Tasman – silverfox175

The old and the new – Golden Princess can be seen with a sailing ship along side. We berthed close to the town, which allowed for a short walk to many places of interest.

A touch of yesteryear where ever we looked.

Many of the streets and homes reminded me of New Zealand, quiet and civilised.

We did a hop on hop off bus tour to get a feel of the place – with a population of just under 250,000, most streets were quiet. To be fair it was a Sunday.

We were still in Hobart  . . . not bad for a capital city of a State.

A blast from the past at the traffic lights.

You couldn’t fault the locals – they began brewing beer in 1824 and the same brewery is still brewing beer – Cascade Brewery, a well known drop that I drink in Sydney.

Back to the waterfront area – Flying Angel – Mission to Seafarers. When I was at sea in the 60’s it was called Mission to Seamen, but even the Mission has to be correct in today’s PC world.

All our yesterday’s

Plenty of memorials around the harbour area.

This plaque was just a taste of what we would experience the following day at Port Arthur. (see my previous blog).

Statues near the ‘Footsteps’ plaque.

Statue of Louis Charles Bernacchi 1876 – 1942.

Louis Charles Bernacchi taking a self portrait with one of his dogs before leaving for the Antarctic. I cropped the picture from a photograph that I took, because it had a young boy in the picture, and I didn’t know him, and I could tell that he wasn’t going to move.

The above is from a Hobart travel site, which is the full picture that I wanted.

Louis Bernacchi with one of his dogs. I Found the picture on the internet.

He was Belgium by birth, and arrived in Australia when he was seven, and grew up in Australia.

Robert Scott was Bernacchi’s best man at his wedding, and Scott invited Bernacchi to join his ill-fated expedition to the South Pole – Bernacchi turned him down.

A few feet away from a great explorer we had a steam crane, built in 1899. Notice the boiler at the rear, which supplied the steam to drive the crane.

Sir Douglas Mawson 

 Check him out via the above link, particularly if you come from Yorkshire . . .

We missed the markets in Salamanca because they are held on Saturday.

What we saw

What we’d hoped to see, but we were a day late. Picture off Tasmanian tourist site.

The small bars and restaurants were doing a good trade.

The best time to go shopping – when most places are closed – think of the saving.

At the rear of the area when Maureen is standing.

Close up thanks to V.I

Another blast from the past.

Wrapping your trees in a woollen jacket must be a Tasmanian thing . . . thanks V.I

On a positive note the Tasmanians have not forgotten their roots – note the Dutch flag for Abel Tasman. Picture from V.I.

Abel Tasman who started it all. (picture off the internet)

Our first ‘port of call’ was Bay of Island, which is north of Auckland.

We anchored about fifteen-minute boat ride from the landing pier. The Bay of Islands doesn’t have any facilities for large vessels to go alongside.

A very peaceful and quiet place, the above photo was taken from Waitangi wharf.

Our mini-bus took us to the oldest stone building in NZ – the Stone Store. It had been a trading post for many, many years and is still being used a ‘shop’, mainly aimed at the tourists.

 Across the lawn was an old missionary house called Kemp House, which is the oldest wooden building in N.Z. The building was part of the Church Missionary Settlement established in 1819.

To protect the original floorboards we were asked to take off our shoes.

The house was lived by the same family for 142 years until 1976  when it was donated to the NZ Historic Places.(Now called Heritage New Zealand).

The above are just a few photographs taken during our visit.

From this area we made our way to Waitangi, site of the signing of the treaty between the British & the Maori people in 1840. The spot is marked by the sign below as well as a large flagpole with three flags flying – the NZ flag, the union flag of Britain, and, I think, the flag of the area of the Bay of Islands.

This is a beautiful spot overlooking the waters of the Bay of Islands. If you look closely you can see the Dawn Princess at anchor. If you can’t see it in the above picture, you’ll it see below.

Maori wakas (canoes)

 The special ceremonial waka (war canoe) on the right is manned by eighty rowers, plus it is able to carry some passengers.

The Maori people arrived in NZ around 1200 AD in their waka boats from Polynesia. At that time NZ didn’t have any mammals. ‘Man’ had not arrived, birds were very large (some now extinct), fish were plentiful, so of course the original Maori went back to inform their people and more and more arrived. They stayed isolated until Able Tasman arrived (1642), but he didn’t consider the place in a positive light. Later Captain Cook arrived (1769) and set in motion a complete change to NZ and the Maori people.