We sailed into Tauranga this morning and took off on our first ship’s excursion of this trip, a few hours at Te Pa Tu near Rotorua. The drive took us past new suburbs, logging areas, and lots of kiwifruit fields – this one grows golden kiwifruit (you can tell by the way the plants are trained to grow in a triangular pattern).

Te Pa Tu is owned and operated by the Tauhara North No. 2 Trust, which is an extended Maōri family operation; they help preserve the Maōri culture and teach visitors about it.

Each bus had to elect a chief to exchange greetings with the chief of the family; one of the women of the tribe briefed our chief on the protocol to be followed.

The warriors came out and showed their weapons, and then the whole family shouted a challenge to our chiefs.

But peace held, and the chiefs exchanged gestures of mutual respect, including handshakes and the touching of noses.

We visited four houses of learning, where they taught us about the meaning and history of their body markings, some games, and even how to perform a haka.

The family performed some traditional songs (and even a little Elvis) and then we shared lunch.

It was interesting to see some of the traditional buildings fitted out with power, plumbing, and the like. I don’t know if the family actually lives at Te-Pa-Tu or if it’s strictly used for shows and education.

One of the hazards of living near Rotorua is the high sulfur content of the air and the occasional hot mud pond that appears out of nowhere.

Our ship was docked near Mount Maunganui; Diane and I took a walk along the beach and went up a short distance on one of the mountain tracks.

New Zealand takes tsunami preparation seriously.

We walked back to the ship along the main Maunganui beach before returning by way of the commercial district.

We sailed away from Tauranga a bit before 7pm; I’m glad we got a chance to see a few aspects of the area, but I know we missed a lot!

This morning, we walked down to the harbour to visit the Maritime Museum, but before we got there, we found that our ship had come in – the Celebrity Edge, that is. We’ll be boarding it in an hour or so and then sailing away; I’m posting from the hotel to be sure I have good connectivity. I hope that our cabin is better than this 19th Century immigrants’ steerage cabin that we saw at the museum!

There was a lot to see in the Museum, from parts of old Maori vessels to a plastic replica of the America’s Cup (part of a three-story exhibit about yachting in New Zealand with special emphasis on the America’s Cup – one of the cup winners was there, but I couldn’t get a reasonable photo of it).

After lunch, we set out to replace a pair of pants which had a ripped seam at the pocket. I was shocked by two things at the first store I visited:

• The pants were all in American (inch) sizes
• None of them were hemmed; they’d all need alteration

I went on to a slightly more upscale store, Smith and Caughey’s, where the pants were sized in metric, were twice as expensive, and still needed alterations. I didn’t find anything I liked, but the salesman was kind enough to refer me to Looksmart Alterations a few blocks away; they were able to fix the ripped pants in just a few minutes for about US$20!

Time to head to the ship; see you as connectivity permits!