On Christmas Eve last, our ship, "Voyager of the Seas" docked for the day at Tauranga. The ship actually docks at the port, Mt Manganui (see posts from our previous NZ cruise), and we went into Tauranga by shuttle bus. The bus stops on the opposite side of the railway to the town centre, and there are signs at every pedestrian crossing warning about possible trains crossing. Mum and I waited for ages, but no trains came. Tauranga is one of the largest cities in New Zealand, and is the site where the Maori first settled in NZ. Naturally, the shops were all decked out for Christmas. I counted 14 different small Christmas trees in the few streets we had time to explore, and some of the arcades were really pretty. I enjoyed the port more than the town, because there were colourful tugboats, pilot boats and private ones to look at. Our ship dwarfed them all.
Labels: cruising, New Zealand
# posted by Bart Bear @ 2:13 pm
