February 7.2024
We arrived in Wellington at 9am and it was overcast and a little chilly and quite breezy. Before we left the ship the Captain announced that due to the weather coming up we would not be going down to the south island and cruising through Milford and Doubtful Sound. We knew this was coming and honestly if you look on a map it did not make sense that we would sail all the way down to the bottom of the south island just to go cruising through the sounds. Instead we will have 4 days at sea and head head straight across to the Tasman sea to Melbourne, Australia. We do expect things to get rough.
They don’t call it “Windy Welly” for nothing. We did the included tour which was a drive around town, touring one of the oldest churches, going up in a cable car and walking around the botanical gardens. They also had a shuttle that dropped you off in the middle of town.
The old organ in the church The ceiling looks like a boat hull
The sign leading to the cable car View from the cable car from the top
The cable car with Wellington in the background
This was at the botanical garden and is a bat orchard.
Wellington has a lot of unique architecture and by mid-afternoon it had cleared nicely. We walked around town and had lunch out and did a little shopping. The American dollar is strong to the New Zealand dollar. 1 USD equals 1.6 New Zealand dollar. They also have coins for 1$ and 2$ and no bills and nothing like a penny.
Some of the buildings in town
Lots of sculptures downtown.
This is from the 1880s and they have turned it onto an eatery with some shops.
Leaving Wellington
Beautiful coastline
Sunset with the south island of New Zealand behind us.
We have several hours to go before we hit the open water so it should be smooth for a bit. The 4 days are very welcome after 7 busy port days. The high tomorrow is 66 but by the time we get to Melbourne the high will be 91.
I didn’t realize New Zealand was that far from Australia
It’s about 1300 miles but also we’re not going at top speed because the Tasman sea is known to be very rough. Yesterday was not too bad and today there are lots of large swells so we are bouncing around but no whitecaps.
2571 miles from Wellington, NZ to Melbourne, AU. It’s sailing through the Tasman Sea which has a reputation for being rough, so far, so good.
My distance is in kilometers not miles, however
It’s a pity your not doing anything in the South Island as it’s the most picturesque of the 2. North Island has the culture and south has the scenery…plus Milford and Doubtful Sounds are beautiful.
We’re you also suppose to go to Hobart in Tasmania?
Luckily we have been to the South island and to Milford sound when we flew to New Zealand and rented an RV for a month. Honestly when I look on the map I don’t understand why Viking ever had it on there anyway because we weren’t gonna have any stops just cruise through the sound, and that seem like an awfully long way to go just to cruise through the sound. we were supposed to go to Hobart, but that got taken out before we ever even left town. Apparently there is a royal Regatta on the date we were supposed to be there, so there was no room for us. The guy which is three days ahead of us was supposed to go but now there’s some sort of a pilot strike and so they’ve been diverted directly to Sydney. So they didn’t get to go through the sounds they didn’t make it into Napier and no Melbourne for them.