After an overnight stay in Sydney, we flew to Hong Kong and then to Taipei. From the airport, we took a taxi to an apartment near Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. Valerie’s mom and aunts are also visiting Taiwan during the same period as us, so we are staying with them.

In the morning, we took the MRT the Maokong Gondola and then rode the gondola to the top of the hill. It was raining a bit, so the view wasn’t great, but we stopped for some delicious Taiwanese street food. Oddly, the Maokong Gondola station and cable cars are decorated with Hello Kitty. According to Wikipedia, Maokong literally translates to “cat empty.” I wonder if those two facts are related. After Maokong, we went to Din Tai Fung and ate a lunch of delicious xiaolong baos.

I’m pleasantly surprised by how affordable and easy mass transit is in Taiwan. All the announcements and signs on the Metro are translated to English. Almost any ride can be paid for using a rechargeable EasyCard. The Taipei MRT only costs around US$0.50 for a short ride.

It’s the end of another cruise. The ship was like a home away from home, but now we’re on our own again. We disembarked around 9pm and boarded the metro into Auckland to pick up a rental car. Our first touristic stop was the Waitomo Caves, which are known for their glowworms. The tour through the cave was an interesting experience. Silently looking up at the cave ceiling from our boat was like looking up at a starry sky. Unlike most tourists, we then drove further along the Waitomo Caves Road to some lesser known touristic stops: a waterfall, a cave, and a lookout point. None of them were particularly amazing, but it was nice to see them since we were already nearby. We stayed the night at a B&B near Lake Taupo where we enjoyed a fine meal of Dominos Pizza.

On our second day, we started by driving to Huka Falls. Huka Falls seems like a bit of a misnomer because the water doesn’t really fall vertically, but rather horizontally as an impressive series of rapids. It’s definitely worth a visit for anyone in the area. Next, we drove to Mount Tongariro. We drove up to the ski resort for the view, but didn’t take the chairlift to the top because it was raining. On the way up, we stopped by the side of the road to look at Mt. Ngauruhoe, known for its role as Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies. It was getting late, so we didn’t take any of the long famous hikes near the mountain, but instead hiked to a small falls near the visitor center. We stayed the night at a B&B in Te Arona.

On our third and last day in New Zealand, we started the day by heading to the Hobbitton movie set for first tour of the day. The Hobbiton set is surprisingly well maintained for a movie set and is definitely worth the steep admission cost for LotR fans. Next, we drove to the Karangahake Gorge, where we walked along the Window Loop Trail. Unfortunately, the trail was closed part way through due to rock movements. Finally, we returned car to Auckland and boarded our plane to Sydney.

Today, the ship docked in Tauranga on the north island. We got off the ship around 10am to board the bus tour to Rotorua that we booked yesterday. Our first touristic stop was Kiwi 360, a complex celebrating the kiwifruit and its relation to New Zealand. Kiwi 360 is easily identifiable by a giant elevated wooden kiwifruit along the side of the highway. Our next touristic stop was Te Puia, a Maori cultural heritage site with geysers, mud pools, steam vents, and a 30-minute cultural show. By the time we got back to the ship it was raining, so we decided to head back aboard rather than walk around town.

Our ship is made a short stop at Napier today. We didn’t have any plans for the day, so we took our time and disembarked the ship around 10am, 3 hours after arrival. We took the compulsory shuttle into town to the drop off point near the national aquarium. After a little research, we decided to skip the aquarium and walk along the Marine Parade toward Tennyson St (main pedestrian walkway). Since we didn’t have any plans for tomorrow either, we stopped at i-Site (government sponsored tourist information) and signed up for a tour tomorrow in Tauranga. Along Tennyson St, we stopped at a bakery (which claims to be the best in New Zealand) and ate a mince pie and chocolate pecan tart. Both were tasty, but probably not the best in New Zealand. On the advice of the shuttle driver, we walked up to a bluff near town, but failed to find the advertised lookout.

Today, we are in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. Yesterday in port, Valerie had the foresight to book a Wellington Walks reverse walking tour of the city. The walk starts at the train station and ends near Te Papa, in the reverse direction of the normal Wellington Walks tour. This makes it easier to for cruise ship passengers to get to the start of the tour in time. However, since the reverse tour needs to be reserved in advance, very few people take it. Luckily for us, this resulted in a private tour for us, while the forward tours that we passed had about 10 tourists each. Our guide Gavin was excellent. He led us to see the standard landmarks: the “Beehive” parliament building, old St. Paul’s Cathedral, new St. Paul’s Cathedral. In addition, he led us to places that we probably wouldn’t have found on our own: the founding documents of New Zealand in the national archives, the pine cone shaped interior of the new supreme court building, the Olympic medal on display at Fergs Kayaks.

After the conclusion of our tour, we quickly walked around Te Papa (the national museum) for a while before sitting down for a bite to eat at the café. Quickly running out of time, we scrambled back to the ship, taking a brief detour to run through the Museum of Wellington City & Sea.

Today, the Oosterdam docked in the small town of Picton for the first time ever. Unfortunately, most of the stores in town were closed due to a local holiday. As far as we can tell, there isn’t much of cultural interest in Picton, but it has several nice hiking trails (aka tramping tracks in New Zealand, bushwalks in Australia). After we disembarked the ship and compulsory shuttle, we walked along the main street in town, stopping at a supermarket to buy a lunch of pies and a scone. (The pies were just terrible, which taught me a valuable lesson about buying meat pies at the supermarket.) After a quick stop at the library to log onto the free WiFi, we started our hike. We spent about half an hour walking to a small beach called Bob’s Bay where we planned to eat lunch until it started raining on us. After the rain stopped, we walked up to a harbourview lookout and then to a trailhead on the “snout”, a long forested peninsula. Because we were tired, we didn’t actually walk the hilly 1.5 hour trail to the end of the snout, but it seems like a good trail for people in better shape than us.

