The third installment of Annie’s diary…

After leaving Capetown the voyage was very uneventful.  Colder weather set in and we could not spend so much time on deck.  We had several gales about this time.  The shortest day was September 21^st and on the 22^nd (Harry’s birthday) we had the first fall of snow.  It came down pretty heavily and snowed more or less the whole of the day.  The ship looked very pretty all covered with white but it was very bad weather for navigation.

From then until we arrived at New Zealand we had frequent storms of sleet and snow; the sea at times was a grand sight, very mountainous.  We soon got used to it and often watched for quite a long time, the ship sometimes on the top of a wave like a mountain, at others, down in the trough of the sea that would only show the tops of our mast to any other boat coming along.

After leaving South Africa we saw neither ship nor land until the morning of October 7^th, when we sighted New Zealand.  Harry had good sport with his gun all the passage, one albatross he shot fell on board.  It measured about 8 feet across its wings (wasn’t Harold excited over it!).  We tried to save the skin but not knowing how to cure it and being so far away from land we had to get rid of it.

Harry also shot an ice bird which perched on one of the masts, but as we could not find a bird stuffer in Dunedin that had to go as well.  I was so sorry as it was a lovely bird, white head and neck, pink breast, grey wings and red beak and feet.

We anchored at midnight October 7^th off Otago Harbour and on the morning of the 8^th proceeded up the river to Port Chalmers.  The river was very pretty and reminded me of the Avon.  It was winding, the mountains were covered with trees and grass down to the waters edge and was a great contrast to the barrenness of South Africa.  We discharged some of our cargo at Port Chalmers to enable us to proceed further up the river to Dunedin the next day.  We had wet weather most of the time there and our visit was spoilt by five of our crew deserting, and as this was against the law for foreigners to be left behind in the country Harry was liable to a fine of £100 per man.

The day after we arrived was a Bank Holiday and a procession of different trades paraded the streets.  We spent one evening at Mr Mills house, the stevedore, and one night we dined with Mr and Mrs; Shermin Mr Shermin being the President of the Chamber of Commerce and an old Bristolian.  We spent a very enjoyable evening with them and Mrs Shermin gave me some plants and flowers for our cabin.  The Doctor who was attending some of the crew brought me some flowers as well so we were quite gay.  It is just early spring and everything looks lovely. Our boat was a great attraction here and we had a continual stream of people looking over her.

We left Dunedin on the 12^th and anchored at Port Chalmers until the 13^th arriving at Lyttleton on the 14^th after a very foggy trip round. This was the first Sunday we had had in port since leaving New York, and by the time we had docked it was too late to attend any service so we went for a walk up on one of the hills to the cemetery.  I was very surprised here to see hedges of geraniums to some of the gardens, some too high for me to look over and with branches as thick as Harold’s arm.  Arum lilies were growing in the open gardens almost wild.  I saw a bush of marguerite daisies about 4 feet high and twenty in circumference and it was one mass of flowers.  We took a couple of nice little photographs of the place.

We went to Christchurch (the capital of the Canterbury district) about nine miles distant and found it the most English place we have been to.  There were some very nice shops there and Harry laid in another stock of birds – 2 canaries and a goldfinch.

The country all around for about 100 miles is very flat and it is from these plains that we get the Canterbury lamb and mutton at home.  We left Lyttleton Wednesday morning 17^th October and arrived at Wellington the Capital of New Zealand on Thursday morning the 18^th.  We had a very nasty passage round, rain the whole of the time and thick mist all through the night.  Harry did not leave the bridge all night as the coast is very dangerous but we reached port safely through it all.  Our stay here was very short, only having about 500 tons of cargo to discharge.

We were ready to sail again Friday evening the 19^th.  Here we came across more Bristolians and spent the evening with them, Mrs Hunt going shopping with me the next day.  Wellington was not such a nice town as Christchurch, but is a very busy place and some of the shops were fairly large.  Mrs Hunt gave me some New Zealand shells.  There is a native stone called Greenstone which is polished and made into different articles, it is very pretty but frightfully expensive and did not seem to be to be worth the money asked for it – 35 shillings for a paper knife – so we did not get any.  Everything here is very English and there are no curios to be had.

Leaving Wellington on the 19^th we had the honour (?) of being H M Mail boat, carrying on the mails to Auckland where we arrived early on the 22nd after a very pleasant trip round.  There being no direct communication with Auckland they have to depend on the cargo boats to convey the mails and it becomes compulsory to take them.

The weather now became warmer as we were going North, on the Sunday going round we had most delightful weather and saw four or five whales spouting water.  It is a pretty sight as we get near the land to see the fish and porpoises sporting around the ship.  I think Auckland is the finest port we have been to in New Zealand but unfortunately we have had a great deal of rain throughout our stay there.