Two things that are very obvious when you cruise around New Zealand are the big piles of timber at every port and the pretty little tugboats. The timber on the left was at Port Chalmers, the port for Dunedin. On the right is the log pile at Wellington. The logs are pine from planted forests. Some of the timber goes overseas as logs, some as sawn planks and some is fed through munchy machines like this one at Port Chalmers and is shipped as wood-chip. Timber export is NZ's third most important industry. It is sad that some of the native forest is being replaced by pine plantations but that seems to be the way of things all around the world, even here in Australia. Tugboats are always fun to watch in any port. What I like about the NZ ones are that they are bright colours, none of that dull old black! Here are a dark blue one at Tauranga, a red one at Wellington and a light blue one at Auckland. They all fuss around any big ship, looking for places to push or pull. They were not needed by "Voyager of the Seas". She has bow thrusters at front and azipods at the stern and can get in and out of just about anywhere without help. The tugs stand by just-in-case. Love them.
p.s. The fortnight gap between posts is not because I was away seeing more of the world. I have been helping Dad with his model aircraft. He has 1206 to dust, repair and move into shelves with clear plastic fronts. It's a big job and I won't tell you some of the words he uses when fragile bits break off.
Labels: boats, cruising, New Zealand
# posted by Bart Bear @ 12:03 pm
