ARRIVING IN ADELAIDE - February 10th

Now this is the way you are supposed to welcomed into port!  There was a band playing all Australian songs as our ship pulled in.  The day was sunny and warm and people stood on the balcony of the  terminal all smiling and waving.

At all other ports the cities are very close by but, the city of Adelaide is a 40 minute ride.  We were picked up by a double decker bus and we sat up front.  Unfortunately our guide who was showing us different points of interest sat right behind us talking very loudly into the microphone.
Her voice grated on our nerves and we were glad to get off the bus.

In the terminal as well as throughout the city, there are people wearing turquoise shirts and white hats and you can ask them anything and they are more than willing to give you directions and information on just about everything.  Here are some photos of the volunteer welcomers.

Need a ride somewhere close by? This guy can bring you right to it.

Adelaide is not a particularly busy city.  As you can see by the amount of puzzle magazines on the rack, they have lots of time on their hands it seems.
We have also seen such assortments even in Tahiti and all the other stops we made. They are big on puzzles down under!

I can't understand why the city paid for this kind of art.

We wandered around the shops in Adelaide.  Prices like everywhere else seem high but it was a nice visit.
We really did not want to take the bus back and we were told there is a train service right to the port so we found the railway station in the city and in less than 30 minutes got back to the ship. (It was the end of the line)

Tonight we sail for Freemantle (Perth) I need to find out why they changed the name.  It will take us

3 full days and nights to get to it.  Australia is huge!!!

SAILING, SAILING, OVER THE BOUNDING MAIN.....TOWARDS MELBOURNE- February 8th

Sailing, sailing, it certainly beats getting off and on a plane and packing and unpacking - man, there is lots of water out here! All this water makes you look forward to land.  Unfortunately visits are too short and I never seem to get over the feeling that the land is moving like the ship.

We arrived in Melbourne, 2nd largest city in Australia and perhaps prettier than Sydney - just as vibrant and clean.  More than 4 million live in the greater metro area. The architecture is amazing and standing beside a church in downtown Melbourne built in the 1800's you turn your head just a little and a crazy quilt of modern architecture with strong, angled lines greets you. There is no overt signs of the Aboriginal people in Melbourne. and we saw only a handful of Aborigines in the city.  There are some gift stores and the museum with art from these people and yet  this area was an important meeting place for the clans and a vital source of food and water.

and this is right across the street

The city is thronged with people. It is not that this picture was taken at noon -- it's just this busy.

Downtown there are so many places to eat it is ridiculous. In the hundreds within a 4 block area. Shooting off the main streets are small alleys -  hardly wide enough for a car, just small restaurants offering everything from soup to nuts.  Each restaurant has different items for sale - There are a great many sushi restaurants and the sushi looks fantastic! In most restaurants you take your food outside to eat.  Few have eat-in seating.

Here is the soup store, Len didn't take a picture of the nut store!

We even gave the birds a snack!

They go out of their way to discourage smoking - Here is a photo of a cigarette store.  People in Melbourne and Sydney smoke as much as anywhere else. All the cigarettes are all covered up!

The cruise line tries to offer a couple of special events each month for the people who are doing the entire journey - about 60 people.  They drove us about 40 minutes away to a huge estate where they hosted a dinner and entertainment.  The estate is fabulous - it's called Werribee Park, much like Viscaya with more land.

The temp. was perfect too while we had a chance to walk around the house and grounds.

They gave s a chance to wander around the home and grounds whilst the staff served champagne and awful hor's douvres,

They provided dinner and entertainment.  2 opera singers and a young girls choral group.  The female opera singer was pretty  good, the male opera singer used crib notes to follow the words but the young girls choral group was great.  The food was mediocre but the best part was when we got back to the room Marina had a platter of sandwiches, cakes, fruit and crudites waiting for us!

All in all it was a nice day.  -  We are once again at sea for one day before our visit to Adelaide.

SPECTACULAR SYDNEY! - Saturday Feb. 5th - Sunday Feb 6th

We arrived in Sydney after a very rough crossing from Tasmania.  The seas finally calmed down prior to our arriving in port.  We were told by Australian passengers to get up early so that we can see the port which includes Sydney Harbour Bridge and The Opera House just as we turn into the channel leading to the port.  We got up early. Really early! - 6 am.  On our deck at the front of the ship was the best viewing of the entrance.

I had expected to hear Waltzing Matilda as we turned into the harbor and to see the blinding white sails of the Opera House.  No Waltzing Matilda nor bright white sails of the opera house.  But we stood on our deck as we made the entrance and it was spectacular even though it was overcast.  Although the photo below shows the sails as bright white perhaps because of the early morning hour the roof looked more beige.  The roof is made up of very small gary and white tiles.

