New Zealand's South Island

     

Where does the time go?  It went to South Island.  We took the train to Wellington (OK, that's on North Island), stopping at one of New Zealand's mountain national parks along the way.  Wellington, New Zealand's capital city, is a wonderful, middle-sized city.  We stayed at a great B&B upstairs from a lively pub.

Charlie took the opportunity to drop in on a parliament session in the famous Beehive building.  He heard debate about the latest Shorelines Act, which we have heard mentioned many times in the press later on.

We were in Wellington for Bill's birthday.  Susie booked us at Charlie Bill Restaurant, but our Bill wasn't feeling too well.  So we had to have his cake without him.

We caught a ferry across Cook Strait. It was a beautiful and enjoyable 3 hour trip.  There's lots to do on the ferry and watch the beautiful scenery, so the time went fast. When we arrived in Picton, we picked up our tiny rental car, crammed ourselves and our luggage in and hit the road.  


Our first night was in a pleasant country motel, in Blenheim, in the Marlborough wine region.  Susie got some goodies at the store, and we ate outside our rooms.

The next day we rented bikes and set out across the country side.  We came to a local Aviation Museum, but decided to concentrate on wine tasting.  (Strangely, those pictures didn't come out)

Touring Auckland

We had a good time playing tourist in Auckland.  There is a terrific Maritime museum we enjoyed.  We also took a short sail on the museum's traditional sailing ship.

Soren Larsen

The Soren Larsen is also based in Auckland, and makes daily excursions this time of year.

There are more modern boats around.  Here is one of the recent NZ America's Cup entries. 

 Here's a prototype of the next AC boat.  It's a catamaran with a wing instead of a sail.

New Zealand, North Island, continued

In Gulf Harbor and fell into the clutches of the local canvas maker (again).  We just can't seem to resist.  We're having a new dinghy bag made and some more repairs to the dodger.  It never seems to end.

Fendal, Lynn and Marian

After a few days, we moved down to Royal Akarana Yacht Club in Auckland.  Our friends Marian and Brian joined us for a weekend RAYC cruise the following weekend.


We saw old friends and made new ones.

Graeme Colle and Bill

We spent the following week on a RAYC mooring getting caught up on mostly online business.  Where did all the time go?

Charlie at the helm

Anyhow, Saturday, February 26th, our friends Charlie and Susie Stillman arrived for some cruising and land travel together.  We had a short cruise in the Harauki Gulf.

But bad weather limited our options.  We did make it to Coromandel town and the scenic Driving Creek Railway.  We first enjoyed this trip on a SYC-RAYC exchange years aga.  The line's been extended and ends at a spectacular scenic peak.

We thought the rough weather had ended before we set out for Gulf Harbor again.  But we had a very rough wet crossing.  We were all glad when it was over.  On Sunday, Bill, Charlie and Susie took the ferry to nearby Tiritiri Matangi, a native bird sanctuary island.