The Māori’s or Kiwi’s as they are known, are rich in history and a mainly oral culture, and the myths and legends of this indigenous race have been what the children of the upcoming generations hear as part of their education. 

The Māori’s were seafaring people, passionate about sailing or canoeing. Back when Europeans thought they’d fall off the edge of the world, if they went too far, these people set off in their waka (canoe) exploring the ocean and seas. The ancient mariners had passed down their skills of reading the stars and judging distances and directions, Sirius is the most prominent star in the southern hemisphere, the ocean currents were what today’s highway would have been. Stories are told of sea creatures and phantom ships that guided sailors home; Seals that had taken on human form to marry a sailor that they fell in love with and then on stormy seas or winter gales when the sailors were in fear of losing their lives, their wives would return to the water to be with them, saving them or dying with them.

In sporting circles in New Zealand the world revolves around rugby, The All-Blacks are the National Rugby team. On the day of a game there is a wonderful array of colours, pomp and passion displayed by the visiting and home supporters, crowds are gathered at the venues long before the game and the atmosphere is palpable. The stadium is tense prior to the start. Instead of the National Anthem being played and sung the All-Blacks perform the Haka (a war dance). This is an old Māori custom that used to be performed going into battle. When facing a powerful united team, with them stamping their feet, shouting words of war and angry fists and arms depicting their intentions, the hope is that it would raise the hair on the heads of the opposing team. That alone might unsettle them and it could be worth a few points on the scoreboard.

Cruising the North island, you’ll see Auckland port, a harbour with an impressive amount of yachts and boats. See the whales and dolphins through a transparent sea of blue waters. Enjoy the cuisine along the seafronts. Tongariro and Napier are towns hugging the coast as you make your way into Wellington. The city of Wellington is the capital. Visit the parliament building, the museums, galleries and so much more. It’s also a busy seaport with fishing vessels, and ferry boats. 
 
The South Island has a great selection for the tourists. The simple port of Picton is where the ferry service boats dock when arriving from the north island. Places to visit: Christchurch, Queenstown, Milford Sound, Mt. Cook National Park, Franz Josef Glacier, Dunedin on the very south of the South Island has its Penguin colonies and the Royal Albatross plus Emerson’s Brewery tour.
 
One of the renowned citizens of New Zealand is the late Sir Edmund Hillary. Born in Auckland in 1919, he had a keen interest in mountaineering from an early age. He achieved notoriety by becoming the first man to climb Mount Everest, in 1953, with one of the Sherpa support team, Tenzing Norgay, a Nepalese-Indian mountaineer. Hillary was knighted that same year by Queen Elizabeth II. Edmund reached the Antarctic and the South Pole in 1958. This is truly a remarkable story, Hillary and his crew were part of a large group of a Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (TAE). Accompanying the expedition were scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and geologists. Hillary and his four man team set out for the Pole on three modified Massey Ferguson tractors, using half and full wheel tracks to drive through the snow and crevasses. As well as the tractors they had four sets of dog teams. The mission of this team was to leave food, fuel and other provisions at depots along the way. The team were making steady progress even though Hillary was not to go too far ahead of the main party. As they got closer to their end goal he ignored orders and continued to the South Pole. Read Hillary’s book ‘Nothing venture, nothing win’. With Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, in 1969. Sir Edmund Hillary flew to the North Pole in 1985, becoming the first man ever to complete the three Pole Challenge, the North Pole, the South Pole and the Summit of Mount Everest. It’s a challenge in modern times for many people to achieve.
 
New Zealand and Australia are still part of the British Commonwealth. Their armies were called upon during WWI, their troops landed on the shores of Gallipoli in Turkey in June 1915, their steadfastness, courage, bravery and humanity are considered outstanding in the annals of the 1914-18 war.
 
The island of Tasmania lies about 250 kilometres south of Australia. It was discovered by Abel Tasman in 1642, he named the island Van Diemen’s Land, after the Dutch governor who had sponsored the expedition. In 1769 Captain Cook of Great Britain mapped and claimed the island for His Majesty King George III. He renamed it Tasmania. The island was set up as a penal colony in the late 1700s. Convicted prisoners were deported from Britain and Ireland with guardsmen to hold them in a stockade. Female prisoners were also shipped to Tasmania. This was an exercise in populating the island. The island is ruled by Australia.
 
Settlements started to be developed. Hobart is the capital and largest town. Since about 1810 agricultural development projects were promoted, religious communities grew, a school was opened, a flower mill, a brewery, a post office and horse racing tracks. The population is just in excess of 500,000 people and the size is 85,000 sq. kilometres. There are about 2.5 million sheep that contributes to Tasmanian exports.
 
Captain William Bligh, he of ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ fame, arrived on the island in 1809 after being removed as governor of New South Wales in Australia, his hope was of getting the governorship there. He didn’t, he had overstayed his welcome in Australia.
 
The Talbot family, whose roots go back to the French Norman invasion of England, which occurred in 1066, arrived in Ireland in 1171. They were granted a sizeably estate of land outside of Dublin in Malahide. A castle that was the family home of the Talbot’s still stands there today. It’s owned and operated by the Irish Tourist Board and is open to the public as a tourist attraction. The Talbot family survived on the estate until 1973 when the last member the Honourable Milo George Talbot died without an heir. However, back in 1821 William Talbot of Malahide, Ireland was granted 3,000 acres of land in Tasmania by the British government where he developed a sheep station and extended the farm to 8,500 acres. He named the estate Malahide, Rose Talbot inherited the property. She had never married. Her cousin, one Richard Talbot inherited the property in Tasmania after her death in 2009. To this day, the estate is still owned by a member of the Talbot family.
 
Onto Australia for the 3rd part of the cruise. Australia and Tasmania are members of the British commonwealth. Dutch explorers had arrived in Australia as early as the 1600 and they named the landmass New Holland.
 
Captain James Cook led the British expedition in 1770 and was first to map the eastern coastline of Australia and claim the continent as part of the British Empire. Looking at maps of the seas around the continent we recognize from their names of all the explorers who have been there, the Torres Strait, Bass, Cook, Cape York, New Caledonia and so on. 
 
Botany Bay in Australia, where James Cook first landed, was set up as a penal colony and a naval base for the British fleet. Botany Bay was later renamed Sydney. Not all the ships carried convicts. There were free men and women, retired army and sailor personnel as well as adventurous tradespeople. William and Mary Bryant, two convicts who were on one of the ships of the first fleet, the ‘Charlotte’, had met on board and married shortly after arriving in Sydney. The journey from England to Sydney usually took over eight months. After WWII the Australian government needed to expand the population of the country, the £10.00 fare, which was the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme that was introduced to attract immigrants from Britain. This scheme lasted until the mid 1970s. During the period that the £10.00 fare lasted it’s estimated that 1.5 million British people would have travelled to Australia, a number of these were from Commonwealth countries. 
 
The coastal cities and destinations that you can visit on a cruise would include Melbourne, Sydney, Darwin and Brisbane, national parks and the Great Barrier Reef, that’s now a UNESCO heritage site. 
With a total number of 75 million sheep the export of meat and wool is of enormous importance to the country. Border control at airports and seaports are extremely thorough.
 
The population of Australia is 26 million people, it’s small in comparison to its size. The main employment is in, oil and gas exploration, mining of different minerals, finance, timber products i.e wood-pulp and lumber, chemicals, imports and exports, education and taxation.