In which we leave New Zealand, start across the Pacific, visit our first two pacific islands and do a bit of time travel.
Days 287 & 288 (cruising the Pacific)
Saturday was a cruising day – our first on the great Pacific Ocean – and at first it was pretty choppy. This meant that we had both slept badly with the creaking and groaning of the wardrobe in the room. We had arranged for the ship’s carpenter to come and have a second look at what was making the noise and he arrived with his mate mid-morning. He identified the problem and sorted it out with wedges. While he was at it, he re-attached the fridge door and sorted out the stiff bathroom door too, so it was well worth him coming. If we had been leaving the ship at the end of this section, we probably wouldn’t have worried about having things sorted out, but given that we will be on board for 90 days it seemed sensible to have the room as we wanted it to be.
In the middle of all of this, Mady, our room attendant arrived to make up the room, with the two other people who help her out. At one point Nick said it reminded him of the Marx Brothers film on board a ship, where hundreds of people all come through their small cabin. We just sat quietly on the sofa and let them get on with it.
When they had gone I went off to the gym to have my first session since before my cold and Nick blogged a bit. We had lunch then I went for a make up consultation with Demitri, make up artist to the stars. I had been to one of his talks about the secrets of make up and got a free consultation for having done so. Suffice to say, I don’t think I will be changing my habit of not wearing make up. I asked for him to show me how to apply light day make up that looked natural and ended up looking like an orange so I wiped it all off when I got back.
We sat and watched ‘Beginners’ on the telly. They have a whole series of really recent films on three film channels, so we have seen ‘Lincoln’, ‘The Life of Pi’ and ‘Argo’, as well as some slightly older ones like ‘The Descendants’.
In the evening, Nick decided he felt up to having dinner so we went to the Grand Dining Room where all the waiters were very pleased to see him back.
***
The next day was Easter Sunday and another sea day. As Nick may have mentioned before, we bought ourselves a chocolate bilby in Haigh’s chocolate shop in Sydney before we left. Haigh’s are Australian chocolatiers and have started an Easter campaign to have native animals as chocolate gifts rather than the non indigenous rabbit, which is considered a pest in Australia. But that stayed in the fridge as we had been given a box of Belgian chocolates the night before when our bed was turned down. We treated ourselves to one of these and I went off to the gym again.
We – both of us: Nick felt up to food again – had brunch at the special buffet in the Grand Dining Room, where there were lovely displays of chocolate rabbits and chicks and eggs that had been made on board, along with a huge selection of food. It was a nice celebration of Easter.
On our return to our room, Nick felt unwell again and retired to try to catch up on some sleep. He was so unwell that we had to cancel our speciality restaurant booking for that night and we also didn’t go to the Captain’s Cocktail party for guests who are members of the Oceania Club. Sad not to go but I’m sure we will be invited again on the next section of the cruise and we can rearrange the dinner booking for another time. We have got plenty of days after all. But it did mean that I went to dinner on my own again. When I left I stole the table decoration – a dark chocolate bunny in a half a white chocolate egg - to cheer Nick up, so now we have a room full of chocolate. I got some tea from the concierge lounge and we sat in bed and watched ‘The Life of Pi’.
Day 289 (Tonga)
I woke up quite early on the next morning and lay in bed watching the sunrise as we sailed through some of the islands that make up the Tongatapu Group, the most southern group of islands in the Kingdom of Tonga. Our destination was Nuku’alofa, the capital of Tonga, on the largest inhabited island in the Kingdom, Tongatapu.
We sat out on the balcony as we docked at the newly built wharf (another Chinese project) looking at the Royal Palace and the Basilica of the South Pacific. On the quay, to greet our arrival, was a band, who played while we docked and while the first people started to get off. We had seen the buses assembling for the tours that morning. A motley crew of buses including the school bus and the college bus, which we later found was challenging to some of the passengers expectations of what a tour should be.
After breakfast, we put our things together and got off, having changed some money on board to Tongan Pa’anga. It was a public holiday for Easter Monday and most of the shops were shut so the ‘city’ of Nuku’alofa was very quiet. We wandered around for an hour in temperatures that we hadn’t seen since our ten days in Melbourne. Now we are back in the tropics the humidity has risen again and Nick found it very uncomfortable, especially as he was still recovering. He decided that he wanted to go back and rest.
