Fremantle – February 25 & 26

Fremantle – February 25 & 26

We were in Fremantle (Freo, as the locals call it) overnight so we all assumed that we would have 2 days; one for Fremantle and one for Perth. It didn't actually work that way – we docked about 4:00 pm on the 25^th and left at 3:30 pm on the 26^th so it really was just a day. A lot of people got off immediately when they cleared the ship, but we decided to skip taking the train into Perth and explore Fremantle the next day.

We were up early Tuesday morning and off the ship about 9:15 – that's early for us [smile]. We took the trolly from the port to the city center. First stop was a haircut for Jim – he loved the real barber shop with old fashioned barber chairs. He said he couldn't remember the last time he had a barber cut his hair. Then we just headed off walking down one street and up the next. Great old buildings! They must have good preservation regulations. There was a huge Victorian painted lady style house I wanted to bring home... just my kind of house. We stopped at a little cafe in the Esplanade Park and had a coffee and then continued the wandering. I did get three small stuffed animals; koala, kangaroo and a wombat. They can live on the little table outside my office with the penguins from Antarctica; I figure those guys needed some new friends. We beat the mad rush back to the ship and even had time to get q quick bite of lunch before the buffet closed. Then we just sat out on the balcony until we had sailed out of port, then the sun started coming in our side of the ship... to bright and hot for me so I came in and doodled a bit.

I really enjoyed Fremantle, but I have to admit that I'm glad it is our last port in Australia. We are now headed to Bali and I'm looking forward to some more exotic ports.

Albany, Australia – February 24

Albany, Australia – February 24

When we woke up we were already passing some islands as we entered the short passageway into the Albany harbor so Jim quickly ordered our coffee and we watched our arrival into port – we both enjoy watching entering and leaving all the ports. We were welcomed into port by a lone piper – it sounded so great! (I'll try to add a pic later) Since this is Sunday, we decided to wait until 10:30 to take the shuttle into town. So... at 10:30 we got off the ship and walked across the small parking lot to wait for the shuttle... the sky is getting darker and darker with clouds. The shuttle gets here and it's the small one – naturally, it's full just as I get to the door so we need to wait for the next one. They are running every 10 or 15 minutes so it's not that much of a problem except it starts to rain. No, we hadn't brought umbrellas so we decided to head back to the ship, eat lunch and then see if the rain stops. As much as I really wanted to see this town with it's old buildings, walking around in the rain does not sound like fun. It's almost 2:00 now and while it did stop raining for a little while, it's drizzling again. Since all-aboard is 4:00 we won't be going now. Tomorrow we arrive in Perth for an overnight stay – hopefully we have better luck there.

Kangaroo Island and 2 Sea Days – February 23

Kangaroo Island and 2 Sea Days – February 23

I was afraid I'd made a bad mistake when I didn't book a tour on Kangaroo Island because I thought they were too expensive but it was ok. There was nothing to do if you didn't have a tour so we just stayed on the ship... not a problem for us. The people on the tours said they were ok but mostly just riding through the countryside. They did see some kangaroos in the wild, but all the other animals are nocturnal so you could only see them if you stayed through the night. Most of the island is a National Park and it seems to be very popular as we saw several big ferries come and go through the day.

Friday night was our World Cruise dinner hosted by the Captain. All full world cruise passengers are invited to one and they are all on formal nights so there have been quite a few before ours. It was very nice with cocktails in the Culinary Arts Center and then dinner in the Pinnacle. There were about 80 people at our dinner so the restaurant was closed for regular bookings. Our table was hosted by the Chief Engineer we were seated with only one other couple so we had a great time talking together for the whole dinner. By the time we were back at the cabin it was nearly 9:00 so I hit the bed for a little reading and Jim decided to go to the casino to play a little poker... he was back quickly enough that I knew it hadn't been a good night there... I didn't ask.    :-)

Saturday was another sea day and I went to one of the lectures and spent some time out and about talking with new friends and the rest of the day was kicked back reading. It's a rough life, but someone has to do it.

Adelaide – February 20

Adelaide – February 20

I realized a few days ago that I'd lost my sunglasses in Sydney. They weren't prescription glasses, but I'd had them for about 10 years and loved them; we even ordered new lenses for them 4 years ago. I have a hard time getting glasses that fit well enough that they don't fall off if I look down. This meant my mission for Adelaide was new sunglasses. I tried on a number of pairs off the racks and gave up and went to a specialty sunglasses store. I finally found a pair of Oakleys that fit so I am all set... but still not happy I lost the old ones!

We were welcomed into port by an Aussie trio and the port terminal volunteers. I always enjoy coming into the ports that make a big deal of the ship's arrival. I don't know if they welcome all ships this way or if it was special for the WC, but it was great! We were lucky that we docked to the port side here as they sang a bunch of songs and did a bunch of silly dances... much fun! All the passengers were outside on the balconies and probably on the promenade deck too.

Adelaide reminds me much of Denver or some of the other nearby cities. It is a mixture of old and new buildings. The older buildings were built in the late 1800's which makes them the same timeperiod and styles as those in Colorado. It would be a good city to spend some time in and around with a car so you could visit the many different neighborhoods and parks. Since the ship shuttle took us directly to the Rundle Shopping Mall in the downtown area there wasn't a lot we could explore without booking a taxi – we debated and decided to get a bite to eat and then shuttle back to the ship.

