TOURIST CRUISE LINER

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21977, 29 December 1936, Page 5

TOURIST CRUISE LINER

ESPERANCE BAY VISITS NEW ZEALAND NEARLY 500 PASSENGERS (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) AUCKLAND, December 28. With 484 cruise passengers, the Aberdeen and Commonwealth liner Esperance Bay arrived at Auckland from Brisbane and will sail at midnight for Wellington, en route to Sydney. This is the first visit the Esperance Bay has paid to Auckland, and her present voyage is the first pleasure cruise yet made by the Aberdeen and Commonwealth Line to New Zealand waters. A vessel of 14.204 tons, and built in 1922. the Esperance Bay was formerly the Hobson's Bay. About 300 passengers had booked tours in New Zealand. Nearly all this number left by special train at 7.45 a.m. for a oneday trip to Rotorua, returning at 10.20 p.m. Small parties left for Wellington overland, one via Wairakei and Napier, and the other via the Waitomo Caves and the Wanganui river. Passengers who did not leave town went for sight-seeing trips in taxi-cabs and special buses. The Esperance Bay has been for some years a favourite cruise ship in European waters, and between her voyages to and from Australia she has made altogether 21 cruises from Britain to Mediterannean ports and to the Canary Islands, Madeira, and Teneriffe. Her usual number is five each summer. After returning to Sydney, she will undertake two short cruises to Tasmania and One to Lord Howe Island and Fiji. Assisting the ship's staff is Mr W. G. Reay, of Sydney, passenger j manager of the line,