I decided that I wanted to see some more of the island and that I would try to take a taxi tour. As I was looking around for someone to take me, another couple, Marty and Sylvia from Florida, were also trying to get someone to take them to a beach on the west coast for the day. We three kind of joined up and talked to a man about taking us all for a slightly cheaper price and finally after a bit of haggling, got taken to his car.
Well. He wasn’t a taxi driver, but someone who was trying to make a bit of extra cash. I have no problem with that but it would have been good if his car had been a bit more in working order than it was. The driver’s seat wasn’t really attached to the floor and it slid around a bit, the tyres had all seen better days, there was no rear view mirror and the back doors could only be opened from outside. Eddy – we knew he was Eddy because it was tattooed on his ear lobe – had never really taken a tour before and was not much of a guide. We tried to help him out while he drove us but it was never going to be his forte.
What we had agreed was that he would drive the others to the beach and leave them there while he took me for a tour around to see the sights in the west of the island, including the blowholes, a series of rock ledges where the sea crashes in to make whistling, gesyer-like blasts which rise up to 60 feet in the air. This changed almost straight away when he drove all of us to the blowholes. They were spectacular, especially with local boys back-flipping into the rock pools each time a huge wave crashed into the shore. You could see more and more of them all around the coast line. Also here were some women selling trinkets to the other tourists and a group of kindergarten children, all dressed in their uniforms, singing, ‘We wish you a Happy Easter’ to the tune of ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’. Strange.
We all got back into the car and headed for the beach, so that Marty and Sylvia could sunbathe. It was on this section of the ‘tour’ that Eddy told us about having lived in the USA (California) for 18 years with his Mum and Dad and a sister and brother, and his wife and one of his (five) children (four of whom are to different mothers in NZ and Australia). But the best bit was that for 12 of these 18 years he had been in prison. Why? Because he ‘broke the rules’. After serving his 12 years he was sent back to Tonga with no chance of returning to US for another twenty years, when he could reapply for a visa. OK, so at this point, I’m thinking, I could be left alone in this car that I can’t get out of, with a criminal who has committed a crime that was bad enough to have been given 12 years for….. Hmmm
When we got to the beach, after a drive through lush green countryside, with pretty cottages and lovely gardens, roaming dogs and pigs with piglets, I had a lucky break. Marty and Sylvia decided that it was not to their liking and they didn’t want to spend time on it (it wasn’t pristine white sands with beach beds etc). Although I thought it was a nice beach, I was pleased that they decided to continue the ‘tour’ with me. While they were checking out the beach, I chatted to Eddy about his future prospects. He wanted to set up as a tour guide and take people around because his wife might think it was worth returning to Tonga if he had a good job. I really hope it happens for him but he will need a great deal of capital outlay for a vehicle before that could happen and we knew more about the island than he did.
The ‘tour’ then continued to a resort a little bit further along the coast where we all got out for a soft drink before setting off again. Really, what we did next was just drive around a bit, seeing the villages and country side. We did stop at one point for Eddy to have his spare tyre put on and the others pumped up in a funny old garage that reminded me of the one at the top of the mountain pass in Tajikistan, where we had to do much the same thing with the truck. Then we headed back for the port. I think it was all too much for Sylvia, but Eddy was keen to take us to some spots on the other side of the island, a hour’s drive away and an hour back. I decided that, given the state of the car, I was best off getting out then too, so that I didn’t end up broken down somewhere while the ship sailed off without me. So with much thanks and shaking of hands I said goodbye to Eddy, and to Marty and Sylvia, and spent a happy half hour looking at the local craft stalls, before getting back on board to tell Nick the tale.
After a late lunch and high tea, we sat on our balcony listening to the police band of Tonga playing all kinds of tunes as the last passengers arrived back and the stairs were taken down. By the time we sailed away, (6pm) there were loads of people out on their balconies on this side of the ship, listening and applauding. It was a lovely end to the day. Really, these are the friendly islands, as Cook said when he came in the 1700s. We sailed away into the Pacific sunset, and watched until it got dark.
