Arrival in Tauranga (Rotorua), New Zealand
Instead of a sea day, the captain got us here by noon today instead of tomorrow morning. Even so, he crept at 10 knots instead of the usual 18. No shore excursions, but we wandered ashore anyway.
From different locations on the ship, Rita and I both took pictures of last night’s sunset over Auckland. Mine is more level, but hers captured the after-glow:
As I wrote last night, it made no sense to me that today would be a sea day when our next port of call was only 153 nautical miles to the south. Sure enough, after we left port, it was announced that we’d arrive at noon today instead of tomorrow morning, but all the shore excursions would still be tomorrow. After lunch, many passengers including Rita and me, took the opportunity to wander the streets of Tauranga. We watched others accept a tour on five-passenger 3-wheel motorcycles, while we walked around, capturing a picture of a beautiful tree in Coronation Park.
After lunch, we took a guided tour of the galley on Deck 1, where the food is prepared for all the restaurants on the ship plus 24/7 room service. It was quite impressive. It takes up the full width of the back of the ship, I’m guessing a few thousand square feet. It’s clearly a well-oiled machine! Two of the restaurants are on the same level, but the biggest one is one flight up (above it), so there’s an escalator for the waiters to balance their loaded trays without climbing steps. The food for the World Cafe on Deck 7 goes up by elevator.
We caught three 45-minute lectures today. The first one was about New Zealand’s “greatest war hero,” Charles Upham, one of only three persons to receive England’s highest award, the Victoria Cross, twice for courage in the face of the enemy. His story was amazing!
The second lecture was about the myths and gods of Polynesia, with a broader discussion of world religions and how similar they are to each other. The lecturer was Patrick Goodness (https://patrickgoodness.com), who will be giving lectures about New Zealand and Australia between here and Sydney. Many, for example, feature virgin births, and most work through prophets and lesser gods, including Christianity. (We call them saints instead of lesser gods.) Pele was a lesser god, because she was a woman. Like most religions, Polynesian religions are patriarchal, and women lesser gods like Pele were created to represent the negative characteristics of women as perceived by men, including anger and rage. Here’s a screen shot of one slide:
The third lecture was by another new lecturer, Alan Riles, on “New Zealand Mining and Its Heritage in Gold and Greenstone.” Greenstone is New Zealand’s equivalent of jade. He described the different types of mining, with an emphasis on environmental repair and restoration. He explained how cyanide is used in processing gold and the way it is neutralized afterwards. It takes a ton of gold ore to produce 3 grams of gold for a wedding ring.
That’s all for today. I hope I’m not boring you! Sometimes, I feel like we’re on a “semester at sea” for geezers! The lecturers are surprisingly popular, and we like them, too.