Waitangi, Our First Stop in New Zealand

An interesting day ashore, and new friends over surf & turf for dinner as we leave for Auckland.

There are no piers to accommodate the Viking Sky, so we dropped anchor at 7:30 a.m. and used tenders (motorized lifeboats carried on the ship) to get to shore at this historic place where New Zealand was founded — sort of. It was in a building nearby that the Brits and some Maori tribal chiefs signed a treaty making the Maori English citizens with all the rights pertaining thereto, in return for giving England sovereignty over all of New Zealand — which, by the way, consists of 700 islands, not just the two big ones. In the following weeks, the treaty was taken around the two big islands to get the signatures of other tribal chiefs. (There were/are lots of tribes, since the islands had been occupied by Maoris for at least 600 years before Captain James Cook mapped it and planted the English flag.)

There was one flaw in the treaty: it was in English only, and the tribal chiefs got only a verbal explanation of it. It has been a source of friction — and war in the 1800s — ever since. A week from now, Feb. 6th, will be the anniversary of its signing, and thousands of New Zealanders will descend on Waitangi — half to celebrate and half to demonstrate. But today it was just a tourist destination.

Rita stayed on the ship for a pedicure and reading Great Expectations, but I was booked on a 9:30 excursion inland. Unfortunately, our bus wouldn’t get our of 1st gear, so we returned to the wharf while the driver went to get another bus, saying he’d be back in 10 minutes. I don’t know when he returned, because about 40 minutes later I looked around and everyone was gone! I had missed the bus. Fortunately, this was a popular tour and I was able to catch another bus leaving the wharf at noon. We had no tour guide, just the driver with a microphone which he used infrequently, but it was still a pleasant drive on 2-lane roads through the countryside to “the stone house” (the oldest such building in New Zealand) and to a very artsy building with the most beautiful mens room (and presumably ladies room) in the world, so they say — and I haven’t seen anything better. Here’s a picture, since I was alone in it:

And here’s the outside of the building:

I didn’t hear what the building was for, and I didn’t try to find out because this was a 20-minute stop, and there was grocery store close by, so I purchased potato chips and Oreos (neither are served on the ship) and purchased SPF 30 and SPF 50 sun lotions, plus ultra-soft tissues for Rita — and a couple chocolate bars. (The ship has no store for such sundries, although they do have free sprays of SPF 30 and 50. We prefer lotions.)

A couple observations from the hour-plus bus tour. The rolling rural hills reminded me of Dutchess County in upstate New York or many other places. Very sparsely populated with more cattle and sheep than people, and no evidence of poverty. I’m always on the lookout for Teslas, and I saw six, all with right hand drive, and all four models - S, 3, X, and Y. (Did you know Elon Musk wanted to call the Model 3 the Model E, so the four would spell S,E,X,Y?)

Also, even though we went through several towns I never saw a single traffic light. This country loves roundabouts, and the people apparently do too. And virtually every driver (including our bus driver) uses turn signals to indicate when they are staying in the roundabout and when they are leaving it. (Rita and I do that, but are peeved that almost no other drivers do.)

Back on the ship, it was “Surf and Turf” night, and the pool deck was filled with table-cloth-covered tables for four. The menu was displayed on the big screen:

We were served the set menu by waiters, instead of being a buffet. We asked a couple if we could join them, and they turned out to be Doug and Dee Smith — the second Smith couple we’ve found onboard. They are from Vermont, but lived a long time in Australia and are ending their cruise there to visit with friends for a month. Here’s a picture of us four with our entrees served:

Bring from Maine originally, I can’t get enough lobster, so I asked if I could have another tail, and the waitress brought me three! Doug Smith is a retired Delta pilot and long-time FAA examiner tasked with evaluating the skills of pilots. He recounted being in the cockpit of a 777 Air India plane with a terrible pilot who was still 200 feet above a runway half way to its end, and instead of going around (as Doug had shouted to him) put the plane in auto-landing mode whereupon it dove onto the runway and stopped just before a ditch that would have killed everyone! He calls the airline Scare India.

There was one lecture that we squeezed in before dinner. Nigel Cox, a retired British diplomat dispatched to Beijing from when it was called Peking, gave a layman’s explanation of the Chinese language and the challenge of creating a typewriter, then a computer, to print Chinese characters. We were fascinated. We missed the 6:30 lecture, “Auckland: 100% New Zealand,” but fortunately every lecture is taped and can be replayed later on our stateroom TV.

That’s all, folks!