031225

1100 - Up at 0630 this morning. A shower and then a trip down to the Campervan to get a cereal bowl and my Muselix. Came up and had breakfast and reread Daniel Dennett's essay in The New Humanists by Brockman. Dennett's an interesting thinker.

After that, I was sleepy again so I laid down on the couch here and snoozed for 45 minutes and then I was up again in search of a better cup of coffee than what the in-room supplies offered.

I grabbed my laptop and went down to 17 where they are getting ready for a massive influx of people for both lunch and dinner. I talked them into a cup of coffee and then took the coffee with me down to the lobby.

In the lobby, they've got wireless access via a Wellington network called CafeNET (www.cafenet.co.nz). They opened up the businessmen's area for me and I sat down with my coffee and laptop to see if I could link up.

After a few minutes of thrashing, I was linked and uploaded and downloaded my e-mail. I have discovered that my plan of relaying e-mail to my correspondents via my E-mail server at home is problematical. Many E-mail systems these days automatically reject relayed E-mail because accepting such E-mail opens a potential source of spam. So, a few of my outgoing E-mails bounced due to relay blocking and I had to then forward them on to Sharon and asked her to send them to their final destinations. Bummer. I'll have to sort this snafu out before I go traveling again.

The weather continues to vary strongly. Blue skies one moment and overcast and rain the next. And all with bursts of wind at unpredictable times.

I'm going to work on these web pages mating photographs with text for a bit and then I think I'm going to go out and walk down to the harbor. Or, if it is running, I may take the cable car up to the top of the hill behind Wellington for the view.

Well, a lot happened after I left (I'm writing this on the morning of the 26th). I started with a self-portrait (of the weary traveler suffering in the plush hotel <smile>). After that, I went outside and I walked through the city looking and photographing. When I got down to the harbor area, it was quite interesting and I began to photograph more things. This series is shown just below. You will notice, in this sequence, pictures of The Lynx, which is one of the inter-island ferries that run between Wellington on the North Island and Picton on the South Island. There are several ferries but the Lynx is the high speed version, as you can tell by its form.


Self portrait Christmas morning	Public sculpture	City street	Buildings

Cubby-hole area between the buildings	Lord of the Rings on Post New Zealand building	The harbor area	Another view

A new Zealand fishing vessel?	Another view	More of the city across the bay	Looking the other way onto the harbor

The Lynx Ferry	Ye old Scows	Another of the Lynx (an idea begins)

Well, as I stood looking at the Lynx, I realized it was setting up for a run to the South Island. I'd already looked around enough to know that virtually everything in Wellington was shut down for Christmas Day so I got the idea that I should go over and see if I could board and make the crossing and then come right back on the next return.

As I walked, I thought, "oh yeah, I'm going to get there and they will have just closed the doors - typical." But, my pessimism was unwarranted. It was 1415 and they were sailing at 1530. My other concerns had been the trip's cost and the return possibilities. Both of those were quickly assuaged. The cost was $50NZ roundtrip and I would be in Picton on the North Island for about an hour and a half and then be back in Wellington at 2115. Cool! I plunked my money down and was given a big bright blue plastic boarding pass and a return ticket printed out.

Now, I had some time to kill and I'd noted that the battery on my camera was complaining of being low. Didn't seem like a good idea to be halfway to the South Island and have it run out so I decided to fill the time by walking back to the hotel and getting a few things for my trip.

At the hotel, I grabbed the Brockton book, The New Humanists, and my black athletic bag (which I'd brought for just such mobile adventures) and my binoculars. I had my floppy hat and my gray fleece coat and I was ready.

As I left the hotel, I talked for a bit with one of the doormen with whom I'd become friendly and told him where I was going. Seemed like a good idea in case I shouldn't return for some reason. Then, I was off.

After about 15 minutes in the lobby of the ferry station, we were allowed to board. The New Zealanders really know how to build nice ferries. They make ours in the Puget Sound area look a bit dated. They had game rooms, a movie theater, a place where a member of the crew entertained the kids with stories, a room where you could connect up your laptop and work, food stations, great lounges and good viewing decks. I had a lot of fun exploring.

Here's a series of photos which cover Wellington to Picton. Many of these are relatively self-explanatory so I'll only label a few here and there.


The Lynx interor

Looking back as we depart

			High speed jets once we're at speed

View the crew sees	Rainbow in spray	Last of the North Island	And now the South Island

We slow as we enter the channels		Thrusters in play as we dock	Another inter-island ferry - The Aratere

Our docking spot as we back in	A view of Picton on the South Island

The ferry picks up speed quickly as we pull away from Wellington. It is fast. I don't know how quickly it goes but judging from its exotic hull shape, it must be pretty fast.

