Sydney, Day 2

Stephanie had a hard night sleep as we can hear the cars driving by the hotel room. We woke up and walked down George St., the major road through Sydney, toward the harbor to catch the Sydney Explorer buses. It was probably about 2.5 miles starting with hostels and convenience stores in our neighborhood, then getting to the downtown district with nice shopping malls and all the suits going to work (suckers), and ending in The Rocks, a posh neighborhood that is one of the originally settled neighborhoods in Sydney. It has quaint (expensive) shops and cafes: way out of our price range. It reminds us a little of Georgetown in DC.

The Circular Quay (pronounced “key”) is adjacent and is where the cruise ship dropped us off and where we started our Sydney Explorer bus ride: if you come to Sydney you must do this. We rode the bus for the first 13 stops as it brought us by the area sights (Opera House, over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Botanical Gardens, Hyde Park, and multiple museums) and gave a simple commentary along the way. The weather was not friendly-looking as the forecast had predicted, but it was alright inside as the bus had A/C. We got off at Mrs. Macquarie's Chair in the botanical gardens and then walked back to the Opera House along the harbor. Not a bad place to be:

We then walked back to Circular Quay to pick up the next bus, after picking up a chicken burger and some coffee for lunch.

Next, we boarded the Bondi Explorer bus, which was included with our Sydney Explorer ticket (also includes access to all city buses). This bus brought us along all the southern suburbs along the harbor and various points to look out at the harbor. We also went by Sydney’s red light district called Kings Cross and actually saw what appeared to be a hooker on the streets...at 1pm. Arriving at Bondi (pronounced Bond-eye) Beach, the weather fortunately improved...again pictures do not do it justice. The sun started coming out, perfectly timed for us, and we had a breathtaking walk along the beach.

From a distance, we thought this was a pool at some fancy-schmancy hotel - turns out, future lifeguards train at this pool, which is filled whenever a large wave comes along.

Saw some surfers and locals out on the coves. There was a great pathway that we could walk along that cut through the sandstone cliffs and allowed us to take in all the beauty of the beaches in this area.

After walking the 2 mile path to Bronte Beach we caught the bus back towards downtown. We got off near the central district and walked about 10 blocks to our neighborhood and stopped in the local watering hole to re-hydrate (tried Carlton Draught this time – another good local brew) before heading back to the hotel after a long day of walking. It seems that all bars/pubs are named as “hotel” just to confuse visitors and all that we have entered have wagering and gambling facilities. After our beer we headed back to the hotel for showers before going out for the internet and grabbing some food for dinner. We stopped for Pad Thai again, and again it turned out to be a good choice...and hey, it's relatively cheap, which isn't easy to find in Australia.

Sydney, Day 1

Land, finally! We arrived at our final cruise destination at the ungodly hour of 6am. They parked the cruise ship right next to the famous Opera House and it was a pretty spectacular sight. We both decided that although the cruise was nice, we don’t plan on doing another one anytime soon. A British gentleman put it nicely – you’ve either been just fed, you’re a newlywed, or you’re nearly dead. The former and the latter were more appropriate for our particular cruise. :/ We exited off the monstrous ship and caught a taxi to the hotel - kind of scary-looking from the outside, and left our bags at the front desk…along with our camera, so there will be no pictures in today’s entry. The receptionist was not terribly friendly and didn’t seem pleased to have to house our luggage for a few hours. We walked to Darling Harbour, through Chinatown, stopped by the visitor information center, around the convention center to Queen Victoria Building (a large, posh, mall) and over to the Sydney Fish Market for a lunch of fresh salmon and lobster. We did a decent amount of sitting as Steven got little sleep last night again. Hopefully, being off the boat will help him. We also picked up some fresh fruit at the market for breakfast for the next few mornings. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a bar which also doubles as a satellite wagering facility where they had chariot (yes, chariot) and greyhound races in the background. Interesting. Had some nice cold Toohey brew to help re-hydrate, then we walked back to the hotel. Fortunately, the lady was nicer this time, and we finally checked in. The room has two separate beds, couldn’t get anything else, but was a nice change from our small cabin on the boat. There is a great traveler area by the hotel with quite a few hostels, cheap internet, and cafes, so we are happier now as we started to see what is really around us. And now we can finally download this blog. We downloaded part of the blog as the computer was taking forever, sorry to all that got a partial story. While we were doing this, the weather changed from warm and humid to torrential downpour. The news said Sydney received a month of rain in 30 minutes - Stephanie thought it was trucks going by but it was actually thunder and lightening. After the internet café, we picked up some take-away Thai food that turned out to be some pretty good Pad Thai, or maybe it was just that we were tired and hungry. Went back to the room to crash for the night.

At Sea (For the Last Time!)

