20170124: Wellington

Tuesday, January 24, 2017 Wellington

We were greeted by rays of sun and a blue sky through our curtains as we woke up for the day. The forecast was for a high of 67 degrees with partly cloudy skies. 

We had no trouble getting hooked up with our tour operator because we had booked this tour with Princess. The process is quite organized. The printed tickets that the ship issues specify a location and time to meet. In this case, we were supposed to meet at the Vista Lounge at 8:30am. When you check in, the staff match up your ticket to the right tour group and you get a colored and numbered sticker, and are seated in a section of the lounge with other people in the same tour. We had purple group 11 stickers. When all group members are accounted for, and the tour bus is ready, they call your group number and a staff member escorts you down the gangplank to the awaiting bus.

Our bus was headed to headlands across the bay from downtown Wellington, so we didn't have to go around the earthquake damaged roadway. We drove through the suburbs of Wellington, and then into the countryside, which looked very much like mountainous areas near home, but with some unusual looking vegetation, as well as familiar vegetation. We could recognize gorst, which is a nasty invasive weed at home, as well as in New Zealand. After 30 minutes, the tour operator drove up to what looked like an abandoned logging road with a gate. He hopped out, opened the gate, and we proceeded up a long, winding, steep and twisting logging road. As we drove upwards, we saw breathtaking views of the Wellington Bay Area, and could actually see our cruise ship in the distance, which against the background, looked like an enormous building, dwarfing anything else on the waterfront. It took 15 minutes to get to the top of the headlands, where the Quad-runner tour operator's base of operations was. They had a small office with restrooms, and a deck with a spectacular view of the Bay below. After signing waivers, we were led to a gear shed where we were offered raincoats, boots, and chaps to wear to keep our clothes clean. They said there was a trade-off between keeping our clothes clean, and being too hot. Since it was only predicted to be in the 60's, most people opted to wear the rain coats, and the boots were pretty much mandatory. We also were fitted with gloves and helmets and then we saddled up our rides.

We received a crash course on how to operate the Quad-runners, which fortunately had automatic clutches, and could be operated for the most part just by keeping them in 2nd gear. Then we had a practical, driving a short way to an area with a short figure 8 course with various challenging terrain features. We received hints on how to deal with steep side slopes, rocks, ruts and uneven terrain. It was clear that two of the tour group were very marginal, and were going to be a problem. The tour operator offered to let them take the tour in a Jeep, but in the end, they decided to go for it.

So we headed off on their ATV tracks, which started at the top of the headlands, and then wound up and down ravines and slopes, revealing even more spectacular views into hidden valleys and the ocean. 

Some of these tracks were quite challenging, but well within the capabilities of the Quad-Runners. Riders were bracketed between the group leader at the front, and his daughter at the rear, so that anyone who got into trouble could get bailed out. Janet was clearly in the group that wanted to run full out and was having a ball. Ben had to push the envelope of his comfort zone to keep up with Janet. We worked our way up towards the front, and would race from one viewpoint to the next, and then wait for the slow-pokes to catch up. There was plenty of stimulation to get the adrenaline pumping. I was surprised by how tired my hands got after the first several miles. 

We drove from what was an elevation of nearly 3000ft, all the way down to sea level to where a river drained into the ocean. We descended from pine forests with invasive gorst undergrowth, into rocky sheep filled meadows, and then down to rocky ground with patchy shrubs and sand. We then turned up the riverbed, crossing the river several times, with the water rising to above the foot plates on the Quad-runners. You had to steer around the larger boulders in the water, and counter steer to offset the tendency of the current to push you downstream.

We had a picnic lunch at a nice spot on the river bank, with do-it-yourself sandwiches, chips, salsa and a variety of cookies and candies for dessert. Despite the presence of sheep and visible droppings of various types all around (sheep, goat, cattle), and flies associated with the droppings, we weren't bothered at all by the flies, which were happy just buzzing around poo piles.

After lunch, we then faced the task of working our way back up the river bed and then climbing up the hillsides to get back to base camp. At one point, we passed the skeletal remains of a goat that the guide said washed down from the hillside during the recent rainstorm. The return route took us up a couple of very steep, loose, twisting and rocky tracks that required that you charge up them pretty aggressively to keep from losing traction and sliding back down. Like I said, there was plenty of stimulation to keep the adrenaline going. Fortunately, nobody had any serious mishaps or unscheduled dismounts. The return route took us into a dense mixed forest with tree ferns and temperate rain forest like canopy. Hidden within this forest were some of the biggest mud holes you can imagine. When we churned through these, mud was flying all over. The ruts in these were at least 18" deep and the longest was probably 20' long, but we managed to power through. It was a lot of fun. Just past the monster mud holes was the base camp. We had mixed feelings about our ride coming to an end because it was so much fun, we could have gone on for more, but we had been at it for more than 4 hours and our hands and backs could feel the strain.

