Mega Post

Time flies when you are partying your ass off! I just realized how long it has been, so here is a mega post. One of our first dinners out of Tasmania they had kangaroo on the menu. It was quickly seared and served with a plum sauce and was really quite tender and good. It was dark like beef. I highly recommend it! Another night we had New Zealand eel. What the hell, how often do you get that choice and again, quite good. The food on the entire trip was been very good. No complaints in that department.

Milford Sound, Doubtful Sound & Duskey Sound
After 2 days at sea, we came to the sounds. If you know me, you know that I don't use superlatives often. So, when I say that the scenery was just AMAZING, you will know it was something to see. The sounds are on the southwest side of the south island of New Zealand. My pictures are nice, but NOT ONE OF THEM will impart the beauty of the sounds. Their shear sides and yet are covered in vegetation. Since Lord of the Rings was filmed in New Zealand, I kept expecting to see an army of orcs come rushing down the sides of the sounds. This area gets 20 FEET of rain a year, so all the literature says to expect some rain. The weather gods were very kind to us and we actually got to cruise Doubtful Sound as well. We didn't see a drop of rain. In the daily itinerary, there was a note about a polar bear swim in Dusky Sound. I got pretty excited about the idea of going into the sound. Well, it turns out they couldn't actually let us in the sound. So, we went to the unheated pool in the back of the ship. They threw a glass of water, supposedly from the sound itself into the pool along with a bucket of ice. It wasn't as cold as I had hoped for, but it was cold enough to make you breath fast and shallow. About the temperature of lake Michigan in May.

Dunedin
This was the first stop we made in New Zealand. It is a quaint little town on the south east side of New Zealand. We were out of the Tasman Sea and were in the Pacific Ocean. A point of note, just south west of Dunedin is Invercargill. That is where Burt Munroe, the worlds fastest Indian is from. We went on a Taste of Dunedin tour. This included a tour of the Cadbury Chocolate factory and Speights Brewery. Cadbury was quite the tasty tour. We got bits of chocolate pretty much through the tour. If you live in the USA, you have never REALLY had Cadbury chocolate. It is licensed to Hershey's in the USA. At the end of the tour we saw the largest and tallest chocolatefall in the WORLD! One ton of liquid chocolate was dropped and it rushed down a silo. We were at the top of the silo and it was quite the site and very loud. The only sad aspect of the tour was that it ran long and we were whisked away to Speights for beer. I only missed the gift shop, so if you wanted a Cadbury chocolate souvenir from me ... tough :) Speights was quite the fun tour. It is a gravity system of making beer. This means that there are 5 floors involved in the process of dumping product and water and gravity feeds it all along the system to the brewing vats. Chocolate and beer ... what a good day!

Timaru
This was the first stop EVER for the Statendam in Timaru. Sadly, we didn't see much of the town. Our tour here was to Mount Cook. We had tried to get the ship tour, but it had been sold out for some time and they excursion folks didn't know if we were going to get on. So, Joe worked his magic and we ended up with a private tour. So, 5 of us, minus Brett, took off in a van with Phillip and Scott to see Mount Cook. Turns out, this is about a 2 1/2 hour drive to get there. We were a bit late taking off, but the mini van could overtake each of the tour busses as we came across them. We had a quick look at Lake Pukaki. It was the most interesting color. Neon robin blue might work. Glacier blue would be accurate, but not terribly descriptive had you never seen such a color. After a short picture stop, we continued up to Mount Cook. WOW, what a sight. Big 'ol glacier and a statue of Edmund Hillary. Well, the statue wasn't much since I didn't make any effort to see it from the front, but the glacier and mountain were quite gorgeous. So, when we felt like the tour busses would be catching up, we took off to find some lunch. I don't remember the town, but we stopped and got some bread, cheese, pesto and jam. Pair that up with some incredible pinot noir and chardonnay wine and you have one hell of a lunch. I am glad I didn't have to drive back!

Picton
We didn't have any tours planned here, just to walk the town. We first came to The Flying Haggis, a Scottish pub. I had a pint of Mack's Black and ordered a lamb pie. I am glad we weren't any later as I got the very last one. That was one fine lamb pie. Went quite well with a pint of dark stout beer. We also an Irish bar and had more beer. Another nice day.

Wellington
This is the first town we visited on the north island. We didn't have any tours scheduled here either. The most interesting was basically a pub crawl for $80. I can find pubs for less! Joe and Tracy wanted to ship off souvenirs back home. They had a rolling bag full, about 22KG of stuff. At that point, we went and found our first pub, the Dog & Bone. After a pint, we were off to find the cable car. It is a small train that is pulled up the tracks by a cable and also slowed down on the descent by formerly mentioned cable. There are some nice views at the top along with a botanical garden. The garden was probably very nice, but we were hungry, so we rode back to the base and took off for yet another pub. As luck would have it we found The Black Harp. After ordering a round of pints, we ordered food. Most everyone ordered corn beef sandwiches, but I ordered a chicken sandwich. It was actually a nice sandwich, but I wish I had ordered the Guinness pie. Oh well, the sandwich was exactly what I needed rather than wanted. After we finished our food, it was time to find another pub and wouldn't you know, there was one across the street called The Feathers. We ordered another round of pints, but this pub was kind of dull, so we drank our brews and went back out to the street. We looked around town some more, but ultimately didn't find any more pubs to visit. We walked back to the ship and I think we all went to take a nap. Lots of walking, beer and sun can take it out of you. In the end, we visited one less pub than the tour, but we did the cable car and weren't rushed to get back in the bus and go to the next pub. So, in the end ... another very nice day.

Napier
This is a very small town and we were only scheduled for a few short hours. I think we headed out around 10 AM and we had to be back on board by 1 PM. You wouldn't think we would find much ... and yet we found a couple of pubs. SHOCKED? Probably not :) The very first place we saw as Lone Star Napier. Sadly, they didn't open until 5:30. After looking in some shops, we found Rosie O'Gradys Irish Pub. Had a local brew called Cutback. After that we headed out to find The Hogs Breath Saloon. It is named after the Hogs Breath in Key West, FL, but isn't affiliated. Had some local north island beer called Tui. We also had lunch. I had a cheese burger and it was quite good. Sadly, they didn't have any T-shirts that had New Zealand on them.

It is weird that we are coming close to the end of the cruise. At one point it seemed like there was lots of time ... and now we only have one more stop to make. But, that will be another post.