Heading to the South Island

January 3, 2013

Today we left Wellington, the southernmost city in the North Island to make our way to Nelson, our first stop in the South Island.

As we were checking out of the hotel to meet our 7am cab to the Interisland Ferry Terminal, we learned that during the night much of the West Coast of New Zealand had been hit by a huge storm. Winds at the Wellington airport reached 140 km (85 mph) and the airport closed for several hours.

Fortunately the winds, while still gusty, did not impact our ferry crossing of Cook Strait.

We learned, however, that several sections of roadway along the West Coast including two bridges were washed out. These roads are the route of our destination along the coast to Queenstown so we'll be watching repair progress carefully. Many residents are stranded in their coastal towns.


Apparently this is not an unusual situation and the bridges are repaired fairly quickly. They use the New Zealand army to rebuild roads and fix bridges in such emergency situations. It is training for wartime situations when similar activities must be conducted.

The ferry terminal is quite near our hotel so after being dropped off, we were able to board early and have a nice breakfast while other passengers arrived. This is high season in New Zealand so there were passengers occupying every space on the boat.























The Interislander provides vehicle and passenger service across New Zealand's Cook Strait. It is owned and operated by state-owned rail operator KiwiRail, between Wellington in the North Island and Picton in the South Island.





Three sailing vessels make 4,500 crossings a year carrying some 785,000 passengers, 52,000 rail wagons, 72,000 trucks and 210,000 cars.

It is said that the journey through Cook Strait and the Marlborough Sounds is one of the most beautiful ferry rides in the world.

The crossing was a comfortable three hours. The boat has ample space for its 1600 passengers and 600 cars. There are comfortable lounges, outdoor seating, two restaurants, a coffee bar. a cocktail bar and sunny atrium seating.


It is a critical transportation link for tourists as well as New Zealanders.
















Many of the birds we saw in Cook Strait were the same species as those we had observed in Antarctica. They were highlighted on one of the charts on the upper deck.













Approaching the South Island via Queen Charlotte Sound





















Picton is a town that seems to exist only for the ferry and backpackers. It is the entrance to the South Island.

Approaching Picton:











































Once at the South Island Ferry Terminal we picked up our rental car and begin our 22-day adventure in the South Island.
























Our destination was Nelson but, the first stop is Havelock, New Zealand, home of The Mussle Pot.


























Mussels five ways






The drive to Nelson was probably typical for what we are still to encounter--hills and curves and beautiful views.

We are looking forward to our tour of the area tomorrow, January 4.

New Zealand Knights

January 2, 2013

Day 4: Wellington, The Knights from Cornwall, early Settlers of New Zealand.

Dr. Elaine Bolitho, a researcher and writer employed by the Knight Family Heritage Society in New Zealand, made contact with Jerry in March 2010 after finding Jerry on Ancestry.com. Jerry’s ggg-grandmother Nancy Ann Knight was the sister of William Knight, a pioneer settler of New Zealand. Jerry and Dr. Bolitho have been exchanging information via email for the last two years.

Dr. Bolitho was updating the stories of the descendants of William and Mary Ann Knight who emigrated to New Zealand from Cornwall, England on the Duke of Roxburgh in 1839, landing in Wellington in February, 1840. She has written a book “Knights from Cornwall,” published in 2011 by the Knight Heritage Society.

As part of her research, Dr. Bolitho was interested in William’s siblings descendants, including Jerry’s ggg-grandmother’s, to be able to compare what other Knight lines have done in other countries with what the Knights have done in New Zealand.




The house at Woon, Cornwall, UK where William Knight and Jerry's ggg-grandmother, Nancy, grew up. Sadly, it has been demolished, but this is a copy of the painting made from a photograph and completed on the day of its demolition.

Nancy Ann Knight and her son and Jerry’s gg-grandfather, John Hooper Daniel, chose to emigrate to the US rather than follow William Knight to New Zealand. The Knights were among the many Cornwall miners who left England during the 1840’s & 50’s due to a dramatic closure of Cornwall mines. It is estimated that three thousand miners a year emigrated during this period to seek a better future for their families in America, Australia and New Zealand.




John Hooper Daniel ca 1875, son of Nancy Ann Knight and Jerry's gg-grandfather.

