Voyaging aboard the "Endeavour"

My holidays are over - boo - back in Wellington and still a bit sleepy after a late night flight back from Sydney on Sunday.

Torunn and I did make it to Milford Sound after all; we set out early the day after my last post, and the road opened that morning. So we kept driving all the way there, and managed to get on a cruise on one of the smallest boats on the Sound. The light was gorgeous and although some of the waterfalls had dried up after a couple of days without rain, it was well worth doing. We spent our last day together in Queenstown, getting the gondola to see views and wandering by the lake.

From Queenstown I flew to Sydney, where my rowing friend Jess kindly put me up for the night and I played tourist on the ferry to her flat - the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge were all lit up and lovely. After a good catch-up, early the next morning I caught a plane to Newcastle. I was fascinated to discover that just like its English namesake, Newcastle is heavily dependent on coal. There were loads of gigantic coal ships at anchor in the bay, awaiting their turn to come in and load up with coal. It was, therefore, a rather suitable place to join the Endeavour as the original ship was once a collier brig from Whitby.

Endeavour is not an elegant vessel; she's too rounded for that. But she is beautiful, a faithful reproduction of the original, with very little metal around except in the "20th century" deck where the galley, mess, showers and heads, and the engine room are kept. That's the lowest deck on board, tucked away so when she's in museum mode all the public sees is the 18th century deck above. The wood does creak a bit, and she takes on a few inches of water in the bilges, but she's a lovely, lovely ship. And she has a lovely permanent crew, all friendly, helpful, encouraging and professional. We had a great voyage crew too - good mix of ages and backgrounds, and not too many snorers, which is crucial when you have 36 people all sleeping together in hammocks. Not much space between hammocks either!

The first day was spent training; a tour of the ship, safety briefings, helm orders, and "up and over" the fighting-top. Curiously Endeavour, like Spirit of New Zealand has safety lines running up the shrouds where the European ships I've sailed on don't. Personally I find it extremely frustrating to have to keep on unclipping and clipping the lanyards of the harness while climbing up - by the end of the voyage we, like the professional crew, had dispensed with those safety lines for the lower shrouds.

We set sail at 4pm, firing a couple of cannon off to thank the citizens of Newcastle for their hospitality, and motored out east until we had enough wind to set sail. The engines were off by 8.30pm and stayed off the rest of the voyage, apart from a short burst anchoring on Friday evening, coming off anchor on Sunday morning, and motoring the last short bit into Sydney. We never went very fast - even under Cook, Endeavour rarely manages more than about 10 knots in a strong wind. But we sailed, lots. On Thursday we had most of the sails set for a good long period and they sent the rescue boat out to take pictures of her, including film for an Aussie travel show called the Great Outdoors. The show had a producer, presenter, cameraman and soundman on board for a section in a January edition, so everything we did was filmed.

Unfortunately for some, she rolled a bit even when we were sailing. Quite a few sea-sickness victims. I was fine as usual (I know how lucky I am). Sail was taken in during the afternoon on Thursday and when we came on watch at 8pm rain was definitely on the horizon, with absolutely spectacular lightning to be seen in all directions. We all got kitted out in wet-weather gear and waited. All of a sudden the squall came on, wind up to Force 8 and we still had topsails up. So together with the permanent crew we wrestled them down - hauling on ropes we couldn't see as the wind howled and the rain poured down. Occasionally there was a bright flash of lightning, silhouetting the permanent crew as they climbed the shrouds to furl the sails. The wind died pretty quickly and by the end of the watch we wore ship (turning her) in winds that barely moved her.

More wind was forecast on Friday, so we kept most of the sails in and headed for land. The captain wanted to anchor in Broken Bay, north of Sydney, and we took the sails in and dropped the anchor in the early evening. A lovely little spot. After dinner he showed us some helicopter footage taken for a documentary on Cook, the Endeavour under full sail with a massive 18th-century Red Ensign flying from the stern and the crew in period dress. Gorgeous stuff, and very special to see it aboard the ship.

Our day ashore started late with a brunch (yum - all the food on board was really great thanks to Abi the cook and her mate Mischa) before we got ferried over to a nearby beach in the rescue boat. I was very excited to see goanas on the beach. Once everyone was on land Wally the engineer took us all for a walk in the bush - no tracks! - up to the ridgeline to look down on the bay and the ship. We were going to walk to a waterfall on a beach on the other side, but time and the track ran out. The bush was moderately thick, I got a splinter in a finger which still hasn't come out, and we had to dodge big red bull ants which are apparently horrid if they bite. I don't know how anyone survives in Oz!

