DAY 14 PACIFIC OCEAN-FAREWELL AOTEOROA

We met our three new fellow passengers. Pierre is a Swiss man of 78 who lives near Zurich and is returning home from visiting his daughter in Dunedin.  He booked through a German Agency who gave him all sorts of information which he shares with us as we go.  He used to teach French and German in Swiss High Schools (coincidence 1).
Chris and Ian are from Wellington NZ.  Ian lived in Palmerston North for nearly 30 years (coincidence 2).
They are going to London and will be riding their bikes (which are on the ship) following the rivers across Europe.  They plan to work their way around the world, possibly working in the ski fields in Austria (coincidence 3).  When they return home in two years they will be building a house on their country block of land, doing most of the work themselves (coincidence 4).  They are very jolly and give us lots of laughs.

Here are some photos that we took in Napier yesterday:

St Pauls Cathedral was nearly finished when the earthquake struck. This is the noticeboard outside.

Napier was rebuilt in the Art Deco style and this statue typifies the feel of the town. We climbed Bluff Hill and looked down on the Manet being loaded with onions.

We did not expect to see land for two weeks now and the sea was fairly quiet.  We saw our first flying fish today. Chris started us on a 1000 piece jigsaw. We listen to music on our itunes and watch a video most nights.