Wellington and Akaroa

With 2938 passengers and over 1000 crew it takes a while to disembark each day with queues for shuttles and sometimes at the buffet at breakfast time.  We were bringing some bound volumes of coin magazines that Dieter was bringing to get to a collector in Upper Hutt saving about $10 in postage by doing so. I was nearly foiled by an officious woman from the boat's crew who informed us we couldn't "offload" anything without getting a clearance from Customs who arrived on board at 7 am and had been and gone 3 hours previously.  Nothing would move her.

Struggled back to the cabin with this carton all done up with string, Sellotape and stamps and disembarked for the day and with the aim to get that carton off by hook or by crook.  Anyway helpful NZ security people,  who couldn't have been more helpful contacted Customs who came back to the boat,  looked at the parcel from the outside, xrayed it to make sure it had no drugs in it and off we went off the ship with it to a Post Office downtown and it is  now on its way to Upper Hutt, freeing up a shelf in one of Dieter's bookcases at home.  What a kerfuffle.  We got a shuttle to town and back as the wharf was some distance from town. 

Went to the public library for some respite after that episode to pick up and send emails, then went to Te Papa to look at the NZ  art, then a collection of Modernist decorative arts collected by Walter Cook, who in a moment of confusion I thought they were referring to Captain Cook but no, this latter day adventurer and collector acquired  stuff from Wellington design shops and antique shops  from the 1960s onwards.  My kind of stuff too.  

Looked at another permanent exhibition of refugees' sobering stories of what they escaped from to settle in New Zealand over the decades.

Dieter wanted to look up an old friend  who worked at the NZ Film Archive near the Cuba Mall which we did and spent a half an hour catching up. He and his wife had a cute little cottage in Thorndon, a bit like our first Clarence St house filled with collectibles and treasures.  When their 2 kids got older they shifted to a bungalow which looks just as beautiful, and much tidier than our place ever will be with their collections of this and that all displayed beautifully. 

We then got the shuttle back to the boat by which time we had missed lunch and it was just refreshments and afternoon tea.  I had nachos, a scone and a piece of delectable pecan slice.  

We have been dining a bit later as there is some very nice gypsy type music  being played by a trio in one of the foyers every evening from about 5 to 7 with a couple of intervals between.

Today was Akaroa, a very  picturesque place with it very old wooden cottages, roses and plentiful cafes.   Once again we had to get a tender in to shore because the ship was anchored about 18 nautical miles out.

We walked  from one end of the village to the other and back again, stopping to look in shop windows.  Everything was crowded with us passengers  everywhere.  Some went on daytrips further afield as far as Arthur's Pass but we were content with the local scenery.  

This is the view from our cabin window when  we got up this morning.  

There was a very warm norwester blowing  by about 1 pm so we queued up to get a tender back and lunched back on the ship at 2pm.  Met a couple of nice women from Melbourne at lunch today and had a good chat.  At breakfast time where we usually join others at a table people  are not so talkative. At night we could join others but it is quite nice being together being waited on like in a restaurant.  Well it is a restaurant.  Today they had turkey at lunch time so a foretaste of Christmas.  And cherry pie for dessert.  It was a buffet with lots of choices.  My clothing is getting rather tight.  Will need that last week's exercise at the gym before Christmas.

Tomorrow is Dunedin and another story.