Down Under - Day Seven, Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Sailing AWAY from the sunset last night.  Beautiful!!

Seabourn's first stop - Tauranga, New Zealand

Last night was very smooth sailing.  The gentle rocking of the ship was like knock out drops. I was out like a light in no time at all and woke up in Tauranga.  

Stevie had arranged a private tour through "Tour by Locals".  We disembarked the ship to meet Julie and her vintage Rolls Royce for a tour of Tauranga and the neighboring countryside.  

Ponga Trees resemble palms

Tauranga, the principal city on the Bay of Plenty, is the largest export town in New Zealand.  It's also one of the primary kiwi fruit and orchard regions and the gateway to the geothermal park, Rotorua.   My biggest surprise was the vegetation, which is almost tropical.  Ponga trees dominate.  They look like giant ferns with their curled shoots unrolling.  They grow tall like palm trees.  The Maoris used Ponga leaves for houses because the leaves repel water and made their homes water proof.  I commented that they looked like something out of Avatar and Julie said Avatar was filmed locally.  

Kiwi Fruit grows on vines like grapes

Then next surprise was the Kiwi orchards growing on vines instead of trees.  Farms are surrounded by tall, closely planted Japanese Cedars that have been tightly groomed to become 30 foot barriers (likened to a huge hedge) to block the wind from orchards preventing the kiwi from being 
knocked together causing blemishes on the delicate fruit.
  

Hopefully you'll get the idea of the tree walls. Kiwi are inside the walls.

I tried to get some photos of the tree walls, but just couldn't seem to capture the look.  Avocado orchards are prevalent along with the kiwi in this region.   Gorgeous Hydrangea and Agapanthus grow wild along the roadside adding to the beauty of this area.

Most of the building in KatiKati have murals depicting times gone by.

Julie took us to her home town of KatiKati.  A small little town that was falling off the map, the town council gathered to brainstorm ideas to get people to stop and visit their little town.  Julie's art teacher suggested that they paint up the town.  So the buildings became the canvas for murals.  Each mural tells a story of the town, past and present.  The murals are magnificent and quite successfully converted this sleepy little town into an outdoor art gallery.

After all the gold is retrieved, this quarry will be filled with water 

The next town we visited, Waihi, is an active gold mining town.  Quite interesting watching the trucks driving in and out of the quarry with their loads of rubble that will be crushed and searched for gold.  

Stevie and our guide Julie at Ohinemuri Estate Winery

We continued our drive to Karangahake Gorge area where we stopped at a lovely boutique winery for lunch.  Ohinemuri Estate Winery is nestled amongst the mountains with an enchanting little cottage surrounded by herb gardens.  They serve only one meal per day and we just happened to be in the market for it ... LUNCH. 

 

Summer Vegetable Tart prepared by Chef Missy

The kitchen was small, but the Chef Missy certainly knew her way around.  She whipped up a summer vegetable tart that was not only a beautiful presentation, but scrumptious!  It's too damp here to grow their own grapes, so the wine maker buys grapes locally and produces only a few hundred bottles of each of his various types of wine.  But what he makes is exquisite.   But I forgot, we weren't going to drink wine today.  Oops!

Anthenree Homestead

After lunch, it was time to head back to towards the ship. By now, we'd been in the car for hours.  We chose to do the rest of our sightseeing "drive by" style.  We did a "drive by" of a beautiful little place called Anthenree Homestead.  A lovely little home that has been renovated by ancestors and converted into a restaurant.  Look kids ... it's Anthenree Homestead.  Then on the the beach where we had a good look, then a quick tasting at Mills Reef Winery in Bethlehem.   By then, after seven hours in the lovely vintage Rolls Royce, it was time to get back to the ship.  Don't get me wrong.  We had a great day of sightseeing, but enough already.

We cast off around 5:30 making our way to Wellington.   We had a fabulous dinner poolside at the Patio Grill and then I was rocked to sleep by the hum of the Odyssey's engine and the gentle sea.