We stripped out of our gear and were treated to soft drinks and beer at the office deck. It was a nice way to end our tour. The driver dropped us off at the ship, where a long line had formed to board. So far, this was a real highlight of our vacation.

After showers and some laundry, we got together with Jack and Sharon for dinner in the dining room. They had another specialty "Chocolate Journey" dessert, which is always something to look forward to. 

The stage production for the evening was called "Stardust" and featured music and dances from the 50's and 60's. Princess cruise lines does a pretty good job recruiting and training singers and dancers for their stage productions, and the technology they have available for stage effects is second to none. We have yet to be disappointed by one of their productions. Jack and Sharon opted to skip the stage production in favor of a 60's sock hop going on on the other end of the ship with the ship's live band "The Pentatonics" who Jack and Sharon really enjoyed dancing to.

We get the ship's newsletter delivered in the evening, and found out that the egg drop contest has been scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. It's a good thing we got the design and construction done early.

20170123: At Sea Port Chalmers to Wellington

Monday, January 23, 2017

Port Chalmers to Wellington Sea Day

We were hoping to get off to an early start for Wellington so as to make sure we arrived in time for our excursions, but the winds were still quite brisk in the morning. The ship had to use its side thrusters to ease tension on the dock lines, and the wind caused the ship to rock throughout the night, just as if it were on the water. The captain announced over the speakers that the ship's navigator and pilot, in conjunction with the local pilot, felt that it was too dangerous to attempt to leave Port Chalmers because side winds could blow us out of the very narrow shipping channel, leaving us stuck, and the channel blocked. So we had to wait until the winds died down.

We were allowed to go ashore to use the wifi and to walk around Port Chalmers if we wanted to, but had to be back on the ship by 11am. Jack and Sharon got off early and got their email downloaded after some initial struggles between the finicky wifi router, and their android phone. They then walked into Port Chalmers and up to an overlook above where the ship was docked. There wasn't much to the town, but it was quite a climb to get to the overlook.

Janet and I had a more leisurely breakfast and then walked to the Port Chalmers terminal for the wifi. The rain had stopped, and the clouds had dissipated, revealing beautiful rolling hillsides surrounding the harbor. The wind, however, was gusting at over 50mph, making it hard to make headway just to walk up the wharf to the terminal building. The wind was blowing so hard that the terminal staff had roped off an area along side the shipping containers that were stacked up to prevent anyone getting crushed if anything got blown over by the wind. After enduring the wind for the short excursion from the ship to the terminal, and after running into Jack and Sharon in the terminal, who reported their findings on the town, Janet and I were content just to upload pictures and text. The wifi was so finicky, you had to reconnect every few minutes, and the connection speeds varied from OK (2-5mbps), to bad (<1mbps to zero), so it took quite some time to get our pictures to upload to our iCloud photo sharing accounts.

We returned to the ship for lunch and then relaxation. Ben walked the promenade deck to log some miles, and watched the container ship operations going on off the port side of the ship and the log-yard operations off the starboard side. They have some amazing machines built for both of these industries. 

The container ship yard had these long legged trucks with the cabin 3 stories up in the air that can straddle shipping containers, lift them, drive them around the yard, and then stack them up to 3 high. There were several of these trucks zooming around in what looked like a prehistoric ballet. In the log yard, logging trucks were unloaded by a huge front loader. This dumped the logs into rough rows. Then something that looked like an excavator crossed with a dump truck with outriggers would race to the scene, and then tidy things up like the ultimate robot firewood stacker. They had the logs stacked in rows that were 25-30' high by 300-400' long. A tracked excavator like vehicle would be dispatched here or there if an odd log were sticking out where it didn't belong, and it would swing a hammer the size of a 52gallon drum to tap the offending logs into place.

We got together with Jack and Sharon for afternoon tea followed by afternoon trivia. We got knocked out of contention with a few dumb answers, but ended up within 3 points of the winners (20pt maximum score). It's especially frustrating when we write down the correct answer, but then convince ourselves to change it to something else, and then end up losing a point.

We finally were able to cast off and leave with a tugboat escort around 3pm. We had an excellent view from our balcony as we left the harbor, and could see where our tour had taken us yesterday but with an entirely different perspective with no rain and only partly cloudy skies. Our tour would have been an entirely different experience without the torrential soaking rains that eliminated any scenic viewing opportunities.

As we cruised past the Royal Albatross Center, we could see the albatross nesting areas with huge white birds sitting on their nests on a gently sloped grassy hillside.  Around the corner, there was a much steeper and rockier area where brown backed gulls had built nests athat looked liked terraced condominiumiums.  

We finally got to see many of the Royal Albatrosses flying, and as we headed out into open water, we continued to be able to spot Royal Albatrosses riding the air currents around wave tops with very little effort or wing beating.