Here's a closeup of the tiles.

Len went for a tour inside the opera house while I sat in the shade trying to cool off.  Although he was not supposed to take pictures inside the opera house he did.  The stage is tiny in comparison to the size of the theater, but is supposed to be all about the sound.  There are 3 different theaters in this building but they only went into 2 theatres.


We had a vantage point on Deck 6. Most everyone else went upstairs to Deck 10 to see the entrance.
Glad we were not in this crowd! (going under Sydney Harbour Bridge)

The temperature was hot and it got hotter throughout the day.  Mid morning it was a record heatwave.
The past week it had been in the high 90's and Saturday, today, it was 104!  I thought I was going to melt.

The harbor is insanely busy. Unlike anything we have ever seen.  Boats of every kind, especially catamarans are running all through the harbor.  There seems to be a million tourists in this town, especially Asian tourists.

We took a tour of the city whose winding streets you could get lost on.  Thank goodness our bus was air conditioned.  Everything is really expensive in Sydney.  Nice homes, not castles on the hills surrounding the harbor range from 2 million to 15 million dollars.  Their dollars are a little more than US dollars.
The average salary is $60,000/year

The city is clean and people are really friendly.  There are more than 25 museums, art galleries and fantastic parks.  The city is steeped in history and there are  many statues to Queen Victoria and founders of Sydney throughout the city. Founded in 1788, there are buildings standing today from the very early 1800's.
Amazing what prisoners can accomplish if they are beaten hard enough!

This island in the picture below sits out of reach in the middle of Sydney Harbour.  They used to put prisoners on this little island with little food and water as punishment for misbehaving.  They also hung a prisoner there and left him to rot so that his body was a deterrent to other prisoners.

Our bus took us to Bondi beach - supposedly the home of life-saving water rescues.  Since it was a Saturday the beach was crowded with people trying to cool off,

Personally, I couldn't wait to get back on the bus!

In the early evening there are party boats that go around the harbor - there are hundreds of young people on these boats. Loud music and flashing lights entice people to board these boats for drinking and dancing. I wonder if they have enough life vests on board.

 We stayed in Sydney for 2 days which was great because it gave us a chance to walk around the city on Sunday.

They offer a bridge climb to walk to the top of the Harbour Bridge.  It would have been nice to do had it not been so darn hot!

As we left Sydney at 6pm there were people on the bridge waving to us as we went under it on our ship!
We sail overnight to Melbourne, our next port of call.

HOBART, TASMANIA - Thursday, February 3rd

MY BELL SOUTH EMAIL ADDRESS IS NOT WORKING - IF YOU NEED TO GET IN TOUCH WITH ME MY EMAIL ADDRESS IS  helen@sandowmedia.com


The temperature was perfect as we pulled into port. There was a cool breeze and sunny skies.

Hobart is the state capital and was founded in 1803.  It is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. As we have found in all the other ports we've visited so far, the area's original inhabitants, the natives, had bloody encounters with the Europeans and the effects of diseases brought by settlers forced away the aboriginal population. 

Tasmania is nowhere as beautiful as New Zealand was.  I can't explain why but it is just not as pretty.
More timber has been cut in Tasmania, I guess because Hobart was a major shipbuilding area but it is not even because that, the air itself is not as crisp although the temperature was about the same as New Zealand and the grass was not as green either.

We had a tour scheduled to go to Bonorong Park a wildlife refuge for abandoned and injured animals.
Everyone on the bus talked about seeing a Tasmania Devil, us included.  (Too many cartoons I guess)
Although the tours are great, their stops are not long enough!
Well the Park was everything we had imagined and more.  Len took more than 250 photos - here are some.


We went through an old town of Richmond which had so many building standing from the 1800's.  The first bridge 'ever built in Tasmania was in Richmond and built by prison labor.  Most of the prisoners were between 20 and 30 years old and were brought to the island by the English for as little a reason as stealing a loaf of bread.
Here is the sandstone bridge.

Here is a picture of a Wombat.  They burrow in the ground a point their butts toward the entrance of the burrow.  Their butts are super muscular so if something tries to bite at them they have a really hard time piercing the skin.  I pushed on it and it is hard like a rock.

There were Kangaroos all over the place.  Their were either hopping or just lazing on the grass.  We were given bags of Kangaroo food and they warned us that they will snatch the bags out of your hand so just put a few pellets in your hand and hide the bag. A big one did snatch the bag from my hand - he/she ate the bag!

Their claws are quite sharp!

They are tame enough to pat!