Due to the earthquakes in Christchurch a few years ago, cruise ships are anchoring in nearby Akaroa until the port of Christchurch is able to handle cruise ships again. The captain warned us that due to high winds, we might not be able to tender into Akaroa, but in the morning I guess things looked good enough for passengers to go ashore. Valerie booked us a tour yesterday via the Internet and after disembarking we had about an hour to burn before the tour started. We wandered around the main beachfront promenade and then to the library which was surrounded by cruise passengers, a sign of free WiFi. We checked our email before heading to the meeting place for the tour.

The tour bus drove us into the nearby hills surrounding Akaroa. The bus driver mentioned that the land and harbor around Akaroa were formed by an ancient volcano. He speculated that the rocky soil allowed it to withstand the earthquake much better than the sandy soil of Christchurch. Along the way, we stopped at a cheese factory, but didn’t buy any cheese.

After the tour, the winds picked up considerably. Valerie was worried that the weather would get worse, so we headed back to the ship early. She was right. When we returned, the captain had decided to stop passengers from disembarking. Other passengers returning later in the day reported that their tenders were pummeled by waves and flooded during the return trip. According to some reports, one of the tenders experienced some engine problem during a return voyage, stranding several passengers for hours.

Due to an unspecified medical emergency of a crew member, we arrived at Port Chalmers one day ahead of schedule as the captain raced the ship to port as quickly as possible. Since there were no shore excursions planned, the shuttle from Port Chalmers to Dunedin was free. (I think it usually costs money.)

Our plan for Friday was to rent a car and drive around the Otago Peninsula. Since we arrived early, we contacted the rental car company to pick up the car on Thursday instead. After arriving in Dunedin, we walked to Cadbury World where we bought various chocolate covered bars, but declined to take the tour. Around 3pm, we took a bus to pick up our rental car. On our drive into the Otago Peninsula, we took winding Highcliff Road through the hills. Our first stop was Penguin Place where we could view yellow-eyed penguins. Our tour guide (who was surprisingly buff for his age) led us through a series of covered trenches from which we could view the penguins without disturbing them. Apparently, if the penguins can only see your head, they don’t realize how big you actually are and don’t consider you a threat. We also visited the nearby albatross nesting grounds where we saw lots of gulls, some marine mammals, and a few albatrosses flying in the distance. On the way back to Port Chalmers, we drove along the less scary shore-side road.

On Saturday, we woke up early to drive north. Our first stop was a beach where we could view the Moeraki Boulders, which are surprisingly round boulders that formed around fossils. (One such fossil can be seen in the Otago Museum.) Next, we drove down to a lighthouse surrounded by a small cliffside wildlife preserve. We walked along the preserve path for a kilometer or two. We didn’t see any more penguins, but we did see some seals and gulls fighting for space on rocks. Our last tourist stop in the north was Shag Point, which has a tidal shelf that we couldn’t get to because it was high tide. Shag Point was also the first place we’ve been hailed upon during this journey. We drove back to Dunedin and stopped at the Olveston house, a 1910’s era historic home, for an hour long walking tour. Around 3pm, we returned the car, took the bus back to the Octogon and walked to the Otago Settlers Museum. The OSM is an excellent, free museum chronicling the history of the settlement of the area built in an old New Zealand Rail station.

On our last day in Dunedin, we took the Taieri Gorge train through the Taieri Gorge. The train stopped along the way for tourists to take photos. At the end of the line, some local women set up temporary shops to sell trinkets and snacks. The scenery was nice, but not particularly different from what we had seen during our last two days of driving. If we had not been trudging around the countryside the past few days, I think we would have been much more impressed by the train ride. After the train, we walked to the mostly free Otago Museum (different than the OSM and home of the fossil mentioned earlier). Unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot of time to walk through the museum due to ship departure, but what we did see was some interesting coverage of the natural history of the Otago area.

The ship’s revised itinerary left us with 3 relaxing days at sea in a row. We used the opportunity to do some of our favorite shipboard activities: trivia, mixology class, and specialty dining. Trivia is always a great place to meet people. On this cruise, one of our trivia partners, Joan, has over 1200 cruise day credits (the most of any passenger on the ship). She reads the dictionary for fun and knows more trivia that anyone I’ve met. Mixology class is always fun and a great place to meet younger folks. (On Holland America, younger refers to anyone under 60 years old.) Usually, mixology also offers the best value for booze on board, but the new daily $3 cocktail sampler is a close competitor.

For dinner on Tuesday, we ate at Canaletto, the onboard Italian restaurant. It was unexpectedly delicious and we left stuffed. I was a bit worried about eating there because the first time we tried it (several cruises ago), Valerie was extremely unhappy with the calamari. I guess Holland America must have learned from the experience because calamari is no longer on the menu.

We visited Melbourne earlier in the trip, so we slept in rather than heading out to town in the morning. Our late departure from the ship allowed us to hear the captain’s sad announcement. Due to bad weather conditions, the ship is going to skip Hobart and the Milford Sound. Instead of going around the southern end of the south island of New Zealand, the ship is going to traverse the Cook Strait and head to Port Chalmers a day early and stay overnight. Valerie is very disappointed to miss the Milford Sound. She says we’ll have to visit New Zealand again.

We eventually got up and left the ship in search of internet access. At the general store just outside the port, we purchased 2 hours of WiFi and cancelled our rental car in Hobart and booked a rental car for the extra day in Dunedin. Afterward, we took a very short walk along the beach before heading back to the ship.