Day 45 - Tauranga, New Zealand

Day 45 – Monday 24^th February 2014 – Tauranga, New Zealand

After sailing 1110 miles from Tonga, we picked up the pilot for the port of Mount Maunganui, which is the port for Tauranga.  On our approach, there were other ships at anchor and the first ships at sea I had seen, since leaving San Francisco.

Mount Maunganui

This is the Mount to which the port is named after, in the distant past, in fact 43 years ago, I came here and actually climbed up the Mount to take photographs of the surrounding countryside. The sacred Maori land to the wonderful beach and onwards to the fine city of Tauranga.  Of course, there have been many changes, not least to the port itself, which is greatly built up since I was last here.

OCCL Auckland

We were tied up by 09.15 and this container ship followed us into the port.  Behind the ship can be seen the wooded area which is the land scared to the Maoris.

On the other side of the estuary they have built a new container port which will be able handle the biggest ships in the world.

We were ashore by 10.15 and strolled down the main street and the many shops were doing a roaring trade with the people from the ship.  We found ourselves in a barber shop and these places are great for chatting to the locals, as to how New Zealand was coping.  They said it had come through the world recession with not many problems and there were jobs to be had.

The hairdresser asked what I required, and I said, takes eight weeks off, she replied, that’s easy and commenced shearing me like a sheep.  She told me there were many people who had moved to the Tauranga area after the earthquake in Christchurch on the South Island, which had devastated the city, and some of the children were still traumatised by it.

We found a bar for lunch and caught up with the emails and blog site. I also phoned my next door neighbours at home, son who lives in Tauranga, but unfortunately, Steven was in Christchurch, helping with the rebuild of the city.

At 16.00, we caught the shuttle bus running from the ship to Tauranga city centre, only a fifteen minute journey.  It is a lovely clean place, though there are many shops they did not seem as busy as the ones we had left in the port area.  On Steven’s recommendations we went to the Strand and the pub, Crown and Badger, it was in an idyllic spot, as we watched the world go by, while looking onto the river and the hills beyond.  One more water hole, the Corner House and we got the service bus back to the port.

Quayside

This took a different route back to the ship, as we passed through the very well laid out bungalows built close to the main beach and the well- kept wide open spaces. We were back on board for 18.30 and had to get ready quickly, as we were informed there was a show by Maori dancers in the theatre, and we managed to catch the last quarter of an hour of the show.

Dinner for me was shrimps/sirloin steaks/caramelised pear, and we bade farewell to Gillian and Stuart from Yorkshire, who had been on our table since we left San Francisco, and had been great fun, but they were leaving the next day in Auckland.

It had been another adventurous day, and I was very happy to be in back in this wonderful country of New Zealand