Bay of Islands

Bay of Islands
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2.26.2007 Bay of Islands, New Zealand

Yesterday was another busy day at sea. In the morning Peter Hillary gave a wonderful introduction to a film about his life and family, “An Expeditionary Life” which was made for the television series, “Fearless”. What an exciting story including his mountain climb of Mountain K2 in Nepal which, although not as high as Mt.Everest , has proved more difficult to climb. On one attempt, with seven good friends and expert climbers, he was the only one to come down alive. He and his lovely wife, the mother of his four children, are aboard and will leave us in Auckland, their home. His father’s picture ,Sir Edmund Hillary appears on the New Zealand five dollar bill. The four of us had lunch with Janet and Matthew “Tony “ Wilson and later heard him give his last lecture, “Taking Terripin Home”, the story of sailing from England to the Med., then across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and finally to Florida on a 26” catamaran named Terripin. He is such a great storyteller and his slides were great. We will miss them when they leave the ship in Auckland to spend two weeks in New Zealand. However, the six of us have promised to get together back home. In between the lectures and lunch the Wallace’s managed to win at bridge against the West’s. Donny has a big lead and I am bringing up the rear in our on going battle. The winner has to take the four of us to dinner at a great restaurant downtown (forgot the name) with a driver after we get home. Last night we enjoyed cocktails with our friends, Sarah Beth and Don Smith from Columbia before joining Carola, the Ass’t Cruise Director, for dinner. She is from Milan and most attractive with a great personality. Believe it or not, the other guests at her table were Sherry and Carl Magdil from Chevy Chase. They celebrated their 65^th wedding anniversary last week. Both have had busy careers-she in education and he as a former editor at World News and Report.

The Treaty House
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This morning we anchored in The Bay of Islands, located at the extreme northeast coast of North Island, New Zealand. It is beautiful and it is easy to see why is rich in legend and history and lured explorers for centuries. This was the first area in New Zealand to be settled by Europeans, after Capt. Cook anchored here in 1769. He was met by different tribes of The Maroi, Polynesians originally having come by boat a century before from Huahine, the French Polynesian Island we visited last week. After breakfast, we took a wonderful tour visiting Waitangi and Kerikerri. It was fun seeing what we had first seen in October of 1996 when we visited New Zealand with old and good friends, Joan and Tom Rixey. The Waitangi Treaty House is where on Feb.6,1840 the leading Maori Chiefs signed over soverignity of their land to Queen Victoria of Great Britian. The house where the British Resident (acting governor) James Brady lived and negotiated the treaty has been beautifully restored. The site denoting where the treaty was signed at a big meeting is marked by a flag pole on beautifully landscaped grounds on a hill overlooking the beautiful bay and all of it’s islands. On the site is a Marae (Maori meeting hall) ,Te Whare Runanga, which was dedicated in 1940 to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the signing of The Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. This building is filled with beautiful carvings depicting ancestors of the many tribes that signed the treaty. There is also a large war canoe requiring a minimum of 76 paddlers on display. This canoe is put in the water every year on Feb.6^th and rowed around the bay. It is obvious that for New Zealanders the treaty represents what our Declaration of Independence means to us and this site is their Constitution Hall in a Mt. Vernon setting. From there we visited the oldest house in New Zealand, the Kemp House dating from 1822 and adjacent Stone Store built in 1832. This was the home of missionaries who from England who established a mission in Kerikeri in 1819.

My gal,Sal
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The contrast to other islands recently visited is great. Everything is clean and almost manicured. The development has been done well and many of us commented this is the first place we have seen that was inviting in case we ever left the states. The fact that it is a beautiful sunny day with temperatures down in the 70’s made it more delightful. Back to the ship and a nice lunch with the West’s and our old friends from a previous cruise, Sybil and Terry Vince fro Gloucester, Mass. has gotten this day off to a great start. The ship has just pulled up anchor, blown it,s whistle three blasts to say goodbye to The Bay of Islands. Now onto Auckland.

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