John Hooper Daniel emigrated to the US in 1849 and worked in mines in Morris, New Jersey, Platteville, Wisconsin and Clear Creek, Colorado. He died in Idaho Springs, Colorado, on Oct 18, 1909. Nancy Ann Knight emigrated to Galena, IL with her second husband, Thomas Jane, and died there on 14 Jan 1879.

William and Mary Ann Knight and five children came to New Zealand along with 436 other settlers on five sailing ships from Cornwall, UK. William and Mary were to have eight more children after settling in New Zealand. They were among the pioneers of the New Zealand Company's plan for an agricultural colony settlement.

The lack of suitable land around Wellington caused the failure of their agricultural utopia. By 1848, only 85 of the original 436 settlers from the UK remained, including William, Mary Ann and their children. What saved the settlement was their shift from raising crops to raising sheep.

When William and Mary Ann Knight emigrated, there were only about 2,000 immigrants total in New Zealand; by 1852 there were about 28,000. The decisive event for the large influx was the Treaty of Waitangi in February 1840, the same month that the Knights arrived.

The treaty, between the British Crown and various Maori chiefs, gave British immigrants legal rights as citizens. This treaty is considered the founding document of New Zealand as a nation.
Knight descendants meet in the city of Taupo each year. The next big Knight event coming up is in mid-February 2015. It is the celebration in Petone (Wellington) of 175 years since William and Mary Ann Knight landed in New Zealand after leaving Cornwall, England.

Go to the link http://knightfamilyofnz.net for info on the Knights Family Heritage Society.



On January 2nd, we walked from our hotel to the train station and took the 9:02 am Wellington-Johnsonville Matangi train to Box Hill, a suburb of Wellington, where Elaine and her husband, Ian Bolitho, have a hillside home with a garden. It was a pleasant ride through tunnels, bush and suburbs with very friendly conductors.




Karen Laing, left, with Elaine and Ian

Ian and Elaine met us at the train station and we walked the 200 yards to their home. Meeting us there was Lyn Derbyshire, a fourth-generation descendant of William and Mary Knight.




Lyn Derbyshire with Jerry and Nancy

Lyn drove us to visit places of special significance to William and Mary Ann Knight, including Petone where the pioneers landed, Lower Hutt where they lived, the streets which are named after them, their grave site, a tree to the entrance to their farm still standing after 165+ years, and the site of the Knight family home.





Knights Road is marked on the earliest maps of the area as Knights Lane, the route that led from the Knight farm to Hutt Village, the original pioneer’s settlement.




Norfolk pine tree was planted by 1850 at the entrance to the 79 acre original Knight farm.








Penrose at 60 Penrose Street in Lower Hutt was built by James Penrose Knight (1833-1904), oldest son of the pioneer in 1872. The earlier homestead which stood next to this, and where James had been raised by his parents, was then used as stables. James, his second wife Jane Heaynes and their nine children, lived here, with Stannard (1876-1932), the youngest son, being the last named Knight to do so.

The Penrose house is now owned by Karen and Darren Laing who we found to be very friendly and accommodating. They let us inside to see the house and told of us some of its history since the Knights. They also showed us several photos of the place which appeared to be over 100 years old.







Bridge Street Cemetery is on the site of the First Methodist Church in the area of Lower Hutt and originally had its own burial ground where a number of settlers were buried, including James Penrose Knight’s first wife Mary Ann and three of their children. They all died of TB. There were no further burials after 1901. The church relocated and the site became a heritage site with the names of all buried there recorded on one large memorial plaque.






St. James Churchyard was the main Anglican burial ground in Lower Hutt, and is where Samuel Knight, the sixth child of the pioneers, was buried when he died at the age of 23 in 1862. Five years later pioneer William was buried there too, then pioneer Mary Ann in 1871.








Plaque honoring pioneers was placed in 1990 marking 150 years since the pioneers’ arrival in New Zealand.










Various documents photographed in the Petone Settlers Museum.























We are posting this Blog in Nelson, New Zealand on January 3. It is January 2 in Flagstaff, Arizona and the arrival day of Leo Thomas DeStefano.

Here is the proud father of Leo with Leo's beaming "Il Nonno".



CONGRATULATIONS JESS AND BRYANT!

Windy Wellington

December 31, our first full day in Wellington began with a guided tour of the city. We started at the top of Mt. Victoria where we could get a 360 degree overlook of the Wellington hills and harbor. With the exception of the winds, it was a spectacular warm, sunny day.

Winds are common for Wellington. The Kiwis call it Windy Wellington. There is an average of 173 days a year when the winds top gale-force speed.






