Napier, Coromandel

Wednesday morning we woke up just north of Wellington and drove up through the North Island to the east coast town of Napier in Hawkes Bay. Napier is a very unique town in that more of the buildings in the town were built during the Art Deco period, 1931-1933. On February 3, 1931 a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck 15 km off the coast of Napier causing horrific damage in the town. Every brick building in town collapsed and even the brick chimneys fell off the wooden houses. A few concrete and wooden buildings were left standing, but more building were destroyed. (Concrete building stood because they were stronger than brick, wooden buildings made it because they were more flexible than brick). Additionally, with the earthquake the entire area including and surrounding Napier rose 2 meters. This process exposed thousands of additional acres of land that were previously lagoon and/or swamp land but busted all of the underground water mains. With the earthquake came fire as well and since all the water mains were broken there was no way to put out the fires that burned in the town for 2 days. Many of the building that did survive the earthquake were later gutted or completely destroyed by fire. They did dynamite some buildings to create fire breaks to keep the fires from burning down all of the houses, but in the city most of the buildings burned. Because the town was almost completely destroyed they had to rebuild the entire thing, and fast.

The factors that led to a quick rebuild of the city included removing the city council and appointing two leaders that had total control, an excess of available labor because of the great depression, and funding support from the government. The town employed 4 architectural firms, they started at the back of town and built towards the water, and within 22 months had rebuilt the entire town which was roughly 110 buildings, all solid concrete with steel beam support. As part of the rebuilt everything had to be strong and solid, no decorations could be put on the buildings that were not part of the building and everything had to be made out of concrete (no brick). There were no poles in the town after the rebuild, no light poles, no electricity poles, no street signs. It wasn't until recently that lamp posts and street signs were installed in the town. The rebuild really is amazing, especially when you look at Christchurch now and see how 4 years later they really haven't done anything, and in an ere where better building technology is available and labor would still be easy to find.

The town of Napier did not understand how valuable this architectural marvel was until the 1980s. For much of the time between the 1930s and the 1980s people did not really value the fact that they had an entire town built during the art deco area, something you can't find anywhere else in the world. In the 1980s a bank purchased two of these art deco buildings and tore them down to build once new building in their place. A few of the towns people who really liked the art deco buildings decided to hold tours of the town one cold winter day around the time of these buildings destruction to showcase to the towns people how important these buildings were. They planned for a capacity of 200 people and 1000s came. This was when the Art Deco Trust was born. Around 2000 they got the city council on board and since then there have been building restrictions on what can be torn down and what can't along with grants for restoration and unkeep of these historic buildings. They have also turned this architectural marvel into a tourist attraction. There are guided tours daily, which my mother and I took and where I learned most of this information, as well as Art Deco Weekend each year in February which attracts enthusiasts from around the world.

Approximately 110 buildings were constructed during the 2 year rebuild of the town followed by another 20 or so in the years following. Even despite the installation of building restrictions into the early 200s, only 12 of the original 140 or so have been lost. If you ever get to New Zealand this town is quite amazing.

Okay, so that's what I have about the history of Napier which we learned on Thursday morning during our tour. Back to Wednesday.

Shortly after leaving Lower Hutt where we stayed Tuesday night we started up a huge hill and through a mountain pass. This was a very stressful drive, not only because it is a well traveled road, but it is very hilly, windy, and my radiator was overheating. It has a leak on the top where as the water heats up it all escapes as steam. When we got to the other side we bought stop leak from a mechanic and that seems to be holding now, thank god. 2nd time stop leak has saved the day for my radiator. Good thing it only has to last me another couple of weeks. (But how sad that day will be when I  have to get rid of that car.... tear!). We then continued our drive up to Napier stopping a bad cafe for a bad snack along the way.

When we pulled into Napier in the earl afternoon we went straight to the iSite, got a hotel room lined up, and had a relaxing afternoon. We went out for dinner at an Irish pub in town, nothing spectacular, and then had an early night.

Oh, this was also my 1 year anniversary from being away from America! Can't believe it's been so long!

