Saturday, February 4, 2023
Tauranga
We are in the Port of Tauranga today south of Auckland. We are on the North Island. All of
our ports of call will be on the North Island. This is the largest commercial port in
New Zealand with lots of activity. There are two ships in today: Viking Neptune
(us) at 930 maximum passengers, and the Grand Princess at 2,600 maximum
passengers. She dwarfs us a bit.
We are booked on the included tour this morning. Leaving the ship around 9:00 for a 2 ½ hour tour. The bus is packed. We have a nice little drive around the community of Tauranga and then head out into the countryside to see the farming operations (particularly Kiwi Fruit). Then a stop at a local community center where they had set up tea, coffee, and cookies for us as well as a bit of show-and-tell about Kiwi Fruit. We tasted both the green variety most of us are used to as well as a golden variety. Kiwi are picked before reaching maturity and are kept in cold storage. They have learned that if they keep them at ½ degree Celsius, they can last for up to 10 months before being shipped around the world. Our tour finished with a drive along the beach before returning to our ship.
The boat left in the late afternoon in order to get to our next port of Napier on time.
In the evening, we celebrated a friend’s birthday with a small group of ten in one of the private dining rooms. A lovely meal and great company.
Great pictures Jan. It looks so lush. Hope you are getting some great summer weather.
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