A view of Wellington harbor from Mt. Victoria.

Wellington is New Zealand's center of government and the world's southernmost capital city. It is also the country's cultural capital and, at 125,000 population, is the third most populous urban area in New Zealand.

The city is home to many museums, theaters and arts festivals, and center for creative industries, such as film, Wellywood, and computer technology. It is also the home of the New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) which was up 25% in 2012, one of the best performing markets of any developed nation.

The once-dilapidated warehouses where Peter Jackson’s visual-effects studio for all the Lord of the Rings movies, including the recent movie, The Hobbit is in Wellington. There were 100,000 people who lined the streets of Wellington for the December premier of The Hobbit.

"Wellywood" is a film making empire that Jackson and close collaborators have built in his New Zealand hometown, realizing his dream of bringing a slice of Hollywood to Wellington for making major movies — not only his own, but other blockbusters like Avatar and The Avengers. Along the way, Jackson has become revered here, even receiving a knighthood.

The city is situated alongside Wellington Harbor and surrounded by natural beauty including the eco-attraction, Zealandia, just minutes from the central business district.

Our tour skirted the hills of some of the residential areas above Oriental Bay, a large part of the harbor near the airport. Houses are located atop steep roadways.

In addition to a public cable car that leads from downtown, there are some 40 hillside residences that have their own private cable cars to get from street parking to the entrances to their homes.

Wellington's public cable car is a popular tourist attraction. The view from the cable car takes in the city's central business district and out across the harbor.



We took a return trip from the city then walked back down through the Botanical gardens.



Our last stop was a one-hour tour of Parliament which sounds boring but actually turned out to be quite interesting.



There are 8 political parties with 120 representatives in a modified UK-style government serving the roughly 4 million Kiwi’s.

The Parliament buildings have been modified, destroyed by fire, half-built and are now all restored. In the 1990’s the buildings were refurbished and strengthened. Specially designed blocks of rubber and lead were placed between the newly poured concrete foundations and the new concrete supporting beams.

Our tour included a basement viewing of the blocks which act like shock absorbers, preventing much of the movement of an earthquake being transferred from the foundation to the buildings. New Zealand has exported this innovative technology to California among other places.

Tonight is New Year's Eve and we celebrated at one of Wellington's best restaurants, Logan Brown.


Once again, we wish you all a great 2013.

New Zealand trip begins

New Zealand Trip
Dec 28, 2012-February 4, 2013


This is a blog of our two-part New Zealand trip. We will be renting a car and driving the South Island for sightseeing, hiking, white-water rafting and kayaking on our own using an itinerary arranged through www.experiencenz.com. The second part of the trip is bicycling the North Island with www.backroads.com.



First, we had to get in shape for the hills of New Zealand.






It seems like preparations for this trip have gone on for weeks. Not only trying to get ourselves in biking shape but we've got miles to walk on our various hikes.

Packing was a particular challenge in that we are anticipating everything from warm summer temperatures to glacier environs. We have biking outfits, hiking outfits, glacier walk outfits, swimming, river rafting and kayaking attire and of course our "dress-up" clothes. We are not "traveling light".


Finally, our departure day arrived and we happily set off.


Dulles Airport










We flew from Washington-San Francisco-Auckland-Wellington and, finally after 19 1/2 hours flying time, landed in the Middle of Middle Earth, land of the Hobbits, Wellington, NZ.



Wellington International Airport










The Museum Hotel, our home for the next four days, was initially located on the other side of the street, moving to its present site in 1993. Facing demolition to make way for the new and now famous, Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa, the hotel made a 120-meter journey down an inner city street on wheels and temporary railway tracks.










The Museum Hotel

Not wanting to waste any time, we struck out to see some of Wellington. Our first stop was the Sunday market across the street from the hotel. We were looking for a tasty bite.

The Harbourside Outdoor Market has fresh fruit and produce along with some unusual food stands, including Cambodian food, a Canard Croissant stand and a farm-raised venison food tent.




Naturally, we headed for the venison tent where we met a happy, chatty, New Zealander, John Douglas, who supplies deer venison to restaurants,and local farmer’s markets from his farm and B&B, Lovat Downs www.lovatvenison.co.nz located on the South Island. John takes the ferry to Wellington to the market. We indulged in his tender, tasty venison pita.


What a find!












Looks yummy Jerry!