Once we clear the bay that Wellington sits in, you can see a vast sweep of the North Island and, already, across the Cook Strait, you can see the South Island as well. The Lynx is really moving at this point and the seas are higher than they were in the protection of the bay but we can feel almost nothing as it goes. I think it rides high on hydrofoils so unless the waves are high enough to strike the underside of the hull as it passes, the ride is amazingly smooth.

I brought a book to read but most of the 2.5 hour trip, I am up and down, here and there, inspecting this and that - busy, busy, busy. I want to look at everything and savor it.

The Lynx is fairly crowded. I should guess 1/2 to 2/3s full. But, there are still plenty of places to sit down.

After we cross the Cook Straits at high speed, we enter a narrow passage which leads us to Picton which is up near the end of this fjord like body of water. Once in the narrows, the Lynx slows down dramatically. I expect that if they kept up their speed and anything happened, they would be unable to maneuver, turn or slow quickly enough in such a narrow confines.

The shores beside us are interesting. A few homes here and there. On ridge tops of the hills, you can see what look like firebreaks - places where the brush has bee removed and bare earth exposed. I don't know but I suspect many of these must serve as well as access roads for some of the remotely located homes.

Some of the places we see are right on the water with a steep slope immediately behind and a road doesn't seem possible. I'm thinking as I look at these that these are 'bachs' and every stick in them has been brought in by small boats. I'm sure this is so with some of them.

Population pressure is quite low here in New Zealand and even though the place looks small on a world map, there's still an awful lot of land to spread around among 4 million people. 2 million of these live on the North Island and 1 million on the South. And, of the folks on the North Island, 2 million of them live in Auckland. So, in the rural areas, land is in abundance.

Still, I'm wondering how a person goes about buying a chunk of land on the side of a strait like this. Do they buy from the government, large private holders, or who? Unfortunately, I have no one to ask. Some of the places I see are strikingly beautiful if remote.

As we pull into Picton, I'm reminded of some of the ferry towns in the Puget Sound area. It looks like a pretty place. Beside us, as we're docking, is The Aratere, a slower sister ship of The Lynx.

This give me another idea. I've seen the wonders of The Lynx and I'm particularly interested in killing and hour and a half in Picton. I decide to go to the ticket people in another burst of impetuosity and see if I can covert my return ticket for The Lynx into a return on The Aratere.

I stand on the soil of New Zealand's South Island for not ore that ten minutes total and I am off again on a new ship with all of its new wonders to explore.


The Lynx docked at Picton	Picton Harbor	Front deck of The Aratere	Along the side

The Lynx's bridge	Leaving Picton for the Cook Straits

		Layout of The Aratere	Close up of forested shore to port

These rocks mark the end of the South Island	as do these on the port side	Looking back	Another sister ship headed to Picton

From the back upper deck	Arrival and sunset over Wellington

Nothing remarkable about the trip back. The Aratere was very sparsely loaded - maybe 1/8th full. An older ship than The Lynx but with all the same comforts and such.

The Aratere docks in a different place than The Lynx does in Wellington. The folks in Picton mentioned it and the announcement as we arrived in Wellington mentioned a free shuttle bus to get us back to downtown. In spite of all that, I missed the shuttle. I was expecting a full sized bus that said "Free Shuttle" because I'd seen them running earlier. When I came off the Aratere, the was one of these parked off at a distance and then near the terminal a few cabs and a small white van without markings. I walked over the check out the parked bus (it had no driver) and when I returned, the small white van , which was the right choice, had already departed.

Sometimes, when you are in a statistically odd place (late Christmas day on a sparsely loaded late arrival), you can fall through the cracks. I think I did. Looking inside the terminal, I could see that all the tickets desks and etc. were closed and I had no confidence that the white shuttle was coming back so eschewing a cab sitting there, I decided to walk.

It was a long walk through industrial dock areas and an empty sport complex. I'm guessing one to two miles before I returned to downtown proper. Ironically, the Lynx was pulling in at that point, so if I'd have stayed with her, I'd have been at the same place and time I was now anyway. I had to laugh. But, I got some good walking exercise and saw some unlikely areas of Wellington.

After I arrived at the hotel, I called Sharon and left a message (it was 0100 there) and then sat and watched a mindless movie (The Jewel of the Nile) on TV until I was sleepy and then turned in. A very special and different Christmas Day, indeed.