Bus Travel New Zealand
Wellington is New Zealand's capital city known for its cultural and artistic community events and many cafes and restaurants. The cruise ship docks at Aotea Quay. From there a shuttle bus takes cruise ship passengers to the main shopping street, Lambton Quay. A ride in the cable car up to the Botanic Gardens gives a wonderful view over the city and harbour. A short walk through Civic Square to the waterfront leads to Te Papa, the national museum with its interactive displays. The two cruise ports of the South Island service two very different cities, Christchurch with its English heritage and Dunedin which celebrates its Scottish roots. Lyttelton is the nearest port to Christchurch. From the port, local buses take cruise ship passengers into central Christchurch, a trip of about 20 minutes. Christchurch has beautiful gardens, buildings that look very English and a vibrant shopping and cafe precinct within walking distance of the central Cathedral Square. For passengers who do not wish to go into the city, a free bus will take them from the dock up the hill into the little township of Lyttelton with its quaint buildings overlooking the port. Port Chalmers, situated at the head of the Otago Harbour, is the nearest port to Dunedin. There is a bus transfer from the dock into the Octagon at the heart of the city of Dunedin. The journey along the shores of the harbour takes about 20 minutes. A walk round the city centre takes in the histoirc railway station, a chocolate factory, a whisky distillery and the statue of Robbie Burns, the famous Scottish poet. Dunedin has many imposing nineteenth century buildings, built when the nearby goldfields made this town the richest in New Zealand. Cruise lines such as Princess Cruises (Sun Princess and Dawn Princess), Holland America (Volendam) and Royal Caribbean (Rhapsody of the Seas) offer cruise itineraries that leave from Australia and visit these cruise ports around New Zealand.
. When we reached Sydney, after a night of moderate drinking, my body just gave out, and I spent the next morning with a splitting pain in the head and throwing up water.
Anyway, the journey. We began, as I said, in the tropical zone, welcomed by Aborigines (the indigenous culture in the far north is the best developed, as is often the case with coastal civilisations) with a head-anointing ceremony. Next we drove through the Kakadu national park, looking at rock paintings and swimming in waterfalls to get relief from the heat. Though we had gone just a few miles from Darwin, we were up from dawn till dusk doing stuff. We headed south, and by the third night things were getting a lot cooler as we slept in swags - beds in the open air - very cosy as long as it doesn't rain (and here it doesn't). By Alice Springs the weather was definitely wintry, though our tight schedule meant that our overnight stop there was little more than that. We headed on to Uluru, the great Aborigine sacred site known to European Australians as Ayers Rock. This is just one of many amazing geological features in central Australia, and Wombat made sure we not only saw them but knew all about them. The rock, several km in circumference, is climbable, but the Aborigines don't like it, especially if you fall off (they then have to do a "sorry ceremony"), and happily everyone in our group was sensitive enough to decline this option
Cruise Ports of the South Island of New Zealand