Days 290 & 290 (cruising the Pacific and crossing the International Date-line)
After a good night’s sleep for both of us we had a leisurely breakfast in the Dining room. I sorted out my photos from the day before and then went off to the gym for a session on the rowing machine, while Nick took it easy, although he is much better today than he has been. This is the beginning of what we want to have as ‘Groundhog days’. Today, 2nd April 2013, we cross the International dateline and gain a whole day, which means that tomorrow will also be 2nd April 2013 … it’s going to be very strange. We have made a booking at one of the restaurants for both days, which caused some problems to arrange at first because there was not a booking sheet on the system for the second day. We will wear the same things on both days but I don’t know yet whether we will eat the same things. Wait and see.
We dressed up for our meal at ‘Jacques’, the French restaurant on board, which seems to be very popular. It was a nice meal but we didn’t think it was any more special than the ones we have been having in the Grand Dining Room.
I think that the Americans have a particular reverence for anything European, especially French or Italian, and we have already had the stereotypical comment – ‘I love your accent,’ along with the newer, ‘You sound just like ‘Downton Abbey’.’ There are not a lot of Brits on board but there are lots or Americans, and the whole ‘Downton Abbey’ link is compounded because there is an entire channel on the TV devoted to showing the first two series back to back on a continuous loop. We hadn’t really watched it at home but now we seem to have caught up with everything that has happened but in a very strange order. Sometimes we turn it on and it’s the middle of the First World War, Matthew can’t walk and the house is still a hospital, but then other times we are back to episode one and Matthew doesn’t even know that Downton is his future. We are hoping that they get series three in the loop for the next bit of the cruise, otherwise we will be able to quote lines from every episode. We also know the ending of series four, which has been shown at home while we have been away, because someone gave the game away when they commented on our accents at dinner a few nights ago. As we watched in bed last night (April 2nd Part 1) Nick said it was like being in a warm bath. You certainly don’t need much brainpower to watch it. Soap opera with nice frocks. But all the Americans we have met like it.
***
April 2nd Part 2 started quite differently from Part 1 so we won’t be having a Groundhog Day and can wear different things to dinner and eat a different menu. Crossing the International Dateline is still an amazing thing to get your head around. Firstly it is no longer a straight line running roughly along the 180 degree meridian of longitude. It zigzags all over the place so that different island groups can be at either the beginning or the end of the day. Most recently Western Samoa changed it’s position so that it could be at the start of the day rather than the very end of it, aligning themselves with Asia Pacific for business purposes. We are not exactly sure when we crossed the line, but when we did, we went from in front of you all, to behind you. At the start of yesterday we’d reached the point were we were about 12 hours ahead of you all. For us, Midnight last night was the end of Tuesday 2nd April, but you all had the rest of the day to go. When we got up this morning we were at the start of another Tuesday 2nd April when you were about done with it and soon to be starting on Wednesday, April the 3rd. So, from now on, we will be catching up with you, hour by hour, as we cross time zones, until we catch up completely in Southampton in June.
I think this has caused some confusion amongst the elderly passengers on board, especially those with day-dated pill dispensers. I like to think of it like this: basically we have all had a bonus day. How marvellous!
Thank goodness it wasn’t on April 1st – even more confusion, with people thinking it was an April Fool’s joke. I want someone to give us a certificate to show we have done it. We got one when we crossed the Equator on Celebrity…..
As our day had started differently we decided to have lunch (not brunch and tea) and in a different venue. We did, however, still spend the day watching movies and looking out the window. (Particularly good sunset this evening.)
I have to close this now, as it’s time to dress for our second visit to ‘Jacques’. That, though, will probably be pretty much the same.
[Nick’s update: Tonight’s meal was better than last night’s, but still nothing special. More exciting, though, is that we did get certificates for crossing the International Date-line. They were waiting for us with the daily on-board newssheet when we got back to our room. :)
By the way, you may have spotted that I’ve called both of these April the seconds ‘Day 290’, so you might be thinking: “Ah ha! So it’s 360 degrees in 361 days. He forgot about crossing the date line when he added up how long this circumnavigation was going to take.” Well, not so.
Many of our 24-hour days have been short or long by an hour (or half an hour) due to time changes. By the time we return to the UK, having gone east round the globe, these plusses and minuses work out to exactly 24 hours lost, or one whole day. Today’s ‘extra day’, pays those lost hours back, as it were, which is, of course, why we have an International date line.]