You can just see the baby in her pouch.  Not sure what part of the baby but still.......

This is a Tasmania Devil.  They are all over the country.  They will attack and eat everything.  The sheep farmers, when they are shearing the sheep have to fight off the devils who gnaw under the floorboards at the sheep's feet!


They make awful growling sounds when they are fighting for food.  Here is a pix.  Sorry there is no sound with it!

The Koala bears are adorable.  They move about 2 hours a day to forage for food.  The rest of the time they sleep.  There are about 40 (I think) different varieties of eucalyptus but they will only eat 7.  Eucalyptus is deadly poison to humans but Koala's have an enzyme in their stomachs that does not allow the eucalyptus harm them.


After I patted one, I smelled my hand and it smelled of eucalyptus!

This is a Wallaby.  They had a few penned off and we were not allowed to touch one!


Final picture that Len took was in an IGA food store.  Cadbury' Chocolates main plant is in Tasmania and they had a display of every kind of chocolate bar they make!  Looked yummy but we didn't buy any.

 We spend tomorrow on the ship and following morning, Saturday we arrive in Sydney.

CRUISING THROUGH FJORDLAND NATIONAL PARK, NZ - January 31

Fjordland National Park is in the southwest corner of the South Island of New Zealand.  It is the largest national park in NZ among 14 other parks,  It cover an area of 12,500 km.  We spent the whole day slowly cruising the Fjords,  and it was magnificent.  Here are some of the photos Len took.  Only some mind you.
He took more than 150 pictures.
Had 2 days at sea then we are on to Hobart, Tasmania.

You can see a patch of blue sky in the upper left corner of this photo.  It started out as a very gray day.

I am very suntanned!

Front of the ship coming out of the Fjords

OUR LAST PORT OF CALL IN N.Z. PORT CHALMERS - January 30th

Elvis paintings from the Christchurch Saturday show in the park

There was a sign that I saw that read

THE ROMANCE OF LIFE IS LOST THROUGH 

SPEED & EFFICIENCY

Truer words were never spoken.

Speed and efficiency have indeed taken a back seat to the quiet beauty of New Zealand and I am sorry to leave this paradise.  Port Chalmers is on South Island - not the furthest south island, but perhaps the best of them all.
Peaceful, pristine and unspoiled, life works at a pace that I have found unequalled anywhere we have visited. The air is fresh. The numerous trees and vegetation give it a heavenly fragrance.  It is unfortunate that it is so far away from where we live because it would be wonderful to vacation here. Perhaps because of its distance its a good thing.  That way it will remain unspoiled - All It takes is people to screw everything up!

We arrived to a blustery day.  Overcast and cool.  Our scheduled tour was to a Yellow-eyed Penguin Sanctuary.  These particular penguins are rare and only found in this area. We boarded a bus to the sanctuary for a 35 minute drive.  The roads are really narrow - about 1 1/2 lanes wide so we did not travel fast.  Like most of New Zealand, the main roads are right along the coast and the views as we twisted and turned on this road was spectacular

We arrived at the sanctuary and after a lecture about these penguins we started to trek down towards the dunes on the beach.  We walked down steep steps and paths in the grass all the while our guide telling us to be very quiet and once we see the babies not to take flash pictures.  He emphasized that the use of a flash camera would hurt their eyes.

We walked for more than 30 minutes down, down, down this steep hills.  I couldn't help thinking of walking up, up, and up the steep terrain. Once we got to the "blind", a series of long tunnels dug out of the soil and covered with camouflage.  And their they were! Baby penguins left on their nests which the parents dug out of the soil.  Too cute!  The photo here is of a baby about 2 months old.  The penguins in the next photo were standing and were about 5 months old. His parents had gone fishing.

We stayed about 20 minutes photographing the babies then sort of started back up the hill on a different
path that took us out over the cliff to see wild seals.  Len walked down the cliff but I sat down to rest while a few others went with Len.  He got some fantastic photos of these young seals. Here's one.

They had a hospital and here is a penguin we saw.

Back on the bus we took a different road back to town over the tops of the hills.  It was surreal.

Sheep all over the hills and beautiful farms throughout. in town we stopped at an old railroad station - a beautiful building with mosaic on the floor and stained glass windows.


To the ship we went, not looking forward to another night of rocking and rolling.
I did not expect it to be as rough a ride as the night before. Boy was I wrong!  It was far worse.  All the open decks were closed.  The Captain has been walking throughout the ship in the evening looking for problem areas. We ate nothing and went to bed.  .  Tomorrow we go through Fjordland - one of New Zealand's national parks.


Marina made this towel rabbit on our bed.