The production show was a song and dance tribute to Mo-Town called Motor City. We had seen a big production by the same name during our Panama Canal Cruise, and were surprised that they were going to put it on the smaller stage. Well, it turned out that it was a different scaled down show with some of the same musical numbers, but smaller and fewer stage effects. The earlier version we saw had a pink Cadillac on the stage for a couple of songs. This was absent from the current show, but the show was very well done and entertaining. We sat in the front row, and during one of the songs "My Girl", the male lead came down and tried to get an elderly woman to come up with him on stage, and when she refused, he tried to get Sharon to go up with him. In retrospect, when we had seen the earlier larger production, they did select Janet, who did a turn on the stage and then rocked in his arms briefly during the song to solicit jealous glares from the two female lead singers at the edges of the stage. Sharon refused as well, and as the song had progressed to the point of no return, he returned empty handed to the stage and sat, looking heartbroken for that part of the song.

After the stage production, Janet and Ben retired for desserts and bed, while Jack and Sharon danced the night away.

The cruise director had made an announcement prior to the stage production that because an earthquake had badly damaged the road to the cruise terminal in Wellington, that no pedestrian traffic would be allowed at the terminal. This meant that anyone not booked directly with a Princess excursion would have to take a ticket for a bus shuttle from the pier to the center of Wellington. This might have messed up any people with privately booked excursions because no-one would be allowed to be picked up at the pier as well, so tour operators would have to figure out where the ship's shuttles were going to deposit passengers, and when you got off the ship was unpredictable because a limited number of shuttle buses could take hours to disembark nearly 3000 passengers. Fortunately for us, we booked our Wellington excursion directly with Princess, and would be given priority boarding on the first shuttles and boarded directly onto our excursion operators bus. I guess we have managed to find some good luck during this seemingly bad luck plagued cruise, at least as far as picking the right excursions to have booked directly through Princess.

20170122: Port Chalmers, Dunedin

 Sunday, January 22, 2017 Port Chalmers, Dunedin

When we woke and looked out our stateroom window, we were surprised at how close we were to land. There was a spit of sand with marker posts sticking out of it no more than 100' from our railing. The shipping channel leading to Dunedin is very narrow and it is dredged every several weeks. It was a very tight fit into the dock, which was primarily a timber yard filled with piles of logs. They had dropped a few shipping containers in a row to create a border to separate the cruise ship area from the logs. The weather was terrible with the wind blowing cold rain sideways. The temperature was in the low 50's, but it felt a lot colder.

It's usually bad news when the Captain makes an announcement that goes through into the Staterooms. That's how news of the helicopter medical evacuation arrived. This morning, he announced that a dangerous storm was aimed right for our next scheduled port of call, Akaroa. That meant that we would not be able to go ashore in tenders, and running through the storm would be uncomfortable, if not dangerous. So he scrubbed that off our itinerary. Instead, we will remain tied up in Port Chalmers to ride out the worse of the storm, and then we will cruise directly from Port Chalmers to Wellington, making tomorrow another at-sea day.

We had booked a shore excursion in Akaroa to go to Christchurch and the Antarctica Research station there. Fortunately, we booked it directly with Princess, so we will get a full automatic refund. We were disappointed because the Antarctica Research station has exhibits featuring the Kea Parrot, which our port guide lecturer characterized as "naughty birds" who love to get into backpacks and are endlessly curious about humans, several penguin species and a good Kiwi exhibit where we had expected would be our best bet at seeing a Kiwi bird.

Our excursion for Dunedin was booked with Viator. If our ship had failed to dock, it would have been much more of a hassle to get a refund, although Viator says it does have a refund policy for such events.

After having breakfast, we had to wait a long time for the gangplanks to be secured in place before being able to exit the ship. Our tour was booked for 8:45am, and we were just going down the gangplank at that time. Cold rain was coming down in sheets, and the wharf was covered in standing and streaming water. We had to zig-zag about 1200ft to shelter, a warehouse that had been repurposed to serve as a cruise ship terminal by providing toilets, cover, and wifi. 

Our tour operator was waiting for us in the terminal, so there was no problem with connecting with him. Jack and Sharon had booked the same tour. We were in an 18 seater minibus that was similar the minibus that took us on the Great Ocean Road tour. This one had a little better leg room in the back. However, because everyone was drenched from the rain, the windows of the bus fogged up so badly with condensation that it was impossible to see out the windows for the most part.

The driver took us on a scenic tour of Dunedin, but between the fogged up bus windows, and a dense sea fog, there wasn't much that could be seen. Dunedin does host the world's steepest residential street (Baldwin Street), according to the Guinness Book of World Records. It was kind of like if you took Lombard Street, and straightened it out. It was certainly steep. However, it was annoying that presumed tourists would rev up their rental car engines and then fly up, and the back down like mad dogs. It would be really annoying to live there and have to put up with that. Traffic was quite light so only two vehicles did this during the 5 minutes that we were there.

