Day 46 - 11/17/22 - Gisborne, NZ

 We had a short but active day in Gisborne, New Zealand.  Since our steam train excursion didn't start until 12:30pm, we were in no hurry to tender off of the ship.  So we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and Angela did a Zoom call with one of her music groups.  Generally it was a slow tender today because of the distance to shore (about 2 miles) and the presence of other commercial shipping traffic.  We reach shore around 10am and walked from the downtown shuttle stop to the nearby local McDonald's just to check it out.  We didn't purchase anything so we kept on walking to the town clock tower and then turned left and walked towards the water.  

At the beach there were quite a few teenagers in what appeared to be a surfing class.  We continued our walk along the promenade and found the two memorials: the first was to Captain Cook's cabin boy who was the first to spot the New Zealand land, and the second was a memorial to Captain James Cook.  As we were finishing our walk, the steam train arrived and we used their shuttle bus to take us back to the port area.  It's quite walkable but Angela's leg was bothering her.  While we waited for the bus to return to the steam train for our afternoon excursion we sipped on some Diet Cokes.

Back at the steam train (Wa 195), we boarded the coach for our 45 minute ride each way through the New Zealand countryside.  One of the unique features of the route was that the train crossed the runway of the local airport.  Permission from the control tower is required in order to cross the runway as airplanes have priority.  There's lots I could write about the steam train, but let me summarize it like this:  The train was the first of 11 of this type (2 6 2 - train buffs will know what this means) built in 1897 in Dunedin, NZ.  It was retired in 1957, and put on static display to begin to rust away.  In 1986 a group of train enthusiasts purchased it for scrap value and began a very long restoration which was completed in 1999.  It's been running for 23 years since hauling tourists from Gisborne to Muriwai and return.  The train association also restored the rail cars we rode in and also purchased a diesel/electric  locomotive to serve as a backup to Wa 195. For more information about the train go to http://www.gcvr.org.nz.  It's a fascinating story.

At Muriwai, a group of school children performed Maori dances and we had a chance to interact with them.  On the way back I had the chance to ride in the front of the first car right behind the engine as nobody else wanted to be out in the fresh air and sounds of the puffing steam engine.  But I found it music to my ears and other senses.  I shot a number of short videos to capture the experience and as we came to the end of the ride, a lady and her dog were walking down the tracks totally oblivious until the last moment that she was about to get squished by a train.  It was surreal to watch and film this.  But all's well that ends well.

We caught the shuttle bus back to the port area and the tender line was longer than the dock.  So we walked over to the nearby restaurant and split a fish & chips lunch and waited for the line to reduce.  We made the next to last tender.  Back on board we watched the last of the tender process as well as the stowing away of the last two tenders. We had dinner with Erik & Marilyn and compared notes about our day's activities before attending the Step One Dance Company performance of In Tandem,  They were shored one dancer who was injured and had to return home.  We get a replacement dancer on November 23.  I spent the rest of my evening catching up on uploading my pictures to my phone and doing blog posts.

Tomorrow in Tauranga we have a Hobbiton shore excursion which I hope is as interesting as the Lord of the Rings excursion was.  Per our Captain's departure message, entering this port is challenging because of a significant current.  This will likely delay our arrival until 9am.  He also indicated that our Covid isolation count is up 5 more to 40 passengers and one crew member and that there is an increasingly likely problem in tendering at Waitangi (Bay of Islands) on Saturday.  Hopefully this will allow us to reach Auckland earlier for a longer visit.