We are currently at 30° 30′ 35.74″ S 169° 58′ 12.93″ W. Last night we gained an hour, making the ship’s time the same as Auckland’s—but on different days! To compensate, we had to advance (or lose) a day, skipping Friday, October 1st entirely. In technical…
We are currently at 33° 53′ 41.45″ S 177° 24′ 7.38″ W, en route to Auckland, New Zealand. At some point the voyage has to come to an end. Tomorrow we will be arriving at the port of Auckland. It will probably be very late at…
We are currently at 36° 23′ 30″ S 175° 35′ 45″ E, approaching Auckland, New Zealand The chief engineer took us on a tour of the Cap Cleveland’s engine room after lunch today. We had to wear earplugs because it’s so loud, thus the tour consisted…
At long last, after 28 days aboard the Cap Cleveland and 6,785 nautical miles logged across the Pacific Ocean, we are docked at the Port of Auckland, New Zealand. Final latitude and longitude: 36° 50′ 31.41″ S 174° 46′ 59.51″ E. Last night the pilot was…
Pulling up anchors is a nice analogy for how it felt while we were on the ship. Even though I “cheated” by bringing a satellite modem with us, it seemed like we were between worlds when we were en route.…
Picture me, on the couch of a budget hotel, laptop on lap, connected to wifi at $5 per 50 megabytes, surfing the web with images disabled (to save bandwidth), checking my email, paying off my credit cards, checking my bank…
Old news, but finding this out made me sad: Ask.com let our users know that we will shut down Bloglines on November 1. Bloglines was my first and only feedreader. I’ve been using it for over five years. Until leaving…
Last Thursday, feeling sufficiently settled in Auckland, we ventured out and took the ferry to Rangitoto Island. It takes less than 30 minutes to get there—the island is a visible presence from most parts of the city. It’s also one…
While we were at sea, I got a comment from Lisa on my blog who’d read the Metafilter post about our trip via a link in the New York Times. Over email she connected me with her friend Rob who…
On Thursday afternoon we took the bus up to the War Memorial Museum, which had been highly recommended to us by several people. It’s housed in a beautiful classical building on a hill overlooking Auckland. We made it through the…
We’ve rented something called a “Spaceship“—essentially a Toyota minivan that’s been converted into a bright orange campervan. Our car is now our castle. This is a new approach to car camping for us—actually sleeping in the vehicle, but it’s one…
We made it to Rotorua on Friday, after driving successfully on the left, and stopped at the Thermal Springs Holiday Park for two nights. Having never been to a holiday park before (in New Zealand or elsewhere), I was impressed…
We arrived at the Tongariro National Park visitor’s center in the rain. It had rained on and off the entire drive from Rotorua, around Lake Taupo, and into Tongariro. Visibility had been next to nothing. On Monday morning it was…
Why are we moving across the New Zealand landscape so fast? Partly because we’re doing a favor for Spaceships, bringing one of their vans down to Christchurch before the end of the month. At this time of year (going into…
It was raining again when we woke up on Thursday. After breakfast, we headed over to Dolphin Encounter to see whether our tour would be going forward. It had been fogged in that morning, but by noon the rain had…
Before leaving Kaikoura to return our Spaceship in Christchurch on Friday, we walked part way along the Peninsula Walkway and took a few photos of the dramatic Seaward Kaikoura Range and the turquoise Pacific. Afterwards we stopped at the Kaikoura…
Meet our “new” Spaceship (and home for the next two weeks): Spaceship Voyager Whereas Palpatine was a brand new “Beta”-model Spaceship with only 46,000 kilometers, Voyager is one of their original (and well-traveled) “Alpha”-models—with 314,000 kilometers! We knew what we…
On Sunday we drove from Fairlie to Wanaka, with stops along the way to admire Lake Tekapo and the strikingly turquoise Lake Pukaki. By the time we reached Wanaka, we decided to park ourselves at Aspiring Campervan Park for the…
On Monday we left Wanaka and continued on our way towards Queenstown (the adventure capital of NZ). We ended up zipping through Queenstown and heading straight for Te Anau to take advantage of the good weather forecast there on Tuesday.…
We set the alarm for 6am on Tuesday morning. Eve, one of our guides for the day, picked us and another couple up from the holiday park in Te Anau at 6:50. It’s a two hour drive from Te Anau…
So great to see the Ariel Victoria set sail #
Catching up on a month’s worth of unread blog posts (before Bloglines shuts down!) and wanted to link to two bits of old news that I thought were worth noting.
MSN/Windows Live Spaces Closing, becomes WP.com (see also: Welcome Windows Live Spaces Bloggers)
The Document Foundation succeeds OpenOffice.org and plans to release LibreOffice (free from Oracle’s clutches) #
Sailboat + killer whales + baby = Estelle and the Orcas (video by some folks I met in Auckland last weekend) #
Jodi travels the world for two years and then all her stuff is stolen upon return to the US:
Whoa, my old Sandwich Américain post just got Reddit’d: 11,000 views so far today and climbing…
Update: 16,509 views for the day. #
That’s a mighty familiar perspective: Fogtown (view of the Bay Bridge from Harrison and Embarcadero) #
To check out upon our return: Kevin Kelly’s new book, What Technology Wants #
Watch out, there’s a new “Martha” on the block: DIY Cocktails: A simple guide to creating your own signature drinks (explanation here) #
Thanks to Todd Lappin for his great review of our container ship voyage: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Traveling to New Zealand on a Container Ship #
Neat map: The True Size of Africa #
I don’t know if it’s the New Zealand air or the half a bottle of wine I’ve had to drink tonight, but this xkcd made me LOL: Constructive #
It’s an NZ TV commercial, and derivative, but pretty good nonetheless: House of Travel: Powered by People #
It seems like everyone I know is makin’ bacon and sausages: We made all of this meat stuff #