First steps in Kiwiland

And so on to New Zealand...

We arrived in a veil of mist. Our first port of call (literally) was Napier. Napier is famous for its art-deco architecture which was in style when the city was rebuilt following the destruction of the old town by a earthquake in 1931. The optimistic citizens decided to rebuild and (touch wood) it has survived so far. While in Napier we met our freighter travel agent who has been most helpful in our round-the-world-without-flying quest: Hamish. In a bizarre twist of fate, Hamish comes originally from Edinburgh - where some of his family still live. Even stranger is that I have fixed his brother's computer while working for Microsys. Small world indeed.


Napier itself is a nice little place. Apart from all the art deco stuff its a compact town - very pleasant atmosphere and ambiance (despite the rain which greeted us). I guess it helps that we came from Australia where there isn't any rain to be had. Kinda reminds me of home already.

Anyway, we were soon back on board for the short hop to Auckland. This voyage was on board the CMA CGM MANET which is a French owned, Croatian and Filipino crewed, Barbados registered freighter. I reckon it's slightly bigger than the last ship (the HANSA SONDERBURG) but was pretty similar. The Croatian officers tended to stick together and speak in their own language a lot (fair enough I guess) whilst smoking seemingly non-stop, but the Filipinos tended to engage a bit more and they were all very friendly. The food on this voyage was better than the previous one - the cook seemed to know what he was up to and did make an effort for us - which was much appreciated.


So. We're now in Auckland and haven't had much time to explore yet, but it seems nice enough... We're off on our bus on the 2nd (fingers crossed, the company seemed [worryingly] slightly unsure on this point...) so we've got tomorrow to chill out and have a look around.