As we walked along the waterfront we spotted something we never would have expected, ships from the famous Sea Shepherd fleet. The ship named the Bob Barker and featured on the tv show "Whale Wars" is one of the vessels owned by the International non-profit, marine wildlife conservation organization. They use direct- action tactics to investigate, document, and expose violators of the world-wide whaling treaties.




Thanks to a $5,000,000 contribution from American television personality and icon Bob Barker, Sea Shepherd was able to quietly purchase and refit the former Norwegian whaler in Africa. The ice-strengthened, fast, chaser boat quietly departed from Mauritius on December 18th to head for Wellington harbor.








Accompanying the Bob Barker is the Brigitte Bardot, a 115 foot stabilized, monohull trimaran with a maximum speed of 24 knots.











During their stay at the Wellington docks the crew was provisioning for a trip to Antarctica to confront the Japanese whaling ships.



For more information look up www.seashepherd.org.




We shall continue to document our trip with comments and photos so watch for additional posts.

In the meantime, we wish every one a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Short summer cruise 2012

July 9, 2012



We have been provisioning for days in anticipation of our little summer cruise. The first stop is Bimini where we will deliver a year's supply of art supplies and equipment to the Bimini All Ages School. Mr. Pinder, the art teacher, emails us his list and we purchase what he needs. We've been contributing these supplies for years and it is always rewarding to see the work the kids are able to create with proper art materials.

The art supplies and some fruits and vegetables and meats for our friend/fishing mate, Willie will be welcomed happily.

The balance of our provisioning is groceries.

Our trip is planned for three days in Bimini and three days in Nassau where we will look forward to the arrival of Galen, Joy, Garrett and Kendrick.
While in Nassau, Jay will fly home and we will continue the trip with the family.

Ft. Lauderdale to Bimini

Travelers:
Jerry, Nancy, Capt. Jay O'Neill

We left our dock at the Venetian condo early the morning of the 9th and crossed the Port Everglades channel markers approximately 8:am.

In order to conserve fuel we cruised at about 10 knots for 2+ hours. Around 10 we picked up speed to blow some carbon out of the engines.

It was a nice leisurely ride to Bimini where we arrived about 12:15pm.

Approaching the island of Bimini is always a treat. The crystal clear waters in multiple hues of blue and green have an immediate effect. We are entering a different world.

The Bimini chain of islands includes the small islands of North Bimini and South Bimini--connected by a shallow flat. It has a fascinating history. As the closest Bahamian island to the United States, Bimini served as a convenient offshore speakeasy and liquor store during prohibition. Rum runners stored their prize both ashore and on a concrete Liberty ship called the Sapona that still rests where it grounded during a hurricane. Now it is one of the favorite snorkeling spots in Bimini.

Ernest Hemingway is closely tied to Bimini's history, leading the way for generations of fishermen who pitted themselves against the fabulous blue marlin, one of the world's feistiest game fish. I use the past tense "pitted" because those days are gone. Certainly Hemingway is gone but so are the blue marlin-- at least they are not here in the numbers they used to be.

Bimini has changed over the years. The local haunts are gone. Poor economy has taken its toll. The little island which is only 7 miles long depends solely on tourism and with a down economy people aren't coming like they used to.

But, we continue to come. It is one of my favorite spots. We've made great friends here and always feel welcome.

For me, approaching Bimini is always magical.










The approach to North Bimini and the channel through the flats. South Bimini is to the right.





Approaching the Bimini Big Game Club and Marina.


Just as we are tying up, Willie appeared. He has been our fishing mate since we started coming here. He was 17 years old. Now he is 45 and he still guides us to the Wahoo and Dolphin fishing grounds.





Jay tying the lines, Willie at the dock talking with Jerry.




I am always happy to get to Bimini. As I said earlier, Bimini is one of my favorite places.


After settling in, we unloaded the art supplies and some gardening supplies for the agriculture teacher.








The dock looked like a littered mess. We had gallons of school glue, 2-part epoxy, wood glue, acrylic paints, brushes, canvases, computer ink, copy paper, two skill saws, yards of rug canvas and over 100 packs of colored rug yarn. The agriculture teacher needed organic soil, plant food and lots of vegetable seeds.


After getting everything off the dock, Mr. Pinder, the art teacher and a few of his students took a break for a visit.





Willie with Mr. Pinder and three of his students.

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Location:Bimini, Nassau, Upper Exumas