Thursday morning we got up early, wished my father a Happy Birthday, and started planning out day. Those of you that have sent me Happy Birthday messages for my father, I have passed them all along! Thank you!

My mother and I went on our Art Deco walking tour of Napier in the morning followed by a nice little lunch near the water. My father spent the morning of his 60th birthday enjoying the beach. We met up after lunch and toured the town's historic prison together. The prison was quite an amazing place. It was built sometime in the mid-late 1800s, I know it was in use by the 1870s as some stories took place then but I'm not exactly sure on it's construction date. It was a working prison until 1993 when it was eventually shuttered. While you are walking around the prison doing your audio tour it is really hard to believe that it was in use up until 20 years ago as it seems just so old run down. It has since been used as a hostel and is currently housing the 12 employees that work there. Creepy!!!

From what I remember of the tour, the capacity of the prison was around 45 people. Many famous NZ criminals have been held there including gang leaders from the large Maori, black, and white supremacist gangs. Additionally, the richest drug dealer during the 1960s got his start at that prison. He was originally incarcerated for a theft/robbery charge but while in prison realized how lucrative drug dealing could become. After leaving prison he went into drug dealing, using boats to ferry his drugs from Thailand and Indonesia and working to get as many young people addicted to hard drugs as possible. Upon his death he had over 50 million british pounds in the bank. That is so much money!

The prison was affect by the 1931 earthquake, just as the town was, and many of the hallways in the prison are twisted from the movement of the earth.

After the prison tour we went back to our motel to relax before our big celebrator dinner at Mister Ds. In reality it didn't turn out to be a huge celebration, but it was a big dinner, and fabulous. The place reminded me a lot of Ortolana, the restaurant where I worked in Auckland. The food was delicious and we went back from breakfast the next morning.

Friday, yesterday, we got up early, had breakfast, and then drove up the east cost to Kuaotunu in the Coromandel where we have rented a bach and will be staying until Tuesday. The drive was long and exhausting, but we made it last night, had a nice home cooked meal (spaghetti with sausage sauce, one of my favorite meals from back home - simple and tasty), watched some TV and just relaxed!

This morning, Saturday, we got up, walked over the walking bridge from our bach into "town", got coffee and pastries and then went for a nice beach walk. Now I'm just back at the cafe using the wifi and no plans for the rest of the day except a nice pizza dinner at the only restaurant in town, Luke's Kitchen, where I would come last summer when I was living over the hill in Coromandel Town.

That's all for now, folks. Back to relaxing for me now.

Best!

Queenstown, Lake Tekapo, Christchurch

After we got back to our car on Friday from the overnight on Doubtful Sound we went on to Queenstown. Queenstown is the tourist hot spot of the South Island. In the winter season it is the epicenter of skiing in NZ and attractions visitors from all over the world. It is, however, beautiful all year long and quite busy as well. Queenstown was only about 1 hour from where we were staying in Wanaka but we never made it as we just didn’t feel like it. Because of this we decided to swing through on Friday night instead so we could see what all the fuss was about.

Following a 2-hour drive we arrived in Queenstown in the early afternoon. Compared to all of the cities we had been in over the last week or so Queenstown was very busy and quite large. I was driving and I would say it was a bit stressful, with tourists everywhere, pedestrians, cars, and no stoplights, only traffic circles. We proceeded to the iSite (information center) where they got us a hotel for the night, the Alexis motel. We rested there for a few hours and then went on a nice lake walk into town for dinner.

While in Queenstown we saw three people from our overnight on Doubtful Sound, Ya Ping (the nice old Chinese lady), and another couple who we never found out the names of. It was really funny though because as we were driving into Queenstown we saw Ya Ping just sitting on a bench on the side of the road. He daughter and husband were nowhere in sight and we were amazed that she had beat us back to Queenstown. It was great fun!

