Day 06 - Mon 15Apr2024 - Wellington, NZ
After being docked overnight in Wellington, we awoke to an overcast day. Since we had a scheduled Princess excursion, we grabbed a quick breakfast (congi for me) and made our way to the Princess Theater where we checked in for our tour, Shenandoah.
It was about a 20 minute bus ride outside of Wellington to the farm and Lynn, our guide, was full of information, but didn't disclose much about the upcoming tour for reasons she said would become evident. The farm is 150 acres located just off Pāuatahanui Bay and in the middle of wildlife sanctuary area. We were greeted by Simon, the 5th generation owner of the property. He proceeded to give us an extensive presentation of the history of the farm and the family's efforts to use it as a refuge for NZ birds. Additionally this is a working farm with over 5,000 sheep and a herd of Highland cattle. The farm is in a family trust and there are no generations to succeed Simon, so the farm will pass mto a government trust to continue the legacy. The overall plan while Simon is alive is to restore the farm to its look before European colonization with the replanting of native flora. He personally lives on the farm and works 6 days per week. His 93 year old mother and his sister live nearby in a retirement home. His sister was engaged to a US soldier who never returned from battles in the South Pacific, and she never married.
During Simon's presentation about the farm, he emphasized the history of the farm being the headquarters of the Maori tribe before the Europeans took it over. During WWII, it was actively used by the US Marines 2nd Division as a staging and training area for the soldiers that went off to fight in the islands of the South Pacific to repel the Japanese invasion. He noted that there are many pieces of former military equipment that the departing US forces buried on the farm and they dug up a Harley Davidson motorcycle after it had been buried for 10 years and with a new spark plug, some gasoline, and some oil and it fired right up. Simon's dad began a meticulous restoration for it, but unfortunately died before its completion. Simon is not finishing the restoration as for him it would symbolize that his dad is permanently gone. He's also got quite a collection of vintage Harley Davidson motorcycles (post war models). All are in running condition hooked up to battery tenders. We enjoyed some morning tea along with some of his Mother's bread, his sister's cheese, and some of Simon's salami made from one of his Highland bulls. I especially like the very soft dark bread.
We also took a stroll up through his gardens where his dad is buried and there's a paddock (field) where the Maori tribe members died in the battle they lost to the British. He indicated that this portion of the land would never be built on. Farther on up the hill a couple of his prize Highland cattle bulls came down to greet us looking for treats. They had impressive sets of curved horns and could easily be petted but one had to be vigilant to not being poked by the horns.
At the end of the tour, he brought out his restored 1942 Willy's jeep with its machine gun (no longer operative but modified to display fire and sound from canned gas and air. We also got to hold a Thompson machine gun.
Rarely do I say this about excursions, but this is a MUST DO excursion if one has any interest in WWII history or efforts to preserve culture and history. If you are in. Wellington, find the Shenandoah excursion, it's certainly worth it.
Back at the ship, we transferred to a port shuttle which took us downtown to the Beehive parliament building where we headed off on foot along Lambton Quay to catch the cable car to the top of the hill. However, we took a quick stop first at McDonald's for a quick lunch. The cable car is a quick 5 minute ride to the top of the hill where there is a Cable Car Museum. One can also catch a shuttle to Zealandia (a wildlife sanctuary which is quite nice) or begin a path down through the Botanical garden which takes about an hour to walk. Since it's the end of the season, not many flowers were in bloom like we've previously experienced. But we still enjoyed our walk and reminiscing about our previous visits. At the bae of the garden is a monument to John Seldon, a former prime minister. Last time we were there, the monument was under renovation and his statute was on the ground. Now it's regally re-installed on the top of the tall monument. The final part of the walk was a stroll through a cemetery and it was also quite moving.
Back at the shuttle pickup spot, we elected to tour the historic 4 story wooden office building. It's well curated with lots of plaques and cutaways of the building construction. Much of the building is still in use.
We took the shuttle back to the ship around 4pm and I secured a table up in the Hollywood Conservatory to be able to watch the departure which we expected to be around 6pm. On the way I obtained a bowl of ramen soup which was a nice yummy early dinner. Jo Ann and Gary joined me and eventually Angela showed up after her hot tub time. As darkness approached, the ship slowly backed away and we headed off towards our next port of Tauranga which we'll reach in a couple of days. We were chatting away when we noticed that we were back at the port by 7pm. Apparently we had a medical emergency and a return to port was needed. The departing passengers walked off the ship with their luggage. There was no announcement about the return or our second departure.
Our evening entertainment was a world class violinist, Patrick Roberts, whom we've seen several times on HAL ships. He's quite good, and once again he didn't disappoint us. Afterwards we ate a bit more dinner in the Marketplace (it's open until 10pm!), and did laundry which took about an hour and a half.
Tomorrow is a sea day before we reach Tauranga. After Tauranga, there are no sea days until we leave Auckland, then we have a number of them. We're totally enjoying the cruise and have a lot of positive impressions about sailing on this larger ship compared to the many HAL voyages on these similar itineraries. But I'll save those for later in the voyage.
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