We toured the college, which was closed down because it was summer break for them. There is a river that runs down the center of campus. The rains had turned it into a muddy torrent with trees, tires and other debris rushing downstream.

The next stop was the train station at Dunedin, which is supposedly the most photographed building in New Zealand. 

However, the rains continued and we pretty much just dashed into the building. There was a heavy mist with the rain that obscured anything more than 50' in front of you. 

We did get some pictures of the train platform, but our  iPhones did not have water proof cases, so at least Ben was concerned about using them in the torrential rains.

We left Dunedin to drive around the bay to two wildlife sanctuaries, and we could see some incredible surf and beaches as we drove by. We got out of the bus at one overlook, but the rain and wind drove most of us right back into the bus after snapping a hasty picture. We drove by some mudflats and saw a spoonbill heron, which was a cool sight.

There were also a number of native New Zealand birds that were pointed out along the road. Apparently, the lack of any predatory mammals in New Zealand prior to humans arriving led to the evolution of many flightless birds. One bird that he pointed out has a very close cousin in Australia that flys like any other normal bird, but its New Zealand cousin can barely fly, like a turkey.

The area around Dunedin is very much like the Scottish highlands, with steep hills, lush valleys and tons of sheep. It's no wonder the Scots that settled Dunedin chose this part of New Zealand.

New Zealand is home to many species of penguins including the smallest breed- the little blue penguin, and also one of the most endangered species- the yellow-eyed penguin. There are fewer than 200 known individuals left in existence. 

The yellow-eyed penguin is a fairly large penguin, measuring just above knee height. Penguins spend all day at sea hunting and filling their bellies with fish. After nightfall, they swim ashore in waves, and waddle their way up to their nesting sites, some of which may be nearly a kilometer from the water. Unfortunately, to see these penguin marches, you have to be at a beach near a penguin breeding colony after dark. Since our cruise ship generally leaves port by 5pm, there is little chance of us seeing a penguin march from the beach. This also means you are very unlikely to see an adult penguin on land during daylight, unless it is in captivity. 

The place we visited is called the Penguin Place, and it is one of two sanctuaries that cares for yellow-eyed penguins. They have a tiny visitor center where you can buy post cards with good photos of adult yellow eye penguins. They are so-called because adults have a band of yellow feathers running around the eyes and back of the head. There is s small theater where guides give a lecture on the struggles of the yellow eye penguin. This particular colony was in near collapse. It had 18 breeding pairs several years ago, but it is now down to only 5 breeding pairs. There is a critical shortage of females. Most were thought to have been lost at sea to predators. A female of a breeding pair will pick a new mate if the male dies, but the male of a breeding pair will go on a hunger strike and starve itself to death if its mate fails to return. When this happens, there are sometimes orphaned penguin chicks. Fortunately, because there is a surplus of males, and some of these males act like gay couples, a pair of males can raise a chick. This reserve apparently has a pair of males that have raised a number of orphaned chicks to maturity.

They have a hospital area, where they rehabilitate injured or malnourished penguins. When we were there, they had nearly a dozen penguins in their hospital, including a very rare and also endangered New Zealand crested fiord penguin. Most of the yellow eyed penguins in rehab were juveniles, so they didn't have the characteristic band of yellow feathers around the eyes. Having this little hospital allows them to guaranty that you will see at least one yellow eyed penguin if you visit. When we visited the actual nesting sites, there was only one chick still in its nest. They have a network of covered trenches and blinds that allow visitors to get up close to the nests. 

These penguins have built their nests in tiny A-Frames built by the reserve staff. Their natural habitat would be to build nests in coastal scrub forests because the shade offered by the trees and shrubs were critical to keeping the penguins from overheating, but when settlers arrived, they cut down and burned nearly all of this habitat and made it into sheep land. The Penguin Place staff have been planting thousands of trees to re-establish a coastal scrub forest for these penguins. We did see the penguin chick in it's tiny A-frame laying on his belly. 

The guide was all excited because the chick had just about plucked out all of his downy feathers, leaving just a small ring around his neck, looking like the top of a cute penguin fur coat. We also walked past a nest box containing a nesting little blue penguin, but there wasn't much you could see inside the nest box, which was tunneled into a hillside.

There were also sea lions and fur seals on the beach and on an overlooking grassy knoll. You could really get close to these if you wanted to, but I wouldn't want to get any closer than 20 feet to a sea lion.

Our last stop was at the Royal Albatross Observatory, where the only mainland breeding colony of Royal Albatrosses exists north of the Antarctic circle. The first breeding pair showed up about 1920, and the colony has grown steadily since then. These albatrosses have a wing span of nearly 10'. They spend nearly their entire lives at sea, and are said to be able to sleep while flying. They spend so much time flying that they aren't very good at making landings. When an albatross fledges the nest, it climbs out of the nest and immediately starts flying. From that moment on, that bird may spend months aloft before ever landing on land. That probably is the origins of the stereotype that albatrosses are clumsy. Because these are such large birds, they apparently need help getting launched. The tend to stay in their nests until the wind hits 15-20kts. When we arrived, the wind was calm but rising. As the wind rose, we saw one albatross take flight around the lighthouse on the point. As we left, the wind had risen considerably and as we looked back to the lighthouse, 3 other albatrosses had taken flight.

