Wellington to Auckland

Saturday 8 December

Windy Wellington lived up to its reputation but it was a warm sunny day and we enjoyed wandering through the markets and the city’s shopping district. We then caught the Wellington Cable Car (a funicular, not an actual cable car!) to the top and lunched at the café with fabulous views out and across the city. My birthday dinner was at Murano, the ship’s French restaurant, where we enjoyed a delicious meal followed by a chocolate cake with one candle. A lovely day.

 Sunday 9 December

Having visited the art deco city of Napier twice before we chose a shore excursion covering three of the Hawkes Bay wineries. The first was Sileni with its modern building and lovely grounds, and then Ngatarawa which has as part of its history the love story between an aristocrat from Great Britain and a Maori princess.

Finally we visited the Mission Estate Winery, established by French missionaries in 1851, and located within a stunning historical building originally located elsewhere and ‘broken’ into several pieces to be brought to its current location. All in all we tasted about fifteen wines, both red and white, and ate delicious ice-cream!

Sileni Winery

Ngatarawa Winery

Mission Estate Winery

Monday 10 December

Our final sea day seemed to fly by. The highlight, apart from Jim winning both games of Scrabble, was watching and listening to the Captain’s entertaining PowerPoint presentation on the launch of the Celebrity Solstice ten years ago. Captain Tasos is a very funny man and had the theatre crowd in stitches as he talked about his three years as safety consultant during the construction.

It's nearly Christmas on the Solstice!

Tuesday 11 December

Mount Maunganui is a lovely coastal village and the port for the city of Tauranga. Once off the ship we took a shuttle into town and spent a couple of hours walking, stopping for coffee. We then caught the shuttle back to the port, walked the length of the tourist district and lunched on delicious calamari and Rabbit Ranch Rosé at Latitude 37. That night we attended the Captain’s cocktail party and were delighted to accept Bill Schaefer’s invitation to join him for dinner at Tuscan Grille restaurant.

Charity 'trees' by the bay in Tauranga

 

NZ Christmas Trees just coming into bloom

Wednesday 12 December

We decided to stay on board on our last day, anchored in the beautiful Bay of Islands. It was a glorious day and the views from all around the ship were stunning. We spent a very relaxing day walking, eating, drinking coffee at Café al Bacio, working on our tablets, and sadly, packing.

We followed drinks (with Karen, Michael and Bill) with our final dinner at Blu Restaurant. Tomorrow we disembark - but we are really looking forward to the next part of our NZ journey – a road trip!

Sydney to Akaroa

Friday 30 November

Sydney, as always, was a blur of people and traffic. However, we dined at the fashionable and popular Barangaroo on both nights. On our one full day we took a ferry from Circular Quay down the Parramatta River, something I hadn’t done during my thirty two years in Sydney. I was amazed at the multitudes of expensive homes and apartments all along the river.

Sunday 2 December

Late on Sunday morning we towed our bags to the cruise terminal and boarded the Celebrity Solstice. We were greeted with champagne and in no time at all made ourselves once again at home on this beautiful ship. As we boarded we ran into an old acquaintance, Bill from San Diego, whom we first met on a cruise in 2015 and then again in 2016. Each evening we meet Bill, and Karyn and Michael from Melbourne (who, coincidentally, run a freight business between Victoria and Tasmania) for pre-dinner drinks.

Monday 3 December

Two full days of uninterrupted sailing took us across the Tasman Sea in ‘interesting’ weather. At times the outside decks were closed due to heavy rain and rough seas, and navigating our way around the interior of the ship was exciting as we bounced about and at times lost our footing… as if we had been drinking.

Wednesday 5 December

Our next sailing day took us to the beautiful NZ fjord land and the Sounds: Milford, Doubtful and Dusky. We previously traversed these ancient glacier-created sounds under blue skies but this time we discovered that along with the bleak weather comes the most amazing waterfalls.

Thursday 6 December

Land at last after sailing into the spectacular green of Dunedin’s Port Chalmers. Interestingly, Dunedin, which is NZ’s oldest city, is Celtic for Edinburgh, and the Scottish influence can be found throughout the city. After a relaxing coffee at Starbucks we visited the Museum of Otago and enjoyed their 150 year celebration exhibition as well as the Animal Attic (a taxidermist’s dream), the maritime exhibition and People of the World which included remnants of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.

Friday 7 December

Akaroa, the closest port to Christchurch, is an ancient volcanic caldera with breathtaking lush green hills, dotted with pine trees and red roofed farm houses. The town was first settled by the French in 1840 and their influence can be seen throughout in the names of the streets and shops. The sky was blue and the sun was hot as we wandered through the charming village, stopping for coffee. What a wonderful way to spend a few hours!

Seals sunning themselves in the beautiful 'Sounds'

Museum of Otago, Dunedin

Sailing into Akaroa

War Memorial park, Akaroa

Celebrity Solstice from shore

Akaroa village

Seagull spa...

'French' Akaroa

Leaving Akaroa

Dinner at 'Blu' restaurant on board

Our growing 'family' of towel art provided by our cabin steward

From Tuscan Grille on board

Still time to read...

The past few weeks have been about entertaining guests (with a breakfast for 24 still to come) but in between I've had time to read a few good books.

Woolly by Ben Mezrich is 'the true story of the quest to revive one of history's most iconic extinct creatures'. Given the amount of research I have done on the topic I was afraid I may not discover anything new - but this fabulous book provides even more information about the people I have already 'met' and their plans for the future. There's even talk of making it into a movie!

Dinosaurs: How they lived and evolved by Darren Naish & Paul M Barrett is a CSIRO publication but it is written for novices like myself and is packed full of interesting information and beautiful coloured drawings and photographs. What a treat!

And then I picked up a book that many people have already read, but I never had. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday is funny and entertaining and not at all what I thought it was going to be. I'm about halfway through and looking forward to what's coming.

I have just purchased a copy of National Geographic's The Photo Ark by Joel Sartore. I watched the television series as professional photographer Joel travelled the world photographing the animal kingdom, one by one; the endangered, the unusual and the downright cute. What a fabulous book.

And I plan to read the crime thriller The Crossing by Australian author B Michael Radburn. I read the second in his Taylor Bridges series, The Falls, set in the Victorian high country, and loved it. Then I found this one, the first in the series, which is set in the Tasmanian wilderness. I'm really looking forward to it!