseas. 

The Ngā Toki Matawhaorua of Pewhairangi, often simply known as Ngā Toki, is the name of a New Zealand waka or ornately carved Māori war canoe.  This ceremonial canoe was built in 1940.  It is 123 feet long and 6.5 feet wide at its widest.  It can carry 80 paddlers and 55 other passengers. It is the largest canoe in New Zealand and once held the Guinness World record..

When we got back to the pier, we decided to go into the town of Paihia.  It was only about a mile from the pier and the locals provided a shuttle.  We took the shuttle into town with plans to walk back.  After walking around town, I wanted to get a local beer.  We settled on Jimmy Jack's Rib Shack and Craft Beers.

I spoke with the barmaid and asked about local beers.  I was told that unfortunately, due to their laws, they could only sell what their distributor provided.  I understood this, it used to be that way in Georgia until just a few years ago when we got the law changed.  I decided to get the Hazy for me and the Export Gold for Kay.  They were both good, but I was still disappointed that there were no locals.

Hazy on the left, Gold on the right.

We were sitting at a sidewalk table enjoying our beer and the barmaid came out with menus.  She said unfortunately another law required you to have food if you were not in the building.  She said we could just have the menus and if asked, just say we haven't decided on our order yet!  There is always a way around a silly rule.

As we started our walk back to the pier to catch the tender, we saw this advertisement. If we were here in two weeks, this might be a good concert...

The beach between Paihia and the pier was beautiful.

Yes, they do protect the Kiwi birds.

Our timing was good and a tender arrived just as we arrived at the pier.  The Viking Sky was tendered far out in the bay.  It was about a 17 minute ride to reach the ship.  

We had a relaxing afternoon, then dinner and plan to attend the entertainment tonight.  The Viking vocalist are performing.  We have enjoyed the previous show they presented.

Tomorrow we arrive in Auckland.  I hope to get a post done tomorrow, if I have time and I'm not too exhausted!