There was a little blue penguin breeding area and beach very near the Royal Albatross Observatory, with raised viewing platforms. It's too bad it was nearly an hour from the cruise ship terminal. It would have been cool to see a penguin parade, but with the wind, rain, and cold, it might not have been worth the trouble. It would definitely be worth doing if you were spending a few days in Dunedin.

After returning to the ship, we had dinner and attended a new trivia game called "Buzzword". The host would put up a buzzword, followed by 5 questions. The answers to the questions had to include the buzzword. For example, if the buzzword was "WEST", then one of the questions could be "Who wanted Dorothy's ruby slippers?" and the answer would be "The wicked witch of the WEST". There were probably less than 10 teams participating, but in the end, Janet and I walked out winners with a bottle of champagne.

The stage production was "The Australian Beatles", who were a tribute band that did Beatles songs. They did mostly early Beatles songs. While they were entertaining, they were not the best Beatles Tribute band we have heard. George was off key, and they lacked enthusiasm. Still, it kept us entertained for 45 minutes.

We took our champagne to the lounge at the other end of the ship where a new game was going on called "YES or NO Challenge". People volunteered to sit in the hot seat and have a conversation with the host with the rule that if you said "Yes" or "No", nodded or shook your head, or used any colloquial equivalents, you were out. You also could not repeat any phrase more than twice like "Maybe" or "that would be an affirmative". If you made it 30 seconds, you won a bottle of champagne. One of the hosts was very adept at knocking people out in mere seconds. For example, he would ask "So is your name Sam? Is that short for anything? Do you have any nicknames?' Those questions knocked several people out in less than 5 seconds. There was a family of 14 from India, who did very well, presumably because their language idioms aren't necessarily built around yes/no questions. The older ones did the best, while the kids frequently got knocked out because of learned poor English language habits like saying "You Know" after every thing. They counted homophones so "Know" and "No" were both grounds for being out. We enjoyed laughing at the misfortunes of others as we drank our champagne. Poor "4 Second Sam" will have a hard time living down that nickname amongst his friends on the cruise.

We retired after a final late night snack run, while Jack and Sharon went off dancing. I guess we enjoy eating more than dancing. I'll hopefully be able to submit several diary entries via the Port Chalmers Wifi before we leave the dock tomorrow afternoon.

20170121: Milford Sound Scenic Cruising

Saturday, January 21, 2017 Milford Sound

Our Fiordland tour had to be abbreviated to touring just Milford Sound. The original itinerary had included traversing through Thompson Sound, Doubtful Sound, Breaksea Sound and Dusky Sound, but the medical evacuation had set our schedule back 8 hours, so this was where the time would be made up. However, Milford Sound was very majestic and we are told it is by far the most interesting of the originally scheduled itinerary. We had breakfast in the buffet and Ben got a run in on the treadmills, which were situated forward at the highest indoor part of the ship with a view across the bow. You could see land approaching like you were running towards it. It was much less crowded, so there was no waiting to get on a treadmill. President Trump's inauguration was being broadcast on FoxNews, BBC News and Australian news. It was interesting to get the BBC and Australian coverage and compare it to FoxNews.

The BBC did a lot more coverage of the rioting and protesting. They also made a big deal about the scheduled women's march to be held the following day. It's like the world wants to see the US descend into anarchy because it would make a better news story than Trump taking over power smoothly.

We stocked up on pizza slices, fruit cups, and desserts to dine on in our room as we entered Milford Sound. Jack and Sharon shared the view from our balcony, which was great. We remember struggling with crowded decks, jammed lounges and dirty windows on the Norwegian Pearl when we cruised to Glacier Bay in Alaska. Although it was cool (61 degrees) and a light intermittent drizzle was going on, it was comfortable to be able to go out on the balcony to get an unobstructed view, and to be able to duck inside if you got cold, and to listen to the ranger's commentary, which played on the TV. 

The PA system did not broadcast the commentary adequately to the balconies, but it sounded like the ranger did a lot of repeating himself in the parts that I listened to. It was best just to sit back and marvel at the walls of Milford sound, which seemed to stretch hundreds to possibly thousands of feet into the sky. Milford sound is quite different from Glacier Bay. There were several spectacular waterfalls, made even more impressive by the recent rainfall. In all, we barely spent 2 hours in Milford Sound, but we were glad to have been able to see it.

