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Length: Afternoon Cuppa Tea
Kristin Reporting!
Today’s tour was to go sea kayaking. Unfortunately, D
decided his gastrointestinal problems were too severe to allow him to go. He
planned to call the Doctor to report himself ill after I left on the tour so
that he could get his ticket for the tour refunded.
The reason D decided he had to report himself (besides
to get a refund due to his inability to go without a bathroom nearby…) was
because he threw up last night. The two issues combined pointed to his having
the dreaded norovirus. He needed a restroom nearby since he was suffering from
the strangest type of diarrhea possible, basically just clear liquid. He was
concerned for a while if he could drink enough water to replace what was being
lost.
Overall, I had a fun time kayaking. I always have a
fun time kayaking! In terms of what I saw, I wasn’t that impressed. Bay of
Islands is known for being exceptionally beautiful. We kayaked up the end of a
river in a fairly urban area, so we saw cars and campers, and the water was
brown from the forceful churning of the water coming off of the waterfall. Even
when it’s not from pollution, brown water is never attractive!
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| The view from shore towards the bay of islands. The Pacific Princess can be seen anchored on the left hand side of the picture. |
This port was a tender port, so the first step was to
take a tender to shore. This was about a 20 minute boat ride. When we got
ashore, it was a short 10 minute walk to the line of waiting sea kayaks. There
was an odd number of people on the tour, and they were tandem kayaks, so one
person needed to go solo. Happily, that person was me! So, I actually benefited
from Davin being sick. It sucks that he missed out, but it’s a plus that
something good came out of it. The reason I got to use the solo kayak was
because they wanted an experienced kayaker to use it. My prior experience paid
off—Yes!
The tour guide started off by giving us a crash course
in how to kayak. This included instruction on how to use the rudder. Having a
rudder on a kayak was a new experience for me, and, now that I got the
experience, I can say having a rudder on a sea kayak is amazing! It takes a LOT
of effort out of turning. Sea kayaks without rudders, which is what my mom and
I once took a training class with, are completely inferior!
So, fully trained, we headed up the river. This was
actually the easier direction to go in because the wind was at our back and the
current from the ocean was running back against the river current. The wind was
particularly strong today because it was overcast and storm clouds were
threatening. The cool thing was that I got to have another new experience
because of this windy weather. We lined up all of our kayaks and held onto one
another to form a raft. Then we spread a sail between us and sailed up the
river! Two people had to hold the sail poles, and one of those people was me!
It was random who got to hold the pole based on where the sail ended. The wind
was AMAZINGLY strong and threatened to rip the sail out of my hands! I quickly
figured out how to brace the pole against my kayak seat and it took all the
difficulty out of the task—thank goodness! The other young woman on the other
end of the sail looked like she was having a lot more trouble keeping the sail
in position.
Eventually a small mountain blocked the wind and we
went back to paddling.
The “sights” to see going up the river were: 1) Mangrove
trees, and their roots (and we listened to shrimp the size of a pinky finger
nail making chirping noises—supposedly they snap their bodies together with
such force it creates a sonic boom.); 2) We paddled past a Maori village
docking area (not much to see as we went by); 3) Two trees filled with
cormorants (supposedly their poop is so thick it is slowly suffocating the
trees, but they stick to the same two trees so it’s not an ecological problem);
and 4) The waterfall.
The waterfall was fairly impressive in terms of power.
A lot of water was raging over the top, and we were told that it was more
fierce than usual because of a recent rainstorm. Unfortunately, that fierce
water churned up sediment and turned the waterfall and river an unpleasant
brown color. It looked disgusting.
The waterfall was the end point of our kayak trip. From
there we landed our kayaks and were given hot chocolate, tea or coffee while we
waited for a bus to pick us up and return us to the ship. The total time
kayaking was about 2 hours. It was 3 hours total that Davin would have to have
been able to go without a bathroom. When I told him that, he said he was sad to
miss out, but that he had made the right decision not to try to do it…
I took the tender back to the ship to see if D wanted
to go into town to walk around. Unfortunately, the result of calling the Doctor
was that he was put into quarantine for 24 hours. It did not affect me, even
though if he had norovirus there was almost no way that I didn’t also have it.
I wasn’t going to complain though!
The nurse that had come to see him gave him in the
morning had given him some medicine for diarrhea and nausea. The anti-nausea
medicine knocked him OUT! So, even if he had been allowed to go ashore, he
wouldn’t have been up for it. I left him sleeping and ran back downstairs to
get the tender back to shore before it took off again.
My mission was the usual one—to find a postcard. The
tender drop off spot had a complimentary shuttle which took passengers on a ten
minute drive to the town of Paihia. This little village was perfect for my
mission. It is one of those tourist trap souvenir lands. I found a Bay of Islands
postcard and also bought an Auckland postcard—just in case I were also to
become ill by tomorrow! I found some other miscellaneous souvenirs. I have to
limit myself to small items in order to be able to get them back home. I bought
some pins and patches for others, and a necklace for myself.
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| This self-checkout machine had the signature pad built into the check-out table. |
I also explored two grocery stores. Grocery stores are
my favorite place to go when I get ashore. We always look for corn chips, salsa
and pudding mixes. We also like to check out the tea section and see if the country
sells Dr. Pepper. I bought D a bag of New Zealand Fudge, a tube of Ritz
crackers and a Kit-Kat bar. Just some stuff to cheer him up, and the crackers
as an option in case regular food didn’t appeal to him.
Mom and Scott weren’t happy that I was out touring on
my own. I told them there were tons of tourists around and it was basically a
Sea Port village tourist shopping area. Still, once I finished my shopping, I
headed back to the ship to make everyone happy. There was only about one hour
left to be out and about before the ship left anyway. The ship was leaving
fairly early—around 4:30pm or 5:00pm.
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| This was one of the first things I saw after getting ashore. I've seen this before, but still haven't figured out why people like to clothe trees and lamp posts. It's nice that this tree won't get cold though! |
When I got back to our cabin, I saw D had been eating
some boring food—some kind of chicken broth soup. He said the nurse had given
him a “Light and Healthy” menu to choose food off of. He said the food was so
bland it was horrible. He may not have had much of an appetite, but this bland
food was so unappetizing in itself, he could barely stand to eat it! I left him
in quarantine and went and sat down at the Bistro by myself and ordered a
Hawaiian Pizza. The pizza on the Pacific Princess is mediocre, but it’s edible.
It needs more Italian seasonings, more salt, and more sauce in general.
As the ship pulled out we saw that we were sailing by
another ‘Arch Rock’. This has to be the third such rock we’ve seen, and it
always amuses us because on our Holland America Cruise last November they made
a special announcement to bring our attention to our passing of ‘El Arco’ the
famous arch rock. We’ve seen several almost identical rock formations, and they
are really not impressive!
Since D was in quarantine, he said I should go to the
tour office and book a tour for Auckland tomorrow so that I could go see
something by myself. He hoped that he would be released from quarantine by tomorrow
afternoon, but we can’t count on it. I signed up for a morning tour that would
take me to the Auckland Museum, and on a drive around the town to some scenic
photo locations.
I was pretty physically exhausted from the kayaking,
and my tour tomorrow is at 7AM, and D is clearly fighting off an illness, so we
went to bed fairly early.
Next
Stop: Auckland, New Zealand (February 8, 2016)
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