North & South – June 2019

NORTH & SOUTH | JUNE 2019 | 109

down Otago Harbour towards the

ocean, with seabirds catching a stien-

ing breeze and the peninsula, so close

to our starboard flank, a silent other-

world through the cloud. Fiordland,

which earlier in the month was doused

by a metre of rain in 24 hours, turns on

postcard-blue skies. We huddle in

ship-issued tartan blankets on the fore-

deck for our 9am entry into Dusky

Sound, squinting into clear, sharp sun-

light. One passenger lined up at the rail

amid a thicket of cameras and selfie

sticks has clearly missed the “wind chill

factor... feels like 8°C” message on this

crystalline morning; she’s wearing a

pink lacy dress and gold ballet flats.

Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed by the

Beaufort scale’s restrained zero to five

performance; I like a little pitch and

yaw. You’d think between the Tasman

Our eight-night cruise on the Celeb-
rity Solstice begins in Wellington and
loops around the South Island, stopping
in Akaroa and Dunedin, then nosing
into Dusky, Doubtful and Milford
Sounds before heading pretty much due
west to Hobart, Tasmania, and across
the Bass Strait to Melbourne, where our
group has to leave the party. The Sol-
stice is on her last Australasian circuit
for the season; from Sydney, she will
wend her way “north to Alaska”, where
her May to September itinerary will
zigzag passengers up the Inside Passage
and beyond the 55th Parallel.
Our April voyage down south should
be running into a day or two of lumpy
autumnal seas, but fine weather chases
us from Wellington to Port Melbourne.
Even the rain forecast for Dunedin
holds o until dusk, when we’re gliding

Sea and notorious Cook, Foveaux and

Bass Straits there’d be a day or two of

rock and roll. Still, there are compensa-

tions. On the afternoon of our first day

crossing the Tasman, I head to my bal-

cony to take a photo of the ridiculously

calm sea and a whale surfaces, spouting

moist air from its blowhole.

My small but efficiently designed

stateroom is on deck 10. I really fancy

being in the Battle of Hastings suite, but

I miss out on 1066 by a few doors and a

stretch of fiercely vacuumed carpet. Also

on my floor is the ship’s library, which

becomes my geographical lodestone;

once I’ve spotted the bookshelves I can

navigate to my room from any level, fore

and aft. Deck 10 also has its own

concierge, Patricia, who leaves sweetly

accented messages on my bedside

phone most nights, passing on important

On a fine, cold morning, the ship noses into Dusky Sound. A couple of weeks before, Fiordland had been doused by a
metre of rain in a 24-hour period, but our day there was marked by unseasonally clear skies and calm waters.