Did some laundry, relaxed, and watched a guy from Chico (had breakfast with him and his group at one point) win the $3,000 bingo. Thank goodness Steven had "Fun Blackjack" to keep him occupied after the devasting loss. We actually met another couple our age, they live in Melbourne, at dinner and had a good conversation during dinner. We were disappointed to not have met them earlier in the cruise as we seemed to all have quite a bit in common. Or maybe it was just our age?

Melbourne

We took a tram into the center of the city and decided to just walk around and soak up the sights. The city offers a free bus that circles the main part of town but, after eating too many desserts after dinner, we thought walking would be best. It was pretty busy for a Sunday morning, but this might have been partly due to another cruise ship (one of the same ones in Hobart) that was docked as well. We walked around Federation Square, there was a nice church along with other old buildings.

It was interesting to see the old mixed in with the modern.

We walked through Melbourne’s version of Chinatown and the Greek section and went to Queen Victoria Market – according to the guide books, this is not to be missed. It reminded us of a glorified swap meet – lots of Australia tee shirts, socks, Ugg knockoff boots, etc. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) nothing looked too exciting so we left empty-handed.

On the tram back, we experienced some guys doing a social experiment: they offered to buy tram tickets and give out hugs, similar to the clip seen on YouTube. As expected, some people were entertained while others were scared off.

Day at Sea (Yet Again)

Sea was rough, did some laundry, played more bingo (yes, the ship is that exciting) and lost, but Steven has won all of our bingo money back at the “Fun Blackjack” table. Formal night turned out to be another rough day/night at sea. At times, it literally felt like we were in an earthquake. Saw a funny comedian at night, but Stephanie almost fell asleep (shocker). Steven did not sleep well at night with the movement, Stephanie not so much of a problem.

Hobart

Officially arrived in Australia this morning and had our usual breakfast in the International dining room. The waiters are getting to know us now; they are all very nice and most spend almost 6 months on a ship per contract. Once finished with breakfast we got ready for our brief city tour and trip to the Bonorong Wildlife Park. This was the highlight of the day as we saw hundreds of kangaroos and wallabies that would walk among the visitors. We were able to feed and pet them, when they didn’t run off, that is.

Mom feeding her baby:

Scary-looking claws:

Most of the kangaroos were smart and stayed behind the fence where they wouldn't be bothered with swarms of people trying to pet and feed them. A bit difficult to see in the picture, but there must have been at least a hundred kangaroos just chilling.

There was one albino kangaroo among the bunch - he stood out just a little:

One of the few kangaroos that didn't run off, funny that he wasn't actually part of the park. We think the park residents are just over having attention.

Steven loved the Tasmanian Devil although it proved difficult to photograph as it ran around in circles (not exactly like the cartoon, but it did run in circles). Apparently, they are almost blind and depend almost completely on their sense of smell.

There are two koalas at the park...koalas sleep for about 20 hours a day, so we were pretty lucky to see this one when he was awake.

There were also some ducks, blue tongued lizards, emus, other native birds, and a wombat. The park has a program of nursing injured animals back to health and had a wedge-tailed eagle that had been injured recently. Sadly, farmers in Australia have a motto of “if it moves, shoot it.” Great.

We went back to the boat for some lunch before heading out to visit the rest of Hobart. A quaint little city with a square called Salamanca Place that reminds us of Europe - it was fairly busy for being a random weekday afternoon.

Steven was excited to see a local Scotch distillery where he was able to try some Australian Scotch. It's the little things in life.

2 Days at Sea

2 days at sea = 2 days too long at sea.

Took care of part 1 of Australian immigration, crossed another time zone, and spent the days catching up with reading and relaxing. Played some ping pong (not to be confused with table tennis, which is reserved for professionals), sat by the pool and played cards, and tried to win the $2,500 bingo (no luck – but nobody else did either). Next stop is Tasmania.

Stephanie was a bit concerned as her vision was becoming a bit blurry and she couldn’t read the dinner menu – Steven suggested she check the back of the seasickness medicine box to see about any side-effects. Turns out, the #1 side-effect is blurred vision…mental note to self to check for any side-effects before taking future medication. Patch immediately came off.

And since this entry is extremely exciting, we have zero pictures.

Fjordland National Park

Today was a day of cruising through various Sounds. The views were amazing, pictures will not do it justice. The volcanoes formed these mountains and islands thousands of years ago. Earthquakes are still active and reshape some of the mountains when hills break away and tumble toward the ocean. We got a great table at the enclosed pool area where we could read in between cruising the Sounds and still go outside for good video. A group from the US was next to us and we found out as the cruise went along they would sit at the same table almost every day the boat is at sea. We also saw various schools of dolphins that would swim right up along the boat - everyone would rush to the windows when they appeared. Milford Sound was the most impressive as it had waterfalls and glaciers. During the spring, it is supposed to be better as the ice is melting and there are hundreds of waterfalls along the mountain sides. We saw a comedy show that turned out to be more of a juggling show – only okay, did manage to make us giggle.

