Travel Maven blog

Checking out the gannets of New Zealand

I’m not much of a birder. I love to watch the Great Lake Erie birds swoop by my porch on the north coast of Ohio, especially the eagles that have returned to the marsh near Old Woman Creek. They dive for fish in the waters outside my window.

But I am a dunce when it comes to remembering names and markings, so I can’t tell you all the species that I’ve seen in Ohio or in my frequent wanderings around the world.

I won’t forget the gannets, though, hundreds, maybe thousands of them, where they nest on the edge of a cliff at Cape Kidnappers in New Zealand.

My trip to see the gannets was a shore excursion off the Celebrity Century at Napier, New Zealand, where thousands of people flock every February for the Art Deco Weekend, a celebration of Napier’s Art Deco heritage and history.

If you want to see more about the birds, take a look at Nesting with the wild gannets, my post at Checking In Checking Out, a new website with a theme of amazing places to travel, eat, and play golf.

Cruising to mating penguins, a disappearing gun, a castle in New Zealand

Mating grounds for the Northern Royal Albatross are reason enough to visit New Zealand’s Otago Peninsula, but these grand birds are not the only attraction on a shore excursion from the cruise ship port of Dunedin.

Above a wide beach with rolling ocean surf, our tour group watched a single penguin (tiny, in the middle of the picture above) waddle to shore and cross the beach.

Then, as our group held its collective breaths, the penguin wavered in its decision about entering the mating grounds of the rare yellow eyed penguins. We could see a New Zealand fur seal hiding in the bush, hoping for a penguin lunch.

Cruising New Zealand, spotting the mating Northern Royal Albatross

Preparing to meet a colony of Northern Royal Albatrosses -- or are they albatri -- I remembered an image from high school when my English class was studying Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” A sailor wore a dead albatross around his neck as penance.

The poem is one of those prized pieces of literature that cause nothing but anguish to a high school kid looking for a correct answer among clashing symbols. Easier to understand is that the sailor was doing penance for killing the albatross, a symbol of good luck for seamen. You don’t want to destroy  anyone’s good luck charm, particularly when you are out in the elements, battling the forces of nature.

Besides, the albatross is a magnificent and awesome white bird, swooping and gliding with an amazing wing span of about nine feet.

Cruising New Zealand, slipping through Milford Sound

After two days and three nights at sea from Tasmania on the southern tip of Australia, Celebrity Century plunged into Milford Sound at sunrise.

You would not want to sleep-in on the day that your cruise ship slips through the three sounds on New Zealand’s southwest coast, not if you want to see Milford, anyway.

Our tour from the sea to the end of the Milford fjord was only two hours, so we were back out to sea in plenty of time for a full breakfast.

A Grande slice of Gulf beach in Naples, Florida

Many of the newer condos and resorts lining the coast of Southwest Florida in and around Naples stand tall toward the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico.

That’s toward, but not on the beach, because man, these days, no longer is stupid enough to destroy the mangroves, nature’s best beachfront protectors from the furious storms of the Gulf. Instead, vacation buildings near water’s edge sit behind the mangroves, which are low twisting trees with amazing root structures that live comfortably in and around the seawater.

One of my favorite activities on a Southwest Florida vacation is to play in the waters between the mangroves and the mainland, kayaking, for instance, near Fort Myers on ancient Native American paths now mapped out as the Great Calusa Blueway.

Farther south, in the Naples area, where private development sometimes makes beach reaching difficult, you’ll find easy access to the sands and a nice boardwalk for strolling through the mangroves off U.S. 41, near the venerable Naples Grande resort, which is  part of the Waldorf Astoria group.

Mingling with the mannequins: What the Dickens is Charles of England doing in Ohio

Cambridge, Ohio
As soon as Halloween is over, the Central Ohio town of Cambridge will have a festive Victorian look, not only among its buildings, but also its people, some of whom dress and act like Charles Dickens characters for two months each winter.

Through early January, downtown Cambridge celebrates all things Dickens, from carolers and well-dressed society types to street urchins, Bob Cratchit, and Tiny Tim.

If you stop by, you may also dress the part, borrowing for free some garb at Ye Ole Curiosity Shoppe on Wheeling Avenue and heading outside to mingle with the mannequins, which dot the downtown like extras in a huge performance.

For a sneak peek, here are pictures, taken at a local warehouse, of the many mannequins that soon will be stationed along downtown’s Wheeling Avenue at antique lampposts and benches.