Sydney and Eden

Greetings from Australia!

We spent 2 great days in Sydney on the 8^th and 9^th. We sailed in at sunrise and enjoyed the beautiful backward look at the headlands at sunrise, as shown in Picture 1. We were docked right at Circular Quay, between the Opera House and Bridge, as shown in Picture 2. We could walk everywhere.

On the first day, we went separate ways. Rick went “shopping with the Chef “ at the fish market. He learned about selecting good fish (and the vendor where you purchase them), saw some “interesting” sea creatures and enjoyed the negotiations involved in purchasing 40 kilos of each type of fish at a time. Picture 3 shows some of the assortment of fish and Picture 4 shows the fish actually being loaded to take to the ship. The vendor would not accept American dollars, so the Chef stopped at an ATM on the way back to the ship and was able to pay in Australian dollars when it was delivered. Later that afternoon, the Chef sent samples of the sashimi grade tuna, salmon and kingfish, plus some smoked eel to our stateroom. We skipped the eel!

Meanwhile, Betsy climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It takes a total of 3 hours, although only about an hour is spent on the actual arch itself. The remainder of time involves suiting up, getting training on how to climb the ladders and physically getting to the point when you start going up. You cannot carry a camera, so you come away only with the picture of your group at the top, as shown in Picture 5. Picture 6 shows what it looks like from the ground. That’s not Betsy’s actual group, but gives you some idea of what it’s like, Views on top are spectacular and the climb itself is strenuous enough to make you feel like you’ve accomplished something.

On the second day, we took the ferry to Manley, where they were in the midst of the Australian Open Surfing Championship. While we cannot speak with authority, it appeared that the waves were not providing great runs, but we saw lots of tanned, young, thin, beautiful people. Picture 7 shows the gorgeous beach in Manley. We then climbed up toward the head, although we didn’t get that far.  We probably hiked a couple miles, along the beach, along the rocky coast and then up onto the plateau at the entrance to the harbor. We had fish & chips for lunch, ice cream at our favorite ice cream shop and then sailed back to Sydney. As Picture 8 shows, one never tires of sailing through the harbor toward Sydney.

Yesterday we were in Eden, which is a town of 4000 people, further down the coast from Sydney. The locals turn out when a ship arrives, because they only get 3 or 4 a year and yesterday there were 2 in one day—our 450 passengers and the Astor’s 600 passengers. We didn’t tarry around town; frankly, there wasn’t much town to tarry in!

We headed north to Ben Boyd National Park for a bush walk with an aborigine—actually he was only half aborigine, but has written books and done much to understand and share traditional life of aborigines. We learned about the different types of plants used for food and medicine and saw early tools used to accomplish daily tasks. The information was great and the scenery spectacular, as shown in Pictures 9 and 10.

By the way, it appears that Ben Boyd was a local entrepreneur, who invested money in the area, trying to develop the Capital of New South Wales here. His efforts failed and he finely up and left. No one could explain to us why the parked was named after him????

But the most exciting things for us, was watching 2 local species of animals. The first was the Goana Lizard. It is a type of Monitor Lizard that slinks along the ground and climbs trees, as shown in Pictures 11 and 12. The specimen shown in the pictures is about 5 feet long, including tail. It was a bit intimidating. The close-up picture shows its face and claws. You do NOT want to tangle with it—the claws not only hurt, but collect debris from the carrion it eats and you can get a nasty infection.

Picture 13 shows one of the 2 animals everyone comes to Australia to see—the kangaroo. (The other, of course, would be the koala.) This one is a gray kangaroo that posed nicely for us. We also saw a Mother with a good-sized baby in its weighted-down pouch, but couldn’t get a good picture.

We’re at sea today, but we visit Tasmania tomorrow, Melbourne the next day and Geelong the following day.

Wellington and Nelson

Our day in Wellington was near perfect—beautiful blue skies and 70 degrees (sorry friends in the US).  We began the day with a 3+-mile walk from the ship, through the harbor area and into the downtown of Wellington. It’s a lovely city. In the afternoon we boarded a bus and headed to Pencarrow Station.

Wellington Harbor is roughly shaped like a question mark, with Wellington at the end of the hook. We drove around the bay to the harbor entrance on the east side. The harbor entrance is less than half a mile wide, contains rocks sticking up on both sides and experiences significant winds and currents through the Cook Strait between the North and South Islands. So entering the harbor is not an easy task. Picture 1 shows the harbor entrance from the east side.

Pencarrow Station is a good-sized farm, where they raise sheep and cattle and dabble a bit in the tourism business. As the views in Pictures 2 and 3 show, it has a commanding view of the Harbor entrance and Cook Strait.  We watched sheep shearing and sheep herding as shown in pictures 4 and 5. They use 2 types of herding dogs. One large mixed breed (some lab and Doberman plus other stuff) is used to make lots of noise and drive away. The sheep are not penned, so this dog is taken up in the hills and drives the sheep back toward “home”. The smaller mixed breed (border collie and something) then quietly collects them at “home” and herds them into a tight group to be penned. One of these good sheep dogs sells for about $5000.

