Day 56 7th March 2011

Maori Show

Storm Coast

Export Wood Pile

We travelled overnight to our next destination of Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. It is on the north island so we also left behind the south and Christchurch which would have been our next call except for the earthquake. Yesterday, the Cruise Director, Leon announced that the ship was organising a collection for the victims of the earthquake. Last night when we returned to our cabin we discovered that we had tour tickets for Wellington. We had been on a waiting list but had given up hope of getting on the trip. The tour was called “The Storm Coast”.

Last night’s show was a Maori Cultural group who performed many traditional songs and dances. They were very good and even the surprise that one of them played a guitar to provide the music did not diminish their impact. They even managed to persuade a few volunteers to join them on stage to participate in the dances. The best of these groups always explain what you are seeing and hearing and this group provided an explanation of each dance with some humour. They are staying on aboard until Auckland so we will have the opportunity to see them again.

We arrived in Wellington at 9pm this morning and it took a little while to satisfy the immigration formalities so we were a little late getting off the Aurora. The coaches for the trip were waiting on the quayside. You are not allowed to take any fruit or other foodstuffs off the ship for fear of importing organisms into New Zealand ecology. This does seem rather like locking the stable door after the horse as bolted since you hear an endless story of settlers who imported rabbits, stoats, possums, gorse and many others plants and animals. The hills around Wellington are covered in gorse which was imported from Scotland to hedge in the sheep. It liked the conditions so much that it ran wild and can be seen every where.

The trip was along the coast out of Wellington. The route was largely a single track gravel road between the gorse covered steep hills (almost cliffs) and the rocks of the coast. It was wonderful scenery with the waves crashing in. There have been literally hundreds of vessels sunk along this coast. The only reason a track exists here is that they mined the hillsides for gravel for the building of  Wellington. At the end of the track is a sheep station called Pencarrow. This is on top of the cliffs and reached up a very steep track. I was amazed the coaches could climb up the slope. It was a cold day with wind and rain so the roaring fire in the station with tea and cakes was well received. The cliffs and steep hills have many wild goats and the sheep from the station also migrate to these areas where the dogs cannot easily reach them.

Alongside the ship is an enormous area covered with tree trunks which are waiting to be exported to China to be turned into planks and wood pulp for paper making. We were told this was a billion dollar industry. We met several huge lorries bringing more tree trucks to the docks as we went on the tour.

Wellington looks a busy city with a population of 600,000 people. Many of the best houses are built on the hillsides and can only be reached by cable cars. There are apparently 400 personal cable cars serving homes in this area. However, given that this city sits on a four fault lines and has regular earthquakes it seems mad to build on stilts on the sides of very steep hills. They will surely collapse in a quake.

We left Wellington at 6pm and now sail north towards Napier, our next port tomorrow morning.