Due to the terrible weather this weekend, I scheduled a local walk on Sunday. North Shore Nordic Walkers met at Toroa Street at Torbay, we walked past the shops along Beach Road and turned into Rewi Street, which eventually brings you back onto Cliff Road and through the Oneroa Walkway. We followed the walkway down to the car park at MERC, Long Bay and walked along the beach, by which time the morning has definitely cleared and the sun was shining. On our way back we spotted The Spirit of New Zealand anchored in the Marine Reserve.
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| The Spirit of New Zealand at Long Bay - Okura Marine Reserve |
The Spirit of New Zealand is a beautiful three mast, black sailing ship and I took a few pictures with my faithful mobile phone but they were too blurry and did the ship no justice.
We finished our walk and headed back walking up Long Bay Drive and back up to Toroa Street and then we had our coffee at the Baker’s Gallery.
I was so inspired by the sight of the ship that I went back later and took more pictures, sadly my camera isn’t brilliant but you can see the masts and some of detail of the ship.
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| MERC from the beach |
Originally the first ship the ‘Spirit of Adventure' was gifted by New Zealand entrepreneur Lou Fisher and was commissioned in 1973, she sailed the coast around New Zealand until 1997 when she was sold to Fiji and into the tourism industry.
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| Cliffs at the south end of Long Bay Beach |
The Spirit of New Zealand was commissioned in 1986, she replaced the Spirit of Adventure and spends 340 days at sea, as such she is thought to be one of the busiest youth ships in the world and is to continue her many voyages and adventures until 2020.
I contacted the Trust to confirm that it was actually the Spirit of New Zealand that we saw, Dean and Steph confirmed that the tall ship was in the area and was currently taking on 40 new young people to sail the ship. During a ten day voyage the students, young men and women will learn sailing and leadership skills. They will be looked after by a crew of professionals and with the help of volunteers they will be skilfully guided and assisted during their stay on the ship.
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| The Spirit of New Zealand |
It’s a marvellous opportunity for a young adult to take part in and the programme is largely dependent on volunteers, membership funding and grants. The trust employs 12 sea going staff to help with the running of the ship from port to port, with 7 staff located at Princes Wharf.
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