Creative Connections by Sara Aeikens

 

Even though time became a bit nebulous and I felt I sort of lost track of the earth’s directions, our trip to Australia and New Zealand turned out to be a fabulous experience. My husband, Leo, and I spent at least 35 hours in the air with four different plane trips and 3,253 nautical miles on the Regatta, our Oceania Cruise ship. We’ve been on only one other overnight cruise, a trip to Cuba with our local Four Seasons travel agency, which happened to be on a very similar ship.

This full ship included 684 guests from many parts of the world, but was considered small when docked near a vessel holding over 4,000 passengers. Our simple suite near the front on deck No. 6 with excellent sleeping quarters included an ocean view veranda. The lengthy inside passageway had elegant decor highlighted with Persian carpet designs. I might have believed I was in Iran. Since my dad taught in Tehran for a few years around 1926, I’d still like to visit that country as one of my last adventures.

Back to the ship trip — the choices, tastes and creativity of the food preparations I found amazing. They even had food days for different countries. Most employees shared their friendliness, and some chefs gave specifics about ingredients or recipes. We had fun choosing a different kind of fish daily and munching on artistically presented desserts.

While on the ocean for around three days, the staff prepared for our half-dozen island and village visits. Invited lecturers with history and geology backgrounds gave us details about which explorers from countries far away came to visit and when, including how they interacted with the natives and blended the cultures. Viewing ongoing videos, we tracked millions of years of shifting geological plates within continents and countries.

To reach our half-dozen tour destinations, we usually took a lifeboat-like boat, called a tender, that sped from the nearby town pier to carry 100 or so from our ship to customs onshore. Our tours included a killer whale museum, a wildlife farm for exotic animals and birds (including kangaroos, koala bears and kookaburras), several botanical gardens, a sheep farm, a curvy seashore drive, and viewing lighthouses, beach combers and a bunch of penguins on the shoreline.

One of my favorite towns turned out to be Akaroa on the coastline of New Zealand because of being able to visit The Giant House, high up on a hill where hundreds of handmade mosaic sculptures crafted by a woman owner of the huge home were displayed. I also enjoyed the visit to Napier, known for being a town almost totally destroyed by an earthquake in the 1930s and successfully rebuilt in Art Deco style, attracting tourists worldwide.

On our last tour, our bus driver took us through the rural countryside and told us about the settlers’ lives in the hilly countrysides covered with massive flocks of sheep. At the top of the grassy cone-shaped hill, we noticed black rock cliffs with vertical rifts. Soon, we arrived at the glow-worm caves for the surprise of thousands of tiny, eerie green lights given off by live glow-worms hanging from the high arched rock ceilings — no photos allowed inside the caves.

Although the squiggly, hanging worms could be called top of my list, an event that happened the day before I found  unbelievable. Leo and I ended up actually meeting in New Zealand a neighbor who only lives a few blocks from us in Albert Lea. In the summer during our early morning walks across Dane Bay bridge to Lakeview Boulevard, we’d sometimes cross paths with Bruno from Switzerland.  He and my husband often conversed in German. With me understanding some of their interchanges, we learned we’d all be in New Zealand in mid-January. We exchanged itineraries, but made no specific plans for in-person connections.

Near the conclusion of our cruise, Leo received an afternoon text from Bruno’s Swiss brother’s phone, but could not respond. By chance, just after this text, we met the Regatta ship captain. He had just been introduced to the passengers as a group, so afterward I told him about our plans to meet our neighbors from halfway around the world. He instantly supported us by allowing a free 40-mile ship-to-shore phone call. Leo arranged for the Swiss family of three to drive their camper to our pier entrance between 11 a.m. and noon the next day since they could not board the ship.

After a half-mile pier walk, Leo took watch at the corner street entrance, and I extended myself atop the white concrete, waist-high Tauranga town sign to await our friend, his dairy farmer brother and female partner. When I saw Leo greet a woman, I hopped off my perch, and we soon all exchanged hugs, in German, of course! We spent several hours meandering downtown, drinking tea and coffee and riding back to the dock entrance in their camper. Just overcoming the obstacles and connecting with them created a special excitement among us.

Arriving back home became a bit of a shock with the cold, snow and ice. Today, I tried walking on water (really icy ice) and fell on my bottom, but  survived. Even though I’m a bit sore, I’m glad our trip and today went safely.

Sara Aeikens is an Albert Lea resident.