Bay of Islands, New Zealand

There was a tour for all today. It was provided by the ship. We tendered in today and it was a long ways. We were in a huge bay that looked more like a piece of ocean. There were all sizes of islands surrounding us. They were all covered with hills or low mountains except for those that were just rocks sticking out of the water. It was a beautiful place.

The tour was in the afternoon. We should have also done some touring in the mourning but everyone was too lazy. We will have to come back sometime. After tendering in we boarded buses for a five minute ride. I am not exaggerating. We all got on and off buses to go about 3 blocks. Under a huge tent on the very pretty grounds of a resort, they put on a reenactment of a Maori encounter of two tribes. They did a lot of yelling and posturing. They stamped feet and beat chests and made scary faces. The woman sang loudly.

After a few acts of this we went outside to watch the approach of a real war canoe. When the invading tribe came ashore they did more hollering and posturing and spear shaking. Woman again sang very loudly. It was really very good. I didn’t hear of one person who didn’t like it.

I was able to talk to some of the Maori performers as we were leaving. They were extremely friendly and willing to talk.

We left the Bay of Islands at 5:00 PM and are now sailing for Sydney. We are scheduled to get there after two days at sea.

Still a Kiwi Sherm out

(Posted on behalf of Sherman Rootberg)