We spent the afternoon doing trivia quizzes (no winners here, but we were within 2-3 points of the top scores, so we did OK), afternoon tea, and a Maori crafts project making a wish box. This is a small box that you decorated with yellow stars on blue tape, and inside it you put a wish on a small note. We went primarily to see if we could scrounge up materials for our egg drop device, and we were able to come away with several ends of partially used rolls of the decorative dark blue tape with yellow stars. We also noticed that the Bingo cards used on the ship were very colorful, so we decided to decorate with used Bingo cards and tape. They had also been handing out hot chocolate for people on the outside upper decks during the Milford Sound transit, so Ben found a drink carrier tray to use for landing gear on the egg drop vehicle. We topped off the design with some pretty gold tinsel string that was used on the wish boxes and a pair of Princess Cruise balloons, courtesy of our room steward, to serve as streamers to keep our vehicle upright as it fell. The contest will be the evening before our final port of call, Auckland.

It's nice to have our egg vehicle done early. The inside contains a pair of ziplock bags loosely packed with hand towels to serve as airbags, and some modified toilet paper tubes just to keep the egg centered between the two airbags.

The 8pm evening show was completely full by 30 minutes before showtime, so we returned to our cabin to rest up, and then lined up 45 minutes prior to the 10pm show. We got good seats and held two extra seats for Jack and Sharon, but they didn't show up in the theater until less than 5 minutes before showtime, so we gave those seats up to other people who needed them. The program was a magician, or illusionist. He did have some expensive devices for his tricks, which were entertaining enough, but he was very skilled at basic slight of hand trickery. He also had plenty of splashy music and pretty girls to keep the show interesting.

We made a quick stop at the International Cafe for a late night snack and turned in. Tomorrow, we have an all day excursion out of Port Chalmers and Dunedin to see lots of sights and wildlife.

20170120: Sea Day Crossing the Tasman Sea

 Friday, January 20, 2017 Sea-Day-Tasman Sea

We had to set our clocks forward again so we got off to a bit of a late start. We had breakfast at 9am, instead of 8am. After breakfast, we attended a destination lecture on Wellington & Gisborne and then had another trivia game, but no prize for our team this time as several other teams had a higher score.

We did lunch in the buffet. Next was a class on the Cha-Cha. Janet and I have done these classes before, but it's clear that we don't retain much between cruises. Jack and Sharon are good swing dancers, who do it regularly, but Jack didn't want to do the Cha-Cha class, so Sharon had to pair up with another woman to learn the steps.

We then attended a cultural Maori presentation where they taught us how to say the longest single word name of a place in the world, which basically amounted to a Maori poem that could be broken down into about 15 words or 84 characters. They had us sing the poem, and thus say the word, but we'll probably never be able to repeat that on our own.

Afternoon tea ensured that we wouldn't have to go too long between trips to the feed trough. The afternoon was capped off with a basketball shoot-off by Jack (he got beat by other contestants who scored higher) and then another round of trivia. Alas, we are having to adjust to not winning at these things.

The captain made an announcement that although we were making good time, we would have to shorten our tour of the Fiordlands significantly to stay on our shore excursions schedule, so instead of touring 3 Fiords, we would just see Milford Sound, the most spectacular of the three. We would then have to high tail it around the south end of the island to make it to Dunedin in time. Our room steward suggested that the best place to view the Fjord would be from our stateroom balcony, and reassured us that although we would only be seeing Milford sound that we would not be disappointed with the experience.

This was the only Formal night for our cruise. Jack and Sharon didn't have room in their luggage for formal wear, so they just hit the buffet for dinner. There was a Captain's welcome with a Champagne waterfall, which we had seen on prior cruises, but attended for the free champagne, mimosas and snacks. The formal dinner offered similar food as prior nights, and we found out that lobster would be served on the second and last formal night, which would occur after the ship leaves Auckland, so alas, no lobster for us. However, they did have a special dessert from their Princess Chocolate Journey premium chocolate experience, and this was a chocolate hazelnut bar with citrus cream, served with gold leaf on top. That was worth putting a tie on.

The production show was a tribute to the British Invasion, showcasing mashups of songs from the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Kinks, Queen and several other British groups that stormed the American music scene in the 60's to the 80's. It was interesting how they remixed and did our after dinner munchies. 

We then saw the Australian comedian in his second act. Humor is largely dependent on cultural references, so I'm sure he was hilarious to the Australians in the audience, and he was able to get a good laugh. We Americans found enough of his material funny to make it to the end of his show, but a lot of his jokes, we just didn't get. 

Jack and Sharon did get some swing dancing in with a big band tribute in one of the lounges, and they really do tear up the dance floor.

20170119: Sea Day, Helicopter Medical Evacuation to Tasmania

Thursday, January 19, 2017 Sea-Day, Rescue at Sea

We awoke to see land off our starboard side. We had cruised to the Banks Strait, between the northeast corner of Tasmania and Clark Island. The sky was clear, and it was a little less breezy, but it was cool with temperatures in the 60's. The forward part of the Promenade deck was closed, so it was not possible to walk all the way around the ship, but walking the open part yielded 0.25 miles per lap. We had breakfast in the buffet and eased our guilt by walking 0.75 mile on the Promenade.

