A Whale of a Good Day in Picton!

 Sunday, December 31, 2023

Yesterday (Dec. 30) we docked in Picton.  A little geography lesson first before I talk about the day. New Zealand consists of two islands - the North Island (where Auckland and Wellington are) and the South Island (where Picton, Christ Church, and Chalmers/Dunedin are located),  On Dec. 29, we were in Wellington which is at the southern tip of the North Island.  Picton, which we visited yesterday is at the northern tip of the South Island, nestled in among a whole series of inlets and sounds. An inlet, for those who might not know, is a narrow winding channel of water that leads from the open ocean into a larger body of water, such as a bay or sound.  A sound is a large, more sheltered body of water that is surrounded by land on three sides.

Picton itself is located at the bottom of Charlotte Sound.  It got its English name from Capt. (James) Cook the 18th century (1700's) explorer who petitioned the English King to name it after his (the King's) wife.  Capt. Cook sailed into Charlotte Sound many times and it was one of his favorite places in New Zealand - a nice protected port for his ship, plenty of food and fresh water (from the mountains), and lots of wood available to repair his ship.

Welcome to Picton!

We docked around 8 a.m. at an industrial pier about 10 min. away by bus from the town of Picton.  We were at a pier stacked with loads and loads of pine logs ready to be transported.  The weather was pretty lousy - rainy, gray, and very windy!

Working Pier near Picton where our ship docked

A rainy gray day near Picton

Weather did not bode well for our seaport walk in Picton scheduled for 12:30 p.m. So we had breakfast in the Allegro Dining Room (our usual breakfast place on the cruise), hopped up to the pool on Deck 17 for swimming and some hot tub time, and then popped back to our cabin around 11 a.m. to get ready for our shore excursion.  It was still looking pretty grey, wet, and windy, so I dressed in long pants with a t-shirt and my rain jacket.  Because it was so grey, I just didn't think to put on any sunscreen (turned out to be a BIG mistake) and didn't take a sunhat either!

Well, what started as a grey, rainy, cool morning turned into a GORGEOUS sunny afternoon down at the Dunbar Wharf in Picton.  

Looking out onto Charlotte Sound from Dunbar Wharf

We met up with our guides for our walking tour - a young man, about 30 with a short dark beard dressed in hiking shorts, t-shirt and a ball cap - and an older woman with silver hair, dressed in long pants and a long sleeve blue shirt.

Our guide for the walking tour

In the wharf area we saw a replica of a whaling boat (the replica was used for competitive rowing during the Queen's Diamond Jubilee back in 2012) and got a distant look at the dry dock remains of the oldest merchant ship (used back in the 1700's) to transport goods and prisoners to New Zealand - the Edwin Fox.  She is unique in that she is the only intact hull of a wooden deep water sailing ship built to British specs surviving in the world outside the Falkland Islands. In addition to prisoners, the ship also carried settlers to New Zealand and carried troops to the Crimean War (our guide said that Florence Nightingale traveled aboard the Edwin Fox during the Crimean War).  She is now part of a museum that also serves as a site for genealogical research for New Zealanders looking for their ancestral heritage.

Picton, back in the day, was known for sheep raising as well as whaling.  Apparently, whales migrate by the mouth of Charlotte Sound each year during New Zealand's winter months (July -Sept.).  Back in the day, there would be spotters at the wharf in Picton keeping an eye out for whales, and when they were spotted they'd send a signal for the whaling boats to go out and do their whale hunting thing!

Picton, these days, is a pretty little seaport with lots of boats (some very expensive looking boats) in the harbor.  The harbor is also home to some interesting sea creatures, including jelly fish (not the deadly poisonous kind you get in Australia) and stingrays.  We actually got to see both on our walking tour!

Stingray in Charlotte Sound

From the wharf, we walked across the "coat hanger" bridge (really does look like a giant coat hanger, minus the hook on top) to get on the other side of the harbor, where we left the seaport walk for a walk along a small portion of the Picton to Waikawa track (trail).  It was a nice little 20-minute nature walk.

Map of harbor/sound and walking trail

Ascending stairs to nature trail along the Picton-Waikawa Track

We saw lots of interesting plants, including some very cool ferns, and even spotted a trap put out to catch rats and possums (both are major pests in New Zealand that are harmful to the local birds (they eat the eggs out of ground nests).

Possum/rat trap on nature trail

We also saw a tree that had been decorated with a carving of a local bird by a local school student.

Bird carving on tree on Picton Waikawa Track

Once back in Picton, we were treated by our guides to a local favorite - Hokey Pokey ice cream!  That's vanilla ice cream with pieces of honeycomb in it - delicious!

We wandered for a few minutes in the 1-block downtown area, mostly to find a pharmacy where I could get some more (stronger) cold meds and Carl could hunt for something to relieve back pain (his sciatica is really acting up and sitting or standing for long periods of time is getting really painful for him).  We got some long-lasting super strength Mucinex for me and a couple of heat patches for Carl's back.  Couldn't find a heating pad which is what he really wanted!

Got back to the ship around 3:30 p.m. and just sat out on our balcony for awhile (so pleasant) but even that got pretty hot after awhile, so we both came in and rested before getting ready for dinner.  When I went to get ready for dinner, I took one look at myself in the mirror and went "oh my!"  My face was beet red!  I got really sunburned on my face (I think I even sunburned my eyebrows!!!).

While getting ready for dinner, we heard some type of announcement on the PA system (wasn't broadcast into our stateroom).  Seems just as we were leaving port, we had a sick passenger on board and it was felt medically necessary to return to port and off load them for medical care.  Then at dinner, it seemed we were back tracking again, and this time the captain came on the PA and said we'd had another passenger whose medical condition required attention they couldn't get onboard, so the ship had returned again to Picton to off-load that passenger as well!

We finished dinner and came back to our stateroom and finished out the evening watching "The Fellowship of the Ring" (and looking for the scenes we had visited in Wellington!). After that, it was lights out for the both of us!

Fast forward to this morning (12/31).  I woke up at 7:30 a.m. to hear the captain on the PA system - this time piped into our cabin!  He informed us we'd had yet one more medical emergency overnight and the patient/passenger was in such bad shape they felt it medically necessary to arrange a helicopter pick up to take them to Wellington.  So sometime during the night, we braved some nasty storms and headed back towards Wellington and the helicopter came out from Wellington, hovered by the top deck (there is no helicopter landing pad on the ship) to transfer the patient off the ship.  During the maneuvers for this, the ship had to have passengers in some of the cabins evacuate their cabins for a couple of hours and the ship keeled pretty hard (I didn't know a thing - I was dead asleep)!  Hope the passenger(s) evacuated for medical reasons are all doing ok, but geez, that's 3 medical evacuations in just over 12 hours!!