For dinner we ate a casual pizza place in town, Winnies. The food was good, the service was fine. I would eat there again but I wouldn’t highly recommend it if you were in town. After dinner we went for a little walk around town, although it was quite windy and chilly, ending at the casino, as my dad was interested in playing the poker machines. They didn’t end up having any poker machines but we all played one hand of blackjack. Well I played one hand and won $10. My parents and Elizabeth all lost, with my parents playing 2 hands and losing $20 between the two fo them. I really felt like the grand champion of that night. Plus that puts me ahead on gambling overall in NZ to date. I played one time in Auckland and lost $5. Now I am up $5 total. Nice! Leaving the casino we were cold and tired so we jumped in a cab back to our hotel where we watched a bit of the first LOTR and then went to bed.

Saturday morning my father and I went into town early to get to the post office when it first opened, as I needed to get road miles for my car. I’m sure I’ve explained this before but as a refresher, road miles are how I pay my diesel fuel taxes. When I buy diesel fuel at the petrol station there are no taxes on it. They do this because so many vehicles run on diesel fuel in NZ that don’t use the roads, such as boats, tractors, etc… that shouldn’t have to pay diesel taxes. Thus, diesel vehicles pay their diesel taxes separately, hence road miles. Anyways, as we were waiting for the post office to open we went to a little market in the city and bought some Afghan cookies, a very NZ thing that I had never had before, and they were delicious. We then returned to the hotel, got Elizabeth and my mother, and were off to breakfast at Vudu Caféand Larder where we had a wonderful breakfast and bought some delicious takeaway sandwiches for lunch later. After all this we got on the road, and headed for Lake Tekapo, our stopping place for the next evening, near where they have the largest dark sky reserve in the world, prefect for stargazing!

The trip to Lake Tekapo was just fine. The driving wasn’t too bad, we passed a few amazingly blue rivers (which we later found out are that amazing arctic blue color because of the minerals from the ice/glacier melt that feed them), had a nice picnic lunch near an interesting and unlabeled statue, and got to Lake Tekapo around when we expected we would. That, however, was when this time in Lake Tekapo took a turn for the worst.

A week ago maybe I told my parents I didn’t want to do all the planning for this trip and my mother said she would help from then on. She said she would find a place for us to stay in Lake Tekapo, and she did, TheGodley Hotel. I am very happy that she did this as I was getting a bit sick of having to look everything up and make all the decisions, but I am starting to think she chose The Godley Hotel, which we nicknamed The Ungodley, on purpose so she wouldn’t have to make any more decisions again.

When we first entered our rooms at The Ungodley Hotel we were overwhelmed by an unpleasant damp smell. Well that’s what me and Elizabeth had in out room, my father told me the smell in their room (which was different from the smell in mine & Elizabeth’s room) reminded him of roach killer from when he was a child. In addition to the smell, the rooms didn’t look like they’d been vacuumed in a while. I was very nervous to get into the beds (for bed bugs, which they thankfully didn’t have) and they only had one very flat pillow each. All this to say we tried to spend as little time in the rooms as possible. And to add to this, when I requested a room change because it smelled bad, the housekeeping lady who came to the door refused to come into the room but insisted it didn’t smell. Her supervisor did move Elizabeth and I to another room after explaining the bad smell in our previous room was because the carpets had recently been cleaned. I couldn’t believe this at all. Anyways, the entire hotel experience was terrible, except for the massive amount of entertainment value it has added to our trip through storytelling and joking about how terrible it was.

Outside of the awful hotel, Lake Tekapo wasn’t all that spectacular. The lake and mountains were amazing but the day was so windy and cold it wasn’t enjoyable to spend really anytime outside at all. Additionally, we looked into a star gazing tour but because of the weather it wasn’t promising it would happen. I was also really tired so in the end I’m glad we didn’t go. While enquiring about the stargazing tour, however, we met an American, Mikey, with whom we had a wonderful conversation and also got a great dinner recommendation for the only Japanese place in town, Kohan. The food there was delicious, we were very happy we met Mikey. During dinner we read the book 30 Second Astronomy that we had purchased back at the astronomy tour shop. We figured $25 for the book was much cheaper than the $360 it would have cost for all 4 of us to go on the tour that likely wouldn’t have happened anyways for the wind and clouds.

