It was a glorious day in Wellington. Bright blue skies with a few billowing white clouds, temperature around 70 degrees. If this was all I saw of Wellington, I would consider moving here. I love the Kiwis. However, Wellington is known as “Windy Wellington.” The winds off Cook Strait are so severe that they have been clocked at 145 knots – that’s double hurricane force winds! Wind measuring equipment at the airport was destroyed during this 1968 storm. On average, the wind blows at 32 knots 173 days per year. We were lucky to be in one of the other 192 days today as there wasn’t even a hair on my head that moved today (from wind that is). Storms from Antarctica rage through the harbor with 15’ seas.
Wellington is located in a large, protected bay with no natural beaches on the north island, and is the capital of New Zealand. It boasts that it is the southern most capital city in the world. It is also the most remote country capital in the world (meaning the farthest from any other capital). It was settled in 1886 as a whaling station, but they discovered that there were no whales nearby. The population is a small 410,000. Rugby is the national sport.
It is a very densely populated city as there isn’t much flat land to build on so they build up the sides of steep hills. As a matter of fact, there are personal cable cars that run from the garage on the street level to your hillside home. To move into a home, a helicopter lifts a shipping container filled with personal items and furniture up to the house. This is not a job for Bekins Moving and Storage! There are also 12 named streets that are nothing more than a very steep staircase. I don’t really think I would like a home precariously balanced on a hillside as there are earthquakes here. Like most of New Zealand, Wellington sits on earthquake fault lines. We were just down the road apiece when there was a huge earthquake that toppled a good deal of Christchurch in 2011.
The alarm went off at 6:45am, so I didn’t have any trouble waking up, although today was a day I could have slept through all the noise of the bow thrusters. I finally got some sleep last night as we had calm seas, and let’s face it, I was pooped. I showered and fought with my hair, had breakfast in the room, and made ready for the day wearing my ugly men’s yellow shirt that the ship requires all escorts to wear. I had an excursion to the Pencarrow Station, one of the oldest sheep/cattle farm in Wellington located just outside the harbor. This is a remote and isolated farm, and last time we were in Wellington, Michael got to see this and raved about it. What an incredible location, although I gather it can get quite nasty in foul weather.
Normally, the tour company provides regular touring coaches. Today, we got to ride on a city bus. The tour took us on the coastal route around the bay, which is one of the finest natural harbors in the world. We travelled through the industrial area (boring) before we finally got to see something good. We passed quaint cottages and large estates that were built right on the road, one jammed up against the other. Some were wedged right into the hillside, and others were built up the hill. The road sat so close to the water edge that it looked like we were one swerve away from a swim. We left civilization behind and the road became windy, curvy, twisty, narrow and bumpy. Concrete blocks were placed along the edge of the road to keep it from falling into the water from erosion and high tides.
We then crossed onto a private road, and this one was dirt and even more narrow. I am glad we were in the first bus, because the second bus behind us got all the kicked up dirt from our bus and didn’t have such a great view. See, it pays to be first! And then came the hairpin turn…our driver, a Maori, made the bus do a little dance and finally got it pointed in the right direction, up a steep hill. I was singing the kid song, “I think I can, I think I can.” We made it up the hill to the lodge and were greeted with this sight:
Our hosts served coffee, tea and a wonderful assortment of finger sandwiches and pastries. Yum, yum I could of just sat there eating. This was REAL food, not the fancy stuff on the ship. Oh well, I came to see sheep and the sheep dogs, take pictures, and sniff out any interesting tidbits of information. We are on a sheep and cattle farm, and our host proudly shows us a huge basket of local fish, plus a lobster! He will sell the fish. Huh? And I thought we were going to have a fishfest. Drat, some good old fried fish and chips would be excellent about now.
We gathered around as our host told us his story of how he came to became a farmer. Don’t all firefighters become farmers? He has gotten so successful, that they have weddings in this location and even bring the bride in by helicopter so she can make an “entrance.” While we are listening to his story, his two sheep dogs are anxious to go to work. But not before one of them jumps up on the tractor and takes a HUGE dump right on the seat. Boy was he one proud doggie.
We were then treated to a demonstration on how the dogs herd the sheep. There are two very different skills required and no one dog can do both. The herding dog, which works silently, steers the sheep to wherever the shepherd directs. The chaser dog barks like crazy to move the sheep away from something. Sounds like the dogs belong to a union; one only gets the sheep in and the other gets them out!
We then returned to the ship, and I spent the rest of the day on the pool deck reading and relaxing while Michael was watching the Super Bowl game in the Grand Salon (yay the Seahawks won!). He even had time for a quick dash into town before the game.
The deck became crazy with people moving chairs and people in preparation for the Maori native performance. They are very aggressive and loud and scary looking in their performance. At one time in their history, they used to be cannibals when the need arose.
We finished off the evening with a dinner for two. Yep, just the two of us. Nice and quick, only took one hour. Now it’s time to get comfy in PJs and just chill for the evening.
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