Day 291 Rarotonga
We woke early enough to watch as we sailed into Avatiu Harbour and dropped anchor. The island in front of us, Rarotonga, largest of the Cook Islands (country number 30) was formed by volcanic action, as many of these Pacific islands have been; the first thing we noticed was the spectacular mountains, covered in lush green trees. Next, the reef surrounding the island could be seen. In the harbour at the North of the island, the reef is very close to the shore but as we were to see later in the day, the distance between the shore of the island and the reef varies greatly.We showered and went to breakfast, knowing that on days where we have to take the tender, the groups who are on tours organised by the ship have priority when it comes to disembarking, so we had lots of time to kill before needing to get to where the tender tickets are handed out to independent travellers like us. It seemed that everyone must have been taking an organised tour as we were only the second couple in for breakfast.
The boat ride to the quayside at Avaroa, capital of the Cook Islands, was only ten minutes or so and soon we were standing near a tent set up as an information centre for cruise passengers staffed by Cook Island women with flowers in their hair or flower garlands around their heads, plus Cook Island men in brightly coloured floral shirts. We picked up a map, asked about the local bus, and took a shuttle bus into what the ship’s factsheet for Rarotonga optimistically calls a city.
The town of Avaroa is tiny and pretty laid-back and everything you would want a Pacific island capital to be. At the bank, we changed some left over Tongan money into New Zealand dollars as the islands are closely linked with New Zealand, although they do have some coins and notes of their own, then waited for the island bus.
There are two buses that travel around the island: the clockwise bus and the anti–clockwise bus. One goes on the hour, the other on the half hour but actually the timings are pretty relaxed. We got the first one that came along, buying a day pass allowing us to get on and off and go in whichever direction we wanted for the whole day. Other tickets were available for different prices but I think they just let everyone get on and off when and where they want, so it didn’t really matter.
We decided that we would just go all the way around the first time (20 miles) and see if there was somewhere we might want to get off the second time round, so we sat back and enjoyed the ride. On one side of the bus was the sea, with the reef in the distance. At some points there were beautiful beaches with guest houses and hotels, or cafes and restaurants close by. On the mountain side, the scenery changed around every bend, with different views of the lovely ranges.
We drove through the airport – a tiny place with open air arrivals and departures. A plane had landed when we went past and the ground staff were preparing their flower necklaces for the passengers as they got off. Everywhere were hibiscus and bougainvillea flowers, palms and bananas. It was exactly as you would have wanted it to be.
When we got back to the town we decided to have lunch before we took off on the bus again. We stopped in a cafe looking at the sea and ate octopus curry and seafood chowder while being accompanied by a couple singing and playing the guitar. When we put some money in their case, we were given a free CD to take away with us. All the time locals were wandering in and out of other shops and bars and cafes with brightly coloured shirts and flowers in their hair.
Back on the bus, (same direction, same driver, even some of the same passengers) we travelled around again but this time got off by Muri beach to have a walk along a couple of kilometres of white sand. The reef is some way away from the shore here. Inside the turquoise lagoon created by the reef are three small islands, swimming distance away from the beach. The first thing we saw when we got to the sand was a bloke on a paddle board with a large dog. Turned out he worked for one of the resorts there teaching people how to paddle board and the dog was a beach dog that he had saved a year before who had now attached himself to the guy and his paddle board. It had better balance than the two tourists he was trying to teach.
The beach itself was lovely and we could easily have spent a week in one of the bungalows or guest houses set just a few yards behind the beach, just chilling out, occasionally having a dip, and drinking beer. It didn’t seem too busy or too over developed. Apparently it’s a great spot for weddings for New Zealanders. It’s lovely, and I know we have only just started seeing all of these islands, but I could happily come back to this one.
When we finally got back to the road we didn’t have to wait long before the bus came round again and we just flagged it down. They stop pretty much wherever you want them to. By now it was getting on and we had to get the tender back to the ship. Everyone returning seemed to have felt the same way about the island that we did.
Back on board we had tea and then sat on our balcony watching as the sun set and we sailed away from the Cook Islands. Next stop French Polynesia and Bora Bora.
