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  • Sonia Gelman2020 Around the World on HAL
    Day 62

    Waitangi, NZ

    March 4, 2020 in New Zealand ⋅ ⛅ 79 °F

    Another tender port... I got up early and was in line for tender tickets by 6:00 AM. Today we were suppose to have 5 hour Day Cruise and some island walking and winery tour. We got on the tender boat by 8:00 AM and I opened my email. What a surprise...the tour is cancelled due to the fact that we are the only two people that signed up for this tour.
    Since we thought that not much walking will be on this tour, we did not take a wheelchair. Now we are on a tender boat going to the town. We decided that Boris will walk as much as he can and then we will go back on the ship.
    Waitangi does not have anything, only Waitangi Treaty Grounds. It considered to be one of the most important places in NZ. That where two people: local people and people from Europe signed a peace treaty. We could not go there because Boris did not have a wheelchair and suggested time of walking is more then 3 hours.
    So we decided to take a shuttle to little town Paihia and walk as much as he can. It is a very nice little town with beautiful view of the Bay, many restaurants and shops. We walked around, had an ice cream and then got on the shuttle back to the tender port. On the way to the port, the driver asked us if we wanted to stop at Waitangi Treaty Grounds and we decided to stop and then it is a short walk to the pier. We walked a little and then Boris said to get to the pier we had to go left. I argued with him, because I thought we had to go right. But, my sense of directions is pretty bad, so we went left. We walked and walked and then we reached a golf course and walked and walked up and down on the golf course until we climbed on top of the hill and saw our tender port in completely different direction. We had to go right.
    So we went down that hill and up another hill until we reached a parking lot. I was tired...imagine how tired Boris was. Good exercise.
    There was a school bus with a driver on the parking lot. I told him we got lost and he drove us to the pier. Another day of adventure.
    Tomorrow is a sea day, so Boris can rest. To see pictures of this day, please use this link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/JtRdHvM46yAfz6tRA    Read more