There was an Aussie BBQ on the pool deck for dinner with the same band that welcomed us into port this morning. A very enjoyable couple hours... and some good food too.

Since I didn't take my camera into town today I don't have any other pics to post except the one of the greeting for the ship when we arrived.

Two more photos from Hobart

I thought these were too cute so they had to get added to the blog.  The koala needs no caption except 'aaah so cute'  and for the kangaroo ' I think it's just about time for this joey to stop trying to get in the pouch!'

Hobart, Tasmania - Feb 18

Hobart, Tasmania - Feb 18

Hobart is quite a large city – about 500,000 people and very spread out. We were already well up the channel to the port when we woke up and there were lights and houses all along the shore all the way. We had a morning tour to the Bonorong wildlife sanctuary so we were dressed and out of the cabin in pretty good time compared to our usual lazing around. The wildlife park was small, but nicely arranged with an easy circular pathway all the way through it. They had containers of food throughout the park so you could feed the kangaroos so that was the big draw. The kangaroos aren't dumb... they stand right in the middle of the path so you'll feed them but that blocks up the pathway for anyone behind and makes it impossible to get around. We finally got around the big groups of people at the beginning of the path and enjoyed seeing the other animals, many of them in nice fenced areas without cages so the photo ops would have been good except it was quite sunny and hot so most of them were hiding in their houses or deep in the bushes. I did really get a kick out of watching some of the kangaroos boxing in a rather distant enclosure – there was too much in the way to get any pics, but I loved watching them – either they were playing or perhaps it's mating time. After the wildlife park we went to the town of Richmond – one of the oldest towns in Australia. It was one of the original penal colonies. It had a lot of great old buildings but most are now tourist shops and restaurants so after walking around for a few minutes we decided to get coffee and an éclair at a cute bakery and then it was back to the ship via a different route. Tasmania is in the midst of a bad drought and it looked much like Colorado during our drought years; dry and brown. The fire danger was extreme and the whole area is under a complete fire ban. We saw several large burn areas from earlier this year. We sailed away at 4:00 so it was light enough to see everything as we sailed out the channel and into the sea on our way to Adelaide.

Sydney – February 15&16

Sydney – February 15&16

It was still quite dark as we approached Sydney but everyone was outside to see the arrival. It really is one of the great cities to see from the harbor. We had a full day Ensemble excursion shortly after our arrival. We had 33 people scheduled to go – 3 let us know ahead of time that they wouldn't be coming but we had 2 no-shows... I waited an extra 10 minutes for them, but then we headed off.

 

Our first stop was at a wildlife park – since I love to photograph the animals this was what I was really looking forward to but I didn't get many good pics. Most of the animals and birds were in cages that just didn't work for photos. Oh well, it was fun to see them anyway. I did get some cute shots of the koalas as they were out in an area so people could see them better. I especially liked the little fairy penguins. There were only three of them and the park lady said they were all getting quite old. But they were cute and we got to see them getting fed – they do like the little fish! We probably had too much time scheduled for the park, we were all back at the bus about 30 minutes early so our driver gave us a little extra tour of the city on our way to the Sky Tower where we had lunch. Fun lunch way up in the tower! It was buffet style, but really gourmet style food. I had emu, crocodile and kangaroo along with a bunch of other stuff – the desserts were wonderful. Most people agreed that this was the best stop of the day. After lunch we headed for the Opera House and had a private tour inside. We saw a short video of the history of the building and then visited several of the different theaters – then it was back to the ship... a very full 8 hours! I was tired, but my foot held up remarkably well so I think it's almost healed.

 

Today (Feb 16^th) I decided to stay onboard but Jim went out walking... The sky looked like it could rain so he took his jacket; it was a good thought as it started pouring about 30 minutes after he left – so he's back now dripping wet... I think we'll just kick back until we sail away at 5:00 this afternoon.

Random Thoughts

Random Thoughts

It's Valentine's Day; third sea day in a row. Tomorrow we dock in Sydney and a number of passengers will be disembarking. We will have our first Ensemble Experience excursion too. It's an all-day one including lunch in the tower. We were up early this morning to deliver the Valentines to all our passengers then we settled back for our usual morning routine of sipping coffee and reading... lazy, lazy, lazy.

I thought this would be a good time to include some of our random thoughts about the cruise.

• I'd say that a good 75% of the passengers are 4-star (200 days at sea) Mariners or above which gives you free laundry service, discounts in the shops, discounted Pinnacle Grill, discounted wine packages and a bunch of other stuff. Few of them seem to be big drinkers either so you have to wonder where Holland America makes any money on this cruise. The fare, if you look at a per diem, is considerably less than for 7 or 14 day cruises too.

• Our stewards Gusti and Komang are great; they have kept our cabin in perfect shape and figured out our odd schedule and hit it perfectly almost every day. They have a huge number of cabins to take care of and yet they are always happy and cheerful to the passengers.

• I've heard from other passengers that there has been a lot of theft on this cruise – not from the cabins but in the public areas. It seems that iPads and iPods are disappearing when people turn their backs for a few