We rounded off a lovely day with dinner in ‘Toscana’, the Italian restaurant on board. I hadn’t really been looking forward to it much as I am not a huge fan of Italian food, but we had a very nice meal and climbed into bed very satisfied with the day.
Day 292 (cruising to French Polynesia)
With the evening cruise newspaper (Currents), which gives you all the information you need to know about the following day on the ship – events, timings and anything particular you need to know – came the news that all passengers would have to have a ‘face to face’ with French Polynesian immigration, which you would do anyway if you arrived by plane. Each deck had been given a particular time to go and we were due at 10am in one of the restaurants with our passports and arrival document. We had a relaxed breakfast and went straight to the meeting place to find a huge queue snaking out of the restaurant and around the foyer.We found that it moved quite quickly once we had joined it and soon we could see the two French Polynesian customs officials. To my huge joy they were actually stamping passports. Hurrah, I wouldn’t have to persuade them to put a stamp in. Of course, it couldn’t be so simple.
When we got to the front of the queue the man took our arrival forms and gave us back our passports. ‘But what about our stamp?’ I cried. Apparently we didn’t get one as we were holders of European passports and didn’t need to have it stamped when we took the plane out of Tahiti. ‘Ah Ha,’ I said. ‘We’re not taking a plane from Tahiti. We’re going all the way to Southampton by boat.’ This now confused the poor chap.
First of all he told me that the stamp was not a ‘souvenir’ but official, then he looked us up on his list of passengers transiting French Polynesia. We weren’t on the list. (Bit of an issue which we had to take up with reception afterwards). Then he asked his colleague (in French) what to do with us. This man said to add us to the list, and finally the first man said that he would stamp my passport ‘just because it’s you’. Hurrah! So I got a stamp in my passport. The bad news was that it’s not a very clear stamp (Doh!) and he forgot to stamp Nick’s passport at all. But so far we are doing well for getting it stamped as we go.
We went straight to reception then to find out what was going on and to make sure that we were on the right lists and that our door cards were going to carry on working when we got off the ship in Tahiti and that they knew we were going all the way to Southampton. After some checking in the background we got a phone call apologising for the error and telling us that they did know about us really. Phew!
Our busy sea day then continued with a visit to what ‘Currents’ was calling Marina’s Country Fair. I’ll quote from the paper because it made us laugh:
‘Late summer in Britain is the time in the countryside to hold a traditional ‘olde faire’. It is a joyous time of the year when all the locals get together to erect tents and stalls in which to sell their wares and to host events.’
[You see that, Ian: “joyous” and ”all the locals…erect tents”. That’s absolutely how it is, isn’t it, Ian?]
Good Oh! We thought we’d have to see that, fully expecting Disney style Morris dancers, wenches and jolly yokels! Well, it wasn’t quite like that, but each section of the crew had a stall where you could do some activity linked to their jobs and ‘win’ raffle tickets that would be drawn later in the morning. So house keeping had a race to put on a pillow case, the kitchen had a ‘Guess the Spice’ stall, the butlers wanted you to tie a tie, Destinations (the travel organisers) had a trivia quiz, the waiters had a Hit the Monkey stall and so on. We played some of the games but there were huge queues for many of them. It seems the Americans are very competitive (strangely enough, Bingo, is a big thing on this luxury boat) so it was hard to do some of the activities and when it came to time for the draw we only had four raffle tickets, in comparison to some people with twenty of them. But much to our surprise one of our tickets came up and with a decent prize. (The prize before I won was a money clip….oh joy.) But I got a $40 voucher to spend in the Spa, so I think I might keep that for a haircut in future.
To celebrate I went off to the gym to struggle my way through my ‘personal’ stretches, which are not getting any easier yet, while Nick designed a card with our blog details on it to hand out and did some laundry. We met up again for lunch and then spent a lazy afternoon blogging and snoozing. It’s hard work keeping up with all this activity.
The timetable of islands as we arrive in French Polynesia is hectic to say the least, but I can’t wait to see what all of those wonderfully named places look like. We’ll let you know in the next post.
TTFN J
X
[Click for more photos from the South Pacific.]
I have to admit, your cruise is making me drool with envy. Beats a truck any day!
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