To put things in perspective, there are itty-bitty kayakers in this picture:

Dunedin

Sorry, we are really behind on blogging and it takes quite a bit to upload the pictures, so bear with us! We arrived in Sydney yesterday, but we'll get to that once we've finished recapping New Zealand - each country deserves proper credit, afterall. And, just to clarify, we are adding our own bits and pieces, so these entries are from both of us. The formatting is funky, but we're over spending time fixing it since we're in an internet cafe.

We arrived in Dunedin (pronounced Dun-E-din) the morning after sailing all night and we went downstairs for our usual breakfast. Each day we meet new people at our table, cruises are very friendly places we have found out, and today we meet a couple from Huntington Beach. We travel halfway around the world and we meet a couple (Sylvia and Sam) that live a few miles away on Brookhurst and Indianapolis. Turns out Sam used to work in the apparel industry and knew people from Quiksilver who worked with Stephanie.

Took a quick walk around Port Chalmers where the boat was docked – it’s a whopping one block town that took us all of 10 minutes to cover. We then took a bus to Dunedin for our city tour, the first part being a tour of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory (Steven LOVES the Cadbury eggs). Interesting to find out how they make their various candies, it was a bit Willy Wonka-ish - unfortunately, no cameras allowed inside the facilities, but we were able to snap a few of the outside and of the shop.

There were millions of little pieces of chocolate on this mound, it was pretty impressive and made us hungry.

They did have a little shop where you could buy "discounted" chocolates and we bought a few pieces - we use the term discounted loosly because it would have probably been cheaper to buy it in the US. Turns out we were pretty smart because chocolate in NZ/Australia is somewhat expensive. Or, let me rephrase, it's expensive when you are on a budget.

Back in the bus for more highlights of the city including the train station (driver said it is the second most photographed building in the southern hemisphere – not sure if we believe him), the college campus (largest in NZ), and beautiful view from the mountain top. The city reminded us somewhat of San Francisco as it was hilly and used to have cable cars. Finished off the evening with dinner and a great drink called the Beverly Hills Iced Tea (way better than the Long Island version).

The outside of the train station:

Steven was in heaven when he found out there is a Scotch bar inside the train station - there are over 300 varieties of Scotch on this wall...sadly, the bar wasn't open when we were there. Next time.

Christchurch

Day 4: Christchurch

We spent the day wandering around Christchurch on our own – the main attraction in this city is St Mark’s Square and its cathedral. Known as the city most influenced by the British, this doesn’t fly very well with the Kiwis.

We peeked inside and decided it wasn’t worth the $10 to go all the way in so we’re only going to show you a shot of the outside.

Never fear, Starbucks is readily available around the world. New Zealand is no exception.

A few pictures of the city’s botanical gardens:

For dinner we went to the cruise steakhouse, paid an extra charge for it, but it was nice to have something different then the normally offered food. The fish continues to be dry so the juicy steak was welcomed. Off to bed, not as bad a night as the previous evening (weather-wise), but it was still rockin' and rollin' on the ship.

Day 3 at Sea

You are all jealous, right? This picture is actually looks pretty tame, it was much worse:

We had this weather for most of the afternoon into the night – thank goodness for seasickness patches. our steward told us the lady in the room next to us was not so lucky.

Tauranga

Day 2 – Tauranga, NZ

We had an offshore excursion in Tauranga today – we lagged in booking our excursions so we didn’t get our first choice. Learn from our mistakes, if you want to do excursions on a cruise, book them well before the cruise ship leaves. Alas, we still had a pretty good day and learned a bit about the native culture of New Zealand, along with some info about sheep.

Steven with his new friend:











































The guy is shaving the poor sheep for her fur – they are paid by the sheep, not by the hour, and she did not look happy. It was a pretty cheesy comedy routine, but did make us giggle outloud a few times.









After the sheep shaving demonstration, we had a buffet lunch and watched a native Maori ritual song and dance routine. Then back in the bus which had only partially working A/C. Next stop was the Te Puia Thermal Reserves where we saw an impressive geyser. The geyser was similar to our Old Faithful at Yellowstone but lasted for almost 20 minutes and occurred every hour. The smell was…interesting.

park also had some bubbling mud pits:




















Our park visit ended with a wood carving demonstration – these guys spend 3 years at this “school” perfecting their craft. To be accepted into the school, one must be of Maori decent.

The end result is pretty impressive with quite a bit of detail - the 2nd picture is only halfway finished.

























































We came across a kiwi farm on the way back to the ship - New Zealand is known for its kiwi fruit and we saw some farms along the side of the road. The plants look similar to grape vines except that the vines grow along vertically suspended wires.