After dinner at the Japanese place we went back to The Ungodley, got into our beds, tried not to think about where we were, and I was soon fast asleep, not to wake up again until morning. Well that is except for the one moment I wandered out onto the deck, looked up at the sky, saw a few starts, and then went right back inside and right back to bed. The sky was pretty lit up, but cloudy as well, and I needed the sleep.

Sunday morning we got out of the hotel as fast as we could. The car as packed by 7 am and we were on the road shortly after that. We drove towards Darfield, a town about 45 minutes west of Christchurch, where we would be spending the next 2 nights. On the way we stopped a great café Eat in Farley, another great recommendation from Mikey. After breakfast we continued on towards Darfield, arriving there around 10:45 am. We were staying at the family home of one of mine & Elizabeth’s coworkers, Sarah. Sarah grew up in Darfield and we would be staying at her parent’s house, Sarah was flying down to meet us. We arrived at 10:45 but since Sarah had missed her flight from Auckland she did not arrive until around 12. We spent the in-between time having coffee with Sarah’s parents Jenny and Malcolm and her uncles Gordon and Richard, Jenny’s younger brothers. Gordon still runs the sheep farm that had been in the family for many generations. Richard is an engineer. Jenny, Sarah’s mother, is a teacher and Malcolm, Sarah’s father, is a retired police officer and current rowing instructor.

Upon Sarah’s arrival with her friend Steph, who she worked with in Italy, we all piled in the car and went out for lunch in town followed by a nice walk around town and ice cream cones from the local dairy. We then all headed out to the sheep farm where Sarah gave us a tour of the grounds and we got a chance to chat with Gordon and ask him some of our more technical questions.

Here’s a list of some of the things we learned on the farm:

-       Sheep need a grazing allowance of 5 sheep/acres

-       Sheep are susceptible to both internal and external diseases including worms, lice, foot problems, etc…

-       Sheep have 4 stomachs, just like cows.

-       Sheep can have 1, 2, or 3 lambs at a time.

-       Sheep eat kale

-       To replace the sheep that will be lost in a year, the number of lambs kept must be equal to 25% of their overall herd numbers.  (In comparison, the dairy farm I was on only to replace about 10% of their herd each year.)

-       Wool from different parts of the sheep is used for different things, carpets vs. sweaters

-       Shearing is not a profitable activity for the farmers but because domesticated sheep no longer shed their wool in the summer as wild sheep would, they must be sheared to keep them comfortable and the wool is sold anyways. This is all done at a loss to the farmer.

-       The market price for a lamb is roughly $80-$100 when sold for meat. Large adult sheep can fetch about $110-$120 and are sold when they are no longer adding value to the farm. Mutton, the meat you get from an adult sheep, is gaining popularity in other markets such as China, driving up the price for adult sheep.

-       The “working” life of a sheep is approximately 6 years.

-       Sheep live about 10 years.

-       We saw 2 dead sheep while we were there.

-       It’s better to be a sheep than a cow.

-       Dairy farming is much more profitable than sheep farming.

-       Docking and tailing are both terms for removing the tail from the sheep. This can be done in 2 ways, either cutting it off with a hot knife or placing a ring around the tail, cutting off blood flow causing it to die and fall off on it’s own. At Gordon’s farm they use the latter method.

That’s all I remember right now.

After out sheep farm tour we went to visit Richard and his family at their home where we saw horses, goats, calves, and chickens. Following all this excitement we returned home for a lamb dinner with the family. Sarah’s brother, Jamie, and his friend joined us after for a chat. Us girls we up late chatting despite our early morning the next day, making Monday a bit of a push for us all.

