So here we are, sailing through the islands of French Polynesia, including Tonga, Moorea and Bora Bora. The settings are truly spectacular. The islands, mostly formed by volcanoes, rise out of the ocean often with large green mountains at the center. The waters surrounding the islands are very often surrounded by coral reefs where the […]
Read More »We have left New Zealand and we have arrived in the South Pacific where we will spend the next week or so sailing through Micronesia, Polynesia and Melanesia. These island countries include Fiji, Tonga, Tahiti and Niue. These grouping are oddly categorized. For example, Micronesia refers to small islands and Polynesia refers to many islands. […]
Read More »Auckland (Tamaki in Maori) is by far the largest city in New Zealand. The University of Auckland, founded in 1883, is the largest University in New Zealand. The city’s total population is about 1.5 million making it home to 1/3 of the population of the entire country (population 4.5 million). It also has the largest […]
Read More »Originally, we were supposed to make a port call at Gisborne, but the weather intervened. The waters were too rough for us to take tenders in from the big ship, so we steamed straight through to Tauranga and had an extra day there. Tauranga, settled by the Maori late in the 13th century, is the […]
Read More »Napier (Ahurin in Maori) is located on the eastern coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It has a population of about 68,000 people. Most notably it is set in the famous wine producing region of Hawke’s Bay. Needless to say, that’s where we went and visited the Abbey Cellars Winery, which is a […]
Read More »Wellington (Whanganui-a-Tara in Maori) is the capital city of New Zealand and its most populous urban area. It is in at the southwestern tip of the North Island, which lies in the latitudes known as the “Roaring 40s”. There it is exposed to the winds blowing through Cook Strait, so is the windiest city in […]
Read More »Before turning to the city of Nelson, New Zealand, a piece of news. We published an article in Apogee, an online photo magazine, that recounts some of our Safari in South Africa. The article can be seen at this link:http://www.apogeephoto.com/glamping-photo-safari-africa/ Now–back to Nelson. Nelson, the second-oldest city in New Zealand, is on the eastern shore […]
Read More »When Peter Jackson filmed JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy, he was determined to be as true to the book as possible. One of the first problems he faced was finding a location that looked like the Tolkien’s description of the fantastical Middle Earth which he dubbed “Endor”. Endor had snow-capped mountains, golden grass […]
Read More »We made our way to Stewart Island, also known as Rakiura by the Maori people who arrived from Polynesia about 800 years before Captain James Cook claimed it for the British Crown. It is the 3rd largest of the New Zealand islands measured by size. But the population is only about 400 people. So, we […]
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