The cattle also are not penned and, as picture 6 shows, wander anywhere—even to the beach.

We also sampled wonderful local cheeses and wines. Good day!

That night we crossed the Cook Strait, arriving at Nelson, on the South Island, the next morning. Nelson is a small city (40,000) and the arrival of our ship was big doings!  Not many people drop by Nelson! A picture of our ship was prominently displayed on the daily 16-page newspaper. We ran into some local people, who immediately asked “Are you on that beautiful ship?”  Crowds gathered on the dock for our arrival and departure.

The area is known for its fruit, hops, vineyards and 3 national parks. We visited the Abel Tasman National Park and hiked a couple miles, part of a 5-day hike through the park.  The National Park can only be reached by foot or boat, so we picked up a local boat (wet landings) that toured us through the bays in the park and then dropped us at a site appropriately called Anchorage.

We hiked through lush vegetation, as shown in Picture 7, on a trail that was clay and gravel and STEEP! It would have been nasty in the rain. Our first stop was Pitt Head, where we took pictures 8 and 9. Picture 8 actually shows Anchorage, where we landed, while picture 9 looks north, up the coast, deeper into the park. As you can see, we had a dry, but gloomy day, which was good for hiking, but not so good for pictures.

After much up and down, we arrived at the beach in picture 10 for a picnic lunch, before heading back through the woods to Anchorage.

On to Australia! We’re currently on a 3-day sail across the Tasman Sea, which is notoriously rough. Fortunately, it’s smooth today, but we expect rougher seas tonight.

Auckland and Tauranga

We’re across the Pacific and enjoying New Zealand for a few days. As we expected, weather has cooled, although I doubt our friends and family will feel too sorry for us. We’re experiencing low 70s with a lot of wind.

Our first stop was Auckland and we chose to figure out public buses and go to the Auckland Museum. What a treat! They had some really interesting sections, such as a special exhibit celebrating the 60^th anniversary of Hillary’s conquest of Everest and the sections on WWII, volcanoes and natural history. But they’re best known for their Maori collections.

The Maoris’ arrived in New Zealand as part of the great Polynesian migration, probably from the Cook Islands.  You can imagine their arrival—it’s cold, they don’t have adequate clothing and their seeds don’t grow in a temperate climate. They were a belligerent bunch and promptly murdered several of the first European’s  (Abel Tasman) crew. They were kinder when the ubiquitous Captain James Cook arrived 100 years later. They also warred constantly among themselves and spent a good deal of energy warring with the Brits, who, as you can imagine, did not deal quite fairly with regards to land.

Pictures 1 and 2 show details of a Maori Marae, or meetinghouse. The carvings were spectacular and covered the entire interior of the building. Many carvings show warriors with their tongues out, like the close-ups in Picture 3. We were told they did this to intimidate their enemies. Now we know what Miley Cyrus is doing…. Picture 4 is a not-great picture of a Maori canoe—not great because there was no way we could get a picture of the whole thing. It’s 50 meters long and carried 100 warriors, who rowed on their knees. The canoe is designed to slope to the center, where one non-rower bailed with a bucket!

Picture 5 shows us leaving Auckland—beautiful city, beautiful day!

Our second stop was Tauranga, which is becoming a large shipping port that rivals Auckland. This part of the North Island is known for its geothermal activity. The most famous spot is Rororua, which we have visited before. So we decided to go to Hell’s Gate, which is also known for its geothermal activity and was named by George Bernard Shaw when he visited the Maoris’. The quote is something like “Egads! This looks like the gates of hell!”

Hell’s Gate sits over a magma spike that is only 2.5 km below the surface of the earth—that’s really close! It was held in check by a large lake that covered the area to a depth of about 100 feet. Suddenly the natural dike that held the lake back broke 10,000 years ago and the entire lake flowed into the Pacific Ocean. Without the weight of the water, extensive explosions occurred and opened all these geothermal areas.

Pictures 6 and 7 show views across some of the geothermal pools. Temperatures range from approximately 40-120 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Celsius is the boiling point).  Picture 8 shows a close-up of one of the mud pools, bubbling away. Picture 9 shows a fumarole, which is that black hole in the middle, where steam escapes from below the surface.  The yellow substance on the rocks is sulfur, which escapes through the fumarole as gas and solidifies when it meets the air. We saw one area similar to this that was all black instead of yellow and our guide told us that this was the result of fire. Spontaneous combustion occurs when solid sulfur reaches a temperature of approximately 120 degrees C. Who knew?????

All the geothermal activity creates a lush plant environment near the openings. Picture 10 shows a group of Ponga (fern) trees.

Following our morning hiking through all the geothermal stuff, we retired to a catamaran on nearby Lake Rotoiti for lunch and a sail. It lacked the extreme scenery of the morning, but was lovely, as you can see in Picture 11.

On our way back to the boat we drove through the agricultural heartland of the North Island and saw how kiwis grow, as shown in Picture 12. They grow on vines that are trained up, as shown. When long enough, the vines are laid on trellises and look much like grape vines.