Monday was full on! We were out of the house before 7:30 on our way into Christchurch to have breakfast at the restaurant of on my guests up at Ortolana. The guest, Chris, whom I had in one night for dinner with his sister, owns a fabulous café in Christchurch called Hello Sunday. It was absolutely amazing, maybe the best place we’ve eaten here in NZ. Everyone’s breakfast was outstanding as were the coffees, pastries, and takeaway items we purchased to have later. On the way my car started overheating a bit, as the radiator’s condition is really beginning to deteriorate, so I wanted to let it cool for awhile while we sat at breakfast. Elizabeth, however, needed to be at the airport by 9:15, and since we didn’t even get to breakfast until 8:30 that was a bit problematic. We decided maybe she should go in a cab and upon asking Chris about cabs he offered to give her a ride. NZ is just such a wonderful place! She took him up on the offer and made it there on time and made it back to Auckland in on time and in good condition! Anyways, if any of you every end up in Christchurch, you should most definitely go to Hello Sunday for breakfast!

Without Elizabeth, my parents, Sarah, and I were on no specific schedule anymore. We sat at the restaurant enjoying ourselves for a while longer before heading out for a car tour of Christchurch. Again the day was cloudy and a bit windy so we weren’t super keen on doing all sorts of outdoor activities. We went into the CBD to walk around and see the earthquake destruction, still there over 3 years later. It really is amazing that so much of the CBD is still abandoned since that day in February 2011. They have, however, started rebuilding parts of the downtown area and one cool thing they have added is a container mall. The entire mall is built out of shipping containers. We went there, had a peak around in some of the stores, and then had lunch, Sarah eating at the Coq au Van which Steph (from yesterday)’s father owns, and I having a Gyro, which they call a Souvlaki down here.

After lunch we decided to go Punting on The Avon. What this means in American English is we rode in a boat like they have in Venice down a river here in Christchurch while a young man in appropriate dress propelled the boat with a long pole, pushing off the bottom. Before doing this I really thought it was going to be quite stupid, but I ended up really enjoying it. We purchased hot beverages, sat there under blankets, and had a wonderful and calm ride down stream through the botanical gardens.

From the punting we went off to the Gondola, which brings you high up a hill on the East side of Christchurch from where you can see over the entire city and beyond. It was not the most fabulous day for this as it was rather cloudy but the ride was still fun. We then proceeded home and made it back to Sarah’s parent’s house just before 5. A long day for a bunch of very tired ladies (Sarah and I). Relaxing time, homemade dinner, and then to sleep for us.

This morning we weren’t in quite as much of a rush as we only had a 4.5 hour drive to complete today. We got up a bit later, had a nice bowl of Muesli with Sarah’s family, wished Sarah a happy flight back to Auckland, and then headed off towards Kaikoura for lunch. I slept some of the way, as my dad is becoming an expert at this left side of the road driving, and I still fell as if I’m catching up from lost sleep from being at Sarah’s parent’s place. We made it into Kaikoura, had a rather mediocre Thai lunch, and then continued on north to try to make the ferry over to the North Island this evening. We stopped in Blenheim at the iSite for help with the ferry and accommodation for this evening.

Man, the iSites are absolutely fabulous – America should take a lesson from this! Most major, or minor, cities have an iSite where the employees are pretty much personal travel agents that charge no fees whatsoever. They know a lot about the area and can help book activities, accommodation, help with directions, trip planning. They are fabulous! We have used many of these, as we aren’t planning very far ahead, and have only had one bad experience. The people are usually more than happy to help, as they should be since this is their job!, and never make you feel rushed even if there is a large line waiting behind you. They are happy to call 10 different hotels looking for available accommodation; they are so knowledgeable on different tours and tour providers, restaurants, shops, whatever you need to know! Except for the unpleasant woman we had today in Kaikoura, we really can’t say enough great things about them!

After booking a ferry ticket for 6:45 pm this evening to cross over to the North Island, I am now sitting her on the ferry with maybe 30 minutes left. We will be getting off in Wellington, driving about 30 minutes NE towards the East Coast, will be staying in a Motel there and then continuing on to Napier tomorrow night. Will post pictures another time when I have better internet connection.