We attended the start of a lecture on Dunedin and Akaroa to prepare us for our land excursions on the South Island. We left before it ended because Jack wanted to compete in a trivia contest at the other end of the ship. It turns out we tied with one other group for high score, and won Princess Carabiner key chains for our efforts.

The ship's captain made an overhead announcement during the lecture that the ship had changed course back to Tasmania because one of the passengers had become gravely ill and had to be evacuated by helicopter. Another passenger we ran into in an elevator said the ship had backtracked 4 hours to get within range of the helicopter, which had launched out of Melbourne. We saw an Australian coast guard fixed wing plane arrive on scene first. This plane orbited above, apparently overseeing the rescue operation. The helicopter arrived and circled the ship. It then approached the ship near the open pool deck and hovered in the incredibly confined space created by the ship's antennas, open pool deck, and exhaust stacks. The helicopter dropped off a paramedic, emergency gear and rescue litter onto the ship's decks. Then it zoomed off towards Tasmania to refuel. It would take an hour for the helicopter to refuel and then return to the ship. 

We went up to the Skywalker lounge, which is situated in what looks like a giant spoiler at the rear of the ship because it has windows that look forward, and all the upper decks were closed for the rescue operations. They even evacuated several blocks of cabins in case there was a crash of the helicopter, and the ship's fast rescue boat was readied for launching, closing parts of the only other outside decks. From our Skywalker lounge vantage point, we could see the helicopter return, get into position and retrieve a large bag of equipment from the deck. It then circled around a second time and this time it retrieved the patient in a litter with the rescuer diver tethered together. The Skywalker lounge broke out in applause as the helicopter pulled away from the ship with it's successful rescue mission completed.

The ship's captain reassured us that because we had two sea days to catch up and that the necessary speed (19.6 kt) to make up the difference was well within the ship's capability (23.6 kt) we were most likely going to make our itinerary without having to cut out any stops.

Following completion of the rescue operations, we had lunch at the buffet and then we attended a cultural Maori presentation on how to dance a Haka. After demonstrating the basics, they had the men in the audience come up to do the dance. Jack and I went up, but after we were up there, the instructor had us all take off our shirts. That was a bit awkward, but the women got a good laugh out of seeing all our huge white bellies on stage. We did our best to look fierce, but the best we could manage was scary.

Ben got in a run on the treadmills after the Haka, but there was a wait for the treadmills. It is possible to walk all over the ship and get a workout just doing stairs and the Promenade deck, but the only place you can run on the ship is on a treadmill, so Ben was a bit miffed that most of the treadmills were occupied with kids and people just taking a leisurely stroll, while there was a line of runners waiting to get a turn.

Next on the activities list was afternoon tea with Sharon. Jack had gone for a swim in the ship's pool instead. He said the water was a bit cold. The ship had drained the pools in preparation for the helicopter rescue operation, so perhaps they didn't have enough time to get the pool refilled and reheated for Jack. 

Ben, Janet and Sharon had tea, seated at a table with about 8 people. It was difficult to hear or understand people because there was a lot of talking going on and lots of different accents. I could make out that the couple to our right were Aussies from Melbourne. 

A lot of people around the table had no idea where Washington State or Seattle were, and were astonished that we would fly halfway around the world to be on this cruise, when they just had to drive less than an hour from their homes to the cruise dock for this trip. It was surprising how often when we said we were from Washington State, people would respond "Oh, that's where Obama has been living". I guess Americans aren't the only people in the world with poor geography knowledge.

Ben and Janet had a Princess Captain's Circle presentation in the afternoon, where return Princess customers were entered into a raffle for prizes and the ship tried to encourage return business with perks like expedited boarding and at the highest premium level, free laundry service. I think you had to have over 50 cruises to qualify for free laundry. The top prize was a preview of the Elite black card benefits for the rest of the cruise (basically free laundry). The second and third prizes were bottles of champagne. We didn't win in the raffle, but they did give us complimentary drink tickets as we left, so we didn't end up leaving empty handed.

Meanwhile. Jack and Sharon did another trivia game, but without our assistance, they didn't walk out as winners this time.

Dinner in the dining room was ok except that they served a deep fried banana dessert to Janet that looked like a pair of deep fried tiny rodents, and unfortunately, it also tasted like that. The head waiter was concerned that Janet hadn't eaten the dessert and offered her another dessert. Jack and I both had a tasty pineapple flambé while Sharon had a yummy fruit cobbler with ice cream. The waiter took our room number and assured us that the chef would be notified about our dissatisfaction with the deep fried bananas, but we're sure nothing will come of it. During our British Isles cruise, Price had discovered a brass wire bristle in his steak, the kind that has caused people to have perforated GI tracts. The head waiter at that time was also concerned and took our room number, but nothing came of that encounter.