Another great day in the country where there are more sheep and cows than people! By the way, with the declining price of wool, there are more cows than sheep. On to Wellington and Nelson….

Tahiti, Moorea and Bora Bora

Delays in posting…. The joys of being in the Carnival "family" (along with Cunard, Princess and Holland America)…. We have been without Internet and phone for 3+ days. Carnival just selected a "family-wide" satellite provider and it didn't work. 20+ ships lost all communications. Practically a mutiny onboard! But it's now working, although slowly…. Sometimes we wish for dial-up days….

In many ways, Tahiti, Moorea and Bora Bora make you sad: tourism has dwindled, many hotels have closed, unemployment is high and everyone lives for the occasional cruise ship to stop by. I guess there are too many other places to visit that are more accessible—although we understand the Italians flock here from April through the summer.

These 3 islands are breathtakingly beautiful, however. Everywhere you turn you see  mountains, the reef and the beautiful blue water.

Captain James Cook came here twice (he seems to have been everywhere in the south Pacific!).  His journals reflect his concern about the unrestrained sexuality of the islands. Obviously, the crew of HMS Bounty agreed because they mutinied against Captain Bligh when he told them to weigh anchor in 1788. With foreigners came diseases, rats, mosquitoes, etc. But today’s islanders think the worst import was the missionaries. They forbade dancing, singing, tattoos, and nudity—essentially obliterating the culture. Today, the islanders are trying to reclaim that culture by reviving some of the original dances, songs and stories of their ancestors.

Tahiti, like Maui in Hawaii, is shaped like a fish. We spent our time driving around the fish’s “body”. The reef still encircles the western side of the island, but not so much on the east. The beaches are black sand, but not particularly wide. Where there is a reef, however, the shallow water goes clear out to the reef and snorkeling is popular inside the reef.

We had lunch in Le Coco’s Restaurant in Fa’a’a, west of Papeete. The food was spectacular and the view even better. Picture 1 shows the view at lunch with waves breaking across the reef in the distance and the island of Moorea in the far distance.

Picture 2 is a bloom from the Tower Ginger at Vaipahi Gardens. We’ve seen an amazing number of different ginger plants, but we’ve been told that only one is edible and another is used for skin products. All others are toxic.

Picture 3 shows the waterfalls at Fa’auruma’I (by the way, you pronounce every letter—even multiple vowels in a row).  In addition to the main falls shown here, the wall seemed to be “weeping” waterfalls—everywhere.

Picture 4 shows the beach at Venus Point, which is where all of the early explorers landed, including the English and French, who both claimed ownership. At the park at Venus Point you’ll also find a beautiful old lighthouse that is 110 feet tall and was built in 1867 and shown in picture 5.

In Moorea we joggled our way around the island in a 4 X 4. Our first stop was a ride and then a climb to the top of Magic Mountain.  The next three pictures were taken from the top.  Moorea is entirely encircled by a reef, with 13 natural opening. Picture 6 shows one of these natural openings. Picture 7 shows the contrast between inside and outside the reef. Inside the reef, the water is shallow (max 3 meters); outside the reef, the ocean floor immediately drops 1000 meters. Picture 8 shows the hiking path to the top of Magic Mountain and the view toward the interior of the island. 

We then drove part way up Mt. Tohiea to The Belvedere for the great view shown in

Picture 9. The mountain in the middle, Mt. Rotui, is the remains of the original volcano, which formed the island. Originally there was a perfect circle of land around that mountain, but millennia ago the walls of the island toward the sea fell into the sea, leaving the central cone of the volcano and allowing seawater to form 2 beautiful bays on wither side of that cone. To the right is Cooks Bay, where our ship is anchored. To the left is Opunohu Bay. Opunohu means Belly of the Rock Fish and is considered sacred. So even though Captain Cook landed in that bay, they couldn’t change the name of something sacred, so they named the other bay after him.

You might recognize the mountain shown in Picture 10. It’s the mountain on the fictional island, Bali Hai, in the movie South Pacific.

Even though the tourism industry has been hit hard, there are still 4 large resorts on the island, where cottages over the water began. Picture 11 shows the Sofitel Resort with its cottages over the water. In the background you can see the reef and, in the distance, Tahiti.

The third island we visited was Bora Bora and we were able to check an item off the bucket list—we snorkeled in the Bora Bora lagoon. Pictures 12 and 13 show the larger critters we saw: stingrays and black-tipped reef sharks (who are up to 3 feet long and don’t find people tasty). We saw these guys from the boat that took us to the island we snorkeled from. Picture 14 shows our launching spot. The lagoon was significantly damaged a few years ago by a cyclone and the coral is just beginning to recover. We saw a number of smaller fish around the coral that is regenerating and a lovely clam with iridescent filaments around its mouth. Note to self: an underwater camera might be fun….

Bora Bora is one of the older islands. As such the central mountain is sinking into the ocean (and getting worn away be erosion), while the coral reef surrounding the island is rising and is actually developing into islands itself. Picture 15 shows a view of the entire island as we sailed away. And picture 16 shows the spectacular sunset that followed.