Side note, there is a man on our ferry ride with swastika tattoos on his face and neck. Scary!

With that, I’m signing off for the night.

Best!

Overnight on Doubtful Sound

Thursday morning we woke up very early, had a fabulous breakfast at our B&B, and headed out straight away to Te Anau to catch the bus to our overnight on Doubtful Sound. We planned to leave at 7:00am to make it to Te Anau by 11:30 when our bus was to pick us up at the secure park area. The drive was supposed to take us about 4 hours so we gave ourselves a bit more time just in case. I was driving and ended up doing the drive in a bit over 3 hours, NICE!

Upon arrival in Te Anau, way ahead of schedule, we went for a coffee and snack at a local café because we had no meal coming until dinner, and the coffee and snacks were no good. But, oh well! We went to the secure car park to drop off my car after the snack and it was quite a site. It did have a secure entrance and it claimed to have an electric fence, but outside of that it was not clearly any sort of secure car park area. But, after my experience with the attempted car theft, I was happy to give it a shot. The most concerning of the sights in the car park were the half disassembled cars that had clearly been there for a long time and were not in any great state. Although this wasn’t a very promising location, I was not willing to leave my car parked on the side of some random street in a town I didn’t know, especially in a town that is used to having cars parked there overnight where the owners are 100 kilometers away on the water. Anyways, we got the car parked and were on the bus in no time, off to see Doubtful Sound.

The trip out to Doubtful Sound consisted of a bus from Te Anau to Manupouri, a boast ride across Lake Manupouri, another coach bus ride from the far side of Lake Manupouri to the near side of Doubtful Sound and then we finally got onto the boat on Doubtful Sound. For those of you who know my mother well, the fact that she was willing to put up with this was amazing in itself! We did, however, make it with little problem. Almost no wind on the boat and a rather seamless coach ride across NZ’s most expensive road – this is the one connecting Lake Manupouri and Doubtful Sound. The road is NZ’s most expensive because everything had to be brought to the road by boat, either across the lake or through the sound from the Tasman Sea, to build it. And even though the road isn’t very long it took 2 years to built as they had to clear the entire forest and used 1,000,000 tons of crushed rock they cleared from the building of an underground/underlake power station on Lake Manupouri. Anyways, we made it to the boat and we were quite excited about it! Here's a few photos from the journey:

Okay, this was from a bit earlier. The view from the B&B Thursday morning.

Family photo.

Waiting for the boat in Manupouri

Dad

Elizabeth

Elizabeth and I on the boat on Lake Manupouri

A giraffe shaped land slip

The Lake Manupouri boat captain.

My driving the boat.

An overlook for Doubtful Sound

A waterfall

Dad

On the way to the boat, we decided to start a little project, RFORJ, short for Real Faces of Real Journeys. Explanation – Real Faces because they are photos of real people’s faces and Real Journeys because the company we were traveling with is called Real Journeys.  This project occupied a great deal of our (mine & Elizabeth’s) time over the next 22 hours and we got hundreds of photos of our travel companions, and hopefully most of them without our noticing. Here are our top RFORJ photos from the next 2 days.

Unknown Name, Unknown Country

Ya Ping, China

Unknown Woman, Unknown Country of Origin

Carl and Unknown Name, Utah and Washington

Torsten, Germany

Unknown Name, Unknown Country

Unknown Name (Daughter of Mustachioed Man), America

Unknown Name (World's Easiest Man to Sneakily Photograph), Unknown Country

Unkown Name (Ya Ping's Daughter), Chins

Unknown Name (Chinese Female Gangster - matching red tracksuit and metallic high heeled trainers and matching metallic backpack), China

Unknown Man (Mustachioed Man), America

Sim (Nature Guide), New Zealand

Duncan, Unknown Country

Unknown Name, Unknown Country (Very Photogenic)

Group Photo - All Unknown Names, All Unknown Countries

Tim (Tinder Boat Driver), New Zealand

Same as Above

Unknown Name, Indonesia

Besides taking more of our time to snap candids of our boat mates, we spent the next day doing activities in this order:

The boat trip started with a short boat introduction/orientation, assignment to our sleeping quarters. We were staying a quad share so this meant 4 single bunks in a small compartment with no door. My parents were on the bottom and we were on the top. We managed here quite well, although I stayed almost glued to the wall as I was very afraid I would fall out of my top bunk that had no barrier/bar whatsoever.