The stage show for the evening was a musician that specialized in 70's music that Aussies seem to have a real fetish for, including Neil Diamond and Johnny Cash. 

The guy was a decent musician and singer, but he was mostly entertaining because he was manic. One woman shouted out during the show "How many energy drinks do you have each day?" when he was soliciting the audience for requests. His back up band, the Princess production musicians were quite good, and the Aussies really ate it up. He got two standing ovations and one encore Johnny Cash song in.

We entered a Princess Pyramid Gameshow in one of the lounges where one person gives clues for a word that appears on a screen behind the guesser. Janet was the guesser, and Ben and Jack gave Janet clues. We did OK, scoring 12 points, which was a better than average score, but one team scored 14 and another scored 13, so we ended up in 3rd place with no prize. Dejected by the loss, Jack and Sharon headed to another lounge with their bottle of wine to dance and drink, while Janet and Ben headed off to the buffet and bed.

20170118: Bon Voyage- Embarking the Golden Princess

 Wednesday, January 18, 2017 Bon Voyage

Ben got up early and went to Starbucks to try to back up his iPhone, but found their internet speed insufficient for the task, so he went down to Federation Square, in the Atrium just outside the Museum of Australia, where the free wifi yielded an 8mbps upload speed. Our hotel offered only 0.12mbps, and Ben's iPhone estimated a back up would take over 30hrs. He got the job done in 90 minutes at Federation Square. The Starbucks coffee sure tasted good though. Australians see nothing wrong with freeze dried instant coffee for non-tea drinkers. Thanks to Melbourne's wonderful tram service, it took less than 15 minutes to get to Federation Square from our hotel.

Our hotel check out time was delayed to 11am. We hauled our luggage down into the luggage room and checked out. We walked to the Old Treasury Museum, which has free exhibits relating to the Gold Rush that put Melbourne on the map. It was like the Wild West. They called outlaws "bushrangers". Some became folk heroes, who could be pardoned if they had a large enough petition of supporters, or a politically important benefactor. They had casts of two of the largest gold nuggets found in Australia, and they were HUGE. One was the size of a large lapdog. 

They had a free coat check and the museum was air conditioned, so it was a convenient place to burn some time. We then walked through Fitzroy Gardens. The home of Captain Cook was moved from England to reside in the middle of this park as an exhibit. There were all sorts of lovely planting beds, a fern gully, ponds and rest spots. There were lots of office workers sitting out on the lawns eating their lunch or reading books. Melbourne sure has a lot of nice gardens.

As our cruise ship check in time approached, we hauled our suitcases out of storage and started rolling them down the block to a taxi stand to save us a $2 pick up charge, but halfway down the block, a cab slowed and asked if we needed a ride. He loaded us up without a pick-up charge. He took us to the Melbourne Station Pier, where the Golden Princess was docked. It seemed like he took us through some very residential back streets as we approached the dock. He reassured us it was a short cut. It was a good thing Janet insisted on us taking a cab, rather than taking a tram to Melbourne Station because the dock looked like it was nearly a mile long. Janet spotted a sad looking person hauling a suitcase behind him approaching the pier. There was no telling exactly where the Tram would have dropped us off, and how far we would have had to drag our suitcases to get to the ship. 

Shortly after entering the entrance hall for processing, we ran into Jack and Sharon. Their flights had run smoothly with no major delays or missed connections. They had arrived just minutes before us and had taken a commercial transfer bus from the airport to Melbourne Station Pier. They said the bus also took some weird shortcuts through neighborhoods to get to the pier.

Check in went smoothly and we had lunch at the Horizon Court buffet. We, of course, ate too much and needed naps to digest before preparing for dinner. A pretty stiff wind had picked up, and there were plenty of white caps on the water. They had a Bon Voyage party on the pool deck, but it was unpleasant because of the wind and loudness of the music. We sought the refuge of our private veranda, which was more our style.

En route to dinner, we ran into a champagne reception in the art gallery, which was on the way to the dining hall, so we had some complimentary champagne to get us into the right mood for dinner. The dinner courses were nice, but nothing stuck out as being fabulous. 

We were still a bit over fed from lunch anyway. After dinner, we saw the first show in the Princess Theatre which introduced the production singers and dancers in a short number, followed by an introduction to the ship, and an Australian comedian. Much of the humor went over our heads because it seemed that 80% of the audience was Australians, with a surprising number of people from Melbourne. Most of them were staying on the ship past the end of our cruise to finish back in Melbourne.

Sea conditions were a bit choppy, causing a noticeable amount of rocking and gentle rolling, making it a bit awkward to walk at times, but we will surely get our sea legs soon enough. We set our clocks forward overnight to Fiji Time. We have a full day at sea tomorrow. We'll have to work in some exercise.