Give me the simple life.

It took me just 45 minutes to explore Picton, New Zealand. And that’s because I walked up and down the street twice. It says something about a town when the biggest store is the Discount Liquor Mart. Don’t get me wrong. It’s very nice. I like small towns. I lived in Charlottetown P.E.I for 2 summers in the early 90’s and they were the best summers of my life. (It might try to argue city status – but it’s called Charlottetown, not Charlottecity). My parents live in a charming Nova Scotian fishing village that has reinvented itself as a summer tourist Mecca. It’s even been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site. It looks the way New England used to look like, and whenever they have to film a Stephen King œuvre set in Maine, that’s where they do it. I think I might not go crazy if I had to live there (which I do anyway, technically. But I’m away 10 months out of the year). But Picton? Well…it might just be the Kiwi Skagway. (Those of you who work on ships know what I’m talking about. The rest of you, look it up. You’re obviously technically savvy if you managed to find my blog). (Quick aside: Why does my spell-check show blog as a misspelled word?)

That being said, I’ve been enchanted by this part of the world. Tauranga was as beautiful a place as I’ve ever been. There’s a mystical mountain rising up from the edge of the coast, which has spiritual significance to the Maori. The stunning white sand beach and gentle ocean invites frolicking in the waves and lazy afternoons curled up with the latest Jonathan Kellerman (who seems to come out with a new book about once every couple of weeks). There’s a respectable shopping district with New Zealand tchotchkes galore (lamb skin slippers boots, Maori carving necklaces and oodles of frangipani skin products). There’s even a great organic food store, where I bought some mixed nuts and some phosphate-free laundry powder. Christchurch is a charming place, which has been named the best garden city in the world. There are many lovely public parks, good shopping (although I’m puzzled why mouthwash has to cost $10 here. Should not proper dental hygiene be accessible to the disenfranchised as well?), and a great organic food store where I bought some gluten-free sunflower seed bread and some dried fruit. I haven’t managed to make it into Wellington or Auckland yet, but they look fabulous from the ship. And Dunedin may be my favorite of all. It’s NZ’s 5th largest city with a population of about 150 000, and a rich Scottish heritage. It boasts many well-preserved Victorian and Edwardian buildings, many dating back to the Gold Rush in the 1850’s. Shopping is great (though mouthwash is still expensive), with at least 3 big music stores (I bought a metronome there, which oddly enough has gone missing in the last couple of days) and a great organic food store, where I bought some tea tree moisturizer and a bottle of Vitamin C. But Picton? Well… Picton is very nice. It does have the oldest wooden ship in existence, but the museum was closed today. Oh, and a mini-golf course.

I’m not really complaining. I just had such high hopes. And I wanted to find mouthwash that I wouldn’t have to take out a second mortgage to purchase. I haven’t as of yet been able to explore any of the tremendous natural beauty of this country. There has been some fantastic scenic cruising, and there are mountains galore. I may just go on a hike tomorrow. In Dunedin lies the highest peak in this part of the country. Cadbury, fetch my boots!

In Ship News: I just played a Disco night. It sucked. No, let me rephrase that. The audience sucked. The band was great, and I even got to sing ‘Play That Funky Music, White Boy’ (How appropriate, since I am the whitest person ever to walk the face of this planet. Well, no, there’s Maggie Thatcher.) It was going great until the lyric “Gonna take it higher now”, and my poor little voice, parched and already stretched to its’ limits, did not want to take it higher at all. No amount of note modification or Monty Python falsetto was going to fix what was already a disaster in the making. Oh well, live and learn. I’ll transpose it down a key next time. There were maybe 40 people in the bar (which can comfortably hold 250), and they were separated from the bandstand by this enormous chasm of a dance floor. Apparently, not everyone was feeling the groove. Nobody danced. When we did ‘The Hustle’, Rebekah, our eager party planner, leapt to her feet. No one followed. She executed a few hopeful, lonely steps, and slunk back to her seat, defeated and demoralized. Now she knows what it feels like.