Weird, Wacky & Wonderful #2

This afternoon I heard the cruise ship, which was in port, blast its horn to announce its imminent departure so I thought I'd "race" around the Base Track from the opposite direction to catch the ship coming out through the entrance.

I made good time & waited patiently on a point half way round but with no sight of the ship after 15 minutes or so I thought it may have just been calling the passengers back to board instead. So I started to wander back to the van and got about two thirds of the way home when I heard three blasts on the horn. Bugger! The ship does this to say goodbye as it pulls out past Pilot Bay on the inner harbour side of the Mount. On a beautiful sunny day like it was today, Pilot Bay & the Base Track are usually lined with people waving goodbye. The Entrance is rather narrow and a huge cruise ship like the Sea Princess makes a spectacular sight as it sails through so close to land. I didn't quite make it back to the point when I spotted the bow through the trees that line the track.

The upper decks were lined deep with passengers, the ship arrives early in the morning and most would have missed the approach to the Mount. I could hear loud happy music being blasted around the ship as it moved slowly through the water while the pilot clambered down the ladder & back on to the pilot boat. And then the ship sailed off into the sunset bound for Auckland by the direction it took.

On my way back to the van for the second time I spotted this black back gull landing on a picnic table & heard a bunch of girls shouting at it from where they were down amongst the rocks. "Hey, quick, the gull's getting our food" One of them rushed up waving her arms just as the gull lifted off with something in it's bill. "Hey!!" she screamed at it "you've got my hair tie!"  And it had, it flew a few metres & by then had decided it wasn't food & dropped it amongst the rocks further out.

Back at the van I saw a regular coming down the walkway, Mr "High Pants". Mr HP walks the boardwalk most afternoons in this getup, perhaps he can't have the sun on his skin but he sure looks like he'd be sweltering in there. Back & forward he strides, he must do at least six lengths of the boardwalk along the beach front, he turns around at the stairway by us & heads off back down again to return about 20 minutes later. An odd character for sure.