We then moved into afternoon tea, consisting of muffins and coffee/tea. It was a nice time to relax and energize on the boat. After a snack we had the choice to kayak or tinder boat trip around the sound. Elizabeth was not feeling the kayak so we decided to tinder boat with tour guide Tim. We asked another one of the staff members, Steph, whose tinder boat trip we should take, Sim or Tim, and she suggested Tim. At this time we did not know this was Tim’s maiden voyage. Has we known this earlier we may have gone with Sim as it was clear Tim was not well practiced on his nature facts. We did, however, enjoy the trip nonetheless and got a few great shots of Tim.

Loading into the tinder boat. Elizabeth and I

Peaking between the Kayaks

Elizabeth

Family photo

Me and Elizabeth

Me, Elizabeth, and my father

A beautiful waterfall

Looking back at the Navigator, our overnight ship

After the tinder boat we did some activity, can’t remember what, oh maybe that was soup time. Probably was… we had a nice hot soup or leek and potato with bacon crumbles on top. Yum! And delicious rolls as well.

After soup time we cruised out to the Tasman Sea and that was fabulous. The sound is 40 kms long, or something like that, and we cruised out to the end and went a few hundred meters out into the sea. And the Tasman Sea is rough! You could feel the massive swells of the ocean, which was so cool. I can’t ever remember being on a boat feeling swells like that. It’s not like feeling waves, unless the waves are meters deep. It felt like the ocean was alive. That might sound stupid because it is, but I’ve never felt anything like that before. It was a rough time, though, and I made sure I stayed outside where I could see the horizon and help cut down on possible motion sickness. After maybe 20 minutes out in the Tasman, and after seeing fur seals and albatross, we headed back into the Sound to find a place to put down anchor for the night.

We then moved into dinner, which a nice buffet with many good options followed by a plethora or desserts. I can thankfully say I cannot complain on the food from this trip. I mean it wasn’t the best food I’ve ever eaten, but it was more than edible and I went back for seconds at every meal. Smoked salmon, crispy potatoes, kumara and pumpkin mash, coleslaw salad for dinner. Cheese board for dessert. Museli for breakfast. All of those x 2 servings.

Following dinner there was a nature presentation led by Sim, the ship’s nature guide. My mother and Elizabeth attended but I was just too tired so I went to bed. I didn’t want to fall asleep during the presentation and be rude. And I slept like a baby. I’m sad I missed the info but glad I got the extra rest.

I woke up Friday morning, around 6:15 to the sound of the boat’s engines starting. I was still quite tired and a bit groggy for the first few minutes but with the rattling and loud sounds from the boat that didn’t last long. We proceeded upstairs and had a great pre-breakfast penguin viewing session. We saw Fiordland crested penguins on a small island and the captains stopped so we could get a better look. In total I think we saw 7. They are here for the upcoming mating season. Apparently they only spend a few months here a year and nobody really knows where they go the rest of the year. Glad we got to see them! 

We then moved inside for breakfast and following that a short return trip to the wharf. This concluded our time in Doubtful Sound. We then did the entire trip back to the car in reverse. So coach from the sound to Lake Manupouri, boat across Lake Manupouri, Coach back to Te Anau – where we thankfully found my the same condition in which we had left it the day before. No car parts missing and/or damaged and nothing inside was missing either. Oh yes, this was another reason we left the car in the secure car park area, we were leaving almost everything we had brought to NZ in the car minus the few personal belonging we brought with us on the boat. Have to keep that stuff safe!

And that concludes the overnight. I will now work on another post for the time since we got off the boat and add more photos later. It's late and I don't have time left tonight.