The rest of the afternoon was spent on the beach. We went swimming and a couple of the crew rescued a Japanese couple from a goana intent on eating their picnic. The poor guy was just about to propose to his girlfriend too.

Back on board, we used up all the water storage spac (oops), and prepared for the evening's entertainment. Dinner was on the 18th-century deck, served by the crew in period sailors' clothes, with electric lanterns providing ambience. The captain served out our "wages", a spoonful of rum each! After dinner there was a "sods' opera", with contributions of songs, poems and skits from both voyage and professional crew. I haven't laughed so hard for ages - the talent was impressive and we had an good hours' entertainment.

On the last day we weighed anchor early and motored out of the bay, firing a couple of cannon as we went. We had sails set later that morning and we sailed in through Sydney heads in the company of hundreds of little yachts and various ugly speedboats. We had to take in sail once heading towards the bridge, which meant I got a great view of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House from the main topsail yard. We fired our last cannon right under the bridge, causing a boom which echoed off the steelwork. And then we were into the museum wharf and tied up. The voyage ended with a beautiful rendition of "Leave her, Johnny, leave her" by first mate Penny and topman Ally. I'd have loved to have stayed for a celebratory drink with the crew, but had a plane to catch.

And that was that. Pictures going up on Flickr right now.

Missing Milford

The weather has conspired against us - snow in the mountains above the Milford Road means we weren't able to go kayaking on Milford Sound today because the road was closed (and remains closed for the moment).

However we managed to fill in the day by going to the little cinema to see the film of Fiordland shot from the air, Ata Whenua. Very beautiful. Then we went to the Te Anau Glowworm Caves, only last night's rain stopped us from taking the boats at the end of the cave into the glowworm grotto proper. We did get into the caves though - awesome waterfalls - and we did see some glowworms. And we also got a boat ride there and back, so not a complete waste of time. We may also have got a refund but I'm not sure about that.

After the caves we had lunch before getting a shuttle bus to Rainbow Reach, a point on the Kepler Track, and walked back to Te Anau. It's about 11/12km all told, the path winding through beautifully lush forest on a lovely springy path. Nice walk.

Tomorrow, if it's clear, we're going to drive to the Divide on the Milford Track anyway to see the views and have a bit of a walk before driving to Queenstown. If it's not clear we'll just go to QT. Again, the weather dictates ...

On the road again in wet Wanaka

Actually, looking out of the window it appears to have stopped raining again. Hurrah.

I'm away for a few days with my friend Torunn. We're driving southwards, ending up in Queenstown on Monday afternoon. The trip is going okay so far. Our flight out of Wellington was delayed yesterday but we got out eventually. Poor Torunn found the bumpy ride a bit much and wasn't too well; she recovered in the car though. Lucky there were two of is so I could drive!

We made it to Kaikoura in time to go and have lunch and see seals before going on our whale watch tour, which wasn't cancelled despite dour predictions from the guy who drove us from Picton airport to pick up our rental car. It was, however, somewhat swelly. The whale watching in Kaikoura is owned and operated by the local Maori iwi (tribe) and is terribly professional and modern. Nice comfy catamarans and flashy animated video to watch while the crew hunt for whales. Normally they expect to see one or two a trip. We were incredibly lucky and saw four. All sperm whales, the most commonly sighted whale off Kaikoura - attracted by the deep trench just off the coast and plentiful food.



Unfortunately Torunn's tummy was still a bit wobbly ...

After the whale watch we had a drive to get to Methven, beyond Christchurch, where we were staying. The clouds rolled in for most of the "scenic drive" annoyingly, but our hostel was nice and so was the pub we had dinner in.

This morning it was utterly glorious first thing and we could see the mountains behind the village. So we set off; first stop a forest to see NZ's biggest tree, a totara - 1000 years old and very big.

After that we pretty much kept driving. A couple of lookout stops once we were nearing Mount Cook - one at the incredibly blue and incredibly windy Lake Tekapo, and then shortly afterwards at the even bluer Lake Pukaki:



Bluer than it looks in that, actually; I need to adjust the colour a bit. We had planned to drive up to Mount Cook village but the clouds had rolled in over the mountains so there wasn't much point. Instead we stopped in Twizel, which is a bit of a dead end, and had lunch, and kept on towards Wanaka through a terrific rainstorm. We missed more views thanks to the rain, but by the time we'd got here and sorted ourselves out it had stopped so we went for a walk.

Tomorrow, Te Anau. Whether we make it to the Milford Sound or not is doubtful, they've been having snow that way.