Day 05 - Sun 14Apr2024 - Picton, NZ

 Overnight I slept very well once again.  I had turned on the EPR on my CPAP machine and it reduces the pressure when I exhale so I'm not fighting the machine.  It had the effect of reducing my leakages, and the over-all pressure.  This is probably too technical of a topic for most of my readers, but if you are interested in chatting about it, send me an email. Good CPAP therapy has been a game changer for me in getting good sleep and not feeling tired during the day.


When we woke up, we were already berthed in Picton.  We got ready for the day and went up to the LIDO for breakfast where we joined Doug & Linda.  They had an excursion to go on and we were planning to walk the town.  In this port we dock at a log terminal and we must be bussed from the ship to the information center (I-center) in town.  We disembarked the ship and got on a shuttle and 10 minutes later were dropped off in town.  A helpful volunteer provided us a map and some basic directions and we were off.  The first stop was to visit the I-Center and then we walked the main street, High Street and shopped.  Angela changed some money in a hardware store and got a horrible exchange rate; and they wouldn't do a refund.  I ended up using an ATM to get some NZ money since we have a number of stops in NZ ahead of us.  We shopped the stores on High Street and made our way down to a craft market.  Along the way we learned that we were that last of 53 cruise ships that have visited Picton this season.  



After visiting the craft market, I looked up what it would take to visit Kaipupu Sanctuary which is an island set aside for flora and fauna.  It's only reachable by boat (water taxi or kayak) and the water taxi operator had openings for the 12 noon sailing which is only 10 minutes long.  So we purchased tickets and then went over to a toastie shop and purchased some toastie sandwiches which were quite good.  We then boarded our water taxi and went over to the island.  There's a 1.6 mile pathway around the island and it takes about an hour and 20 minutes to walk it. The island is a beech forest along with lots of ferns and they provide a home to lots of birds and some small penguins.  We could hear lots of birds but we didn't see many until the end of the trail.  I should note that portions of the trail are quite steep, but the trail is in excellent condition.  There's a couple of vista points and we got some nice photons from them.  At 2pm, the water taxis picked us up and whisked us back to the harbor.  I should note that we paid about $17US ($30NZ) each for the water taxi tickets.  Entry to the Kaipupu Island is free.  For the same trip, Princess was charging $139.95.  Ouch.





Piwakawaka



We then walked to the Edwin Fox maritime museum which is a small museum building holding artifacts related to the former sailing ship the Edwin Fox which was instrumental in carrying convicts to Australia and also carrying frozen beef carcasses to Europe.  As the ship reached the end of its useful sailing life, its refrigeration equipment was removed from the vessel and installed in buildings on land and the ship was left to deteriorate while still floating.  It languished for many years in the Picton harbor and nearby before it was made seaworthy enough to be towed back to a drydock at what is now the small museum.  For more details Google it.  It's a pretty interesting story.  The ship will never be restored but is in a state of preservation in a covered drydock.

Bow view

Stern view

Model of the ship


It had been a cold day, so we came back to the ship around 4pm and Angela went in the hot tub while I enjoyed a hot cup of ramen/wonton soup from the noodle bar on deck 16.  I took this dinner  up to the Hollywood Conservatory and found a table facing forward to be able to watch the sailaway.  I finished my soup and did some writing until Jo Ann and Gary found me and we then chatted until after the sailaway.  Speaking of the sailaway, I was surprized that there was no pre-departure announcement; we simply started moving.  While the Conservatory has forward facing glass, as it gets dark, there's a large reflection on the vertical glass unlike HAL ships which have sloping glass to help prevent the reflections.


Angela and I snagged some popcorn from the ice cream booth on 16 and I added some cold mussels for the remainder of my dinner.  Yummy!

Glenn Starr presented another collection of songs from the 50's & 60's.  It was quite good.  We followed that up with the comedy magic of Brendan Dooley in the aft vista lounge.  It was also quite good.


I returned to the room to update my blog while Angela headed for Princess Live for another session of kareoke.  


Tomorrow we are in Wellington and we have an excursion to a farm booked as we have visited the city several times and want to explore beyond Zealandia, the Cable Car, the botanical garden, and the Te Papa museum.  All of those are quite good, by the way.   

Surprisingly, it's now 11pm and we docking in Wellington.  It'll be a quiet and calm night berthed.  More typically we find that cruise ships stay out at sea and arrive in the early morning hours.

Comments

  1. Karen and I probably ate at the same delicious Toastie Lords toastie shop. We talked to Lillian in there about our trip. She wondered where we were headed. We mentioned Dunedin and she said she used to live there and if we stopped in at the Cookie Time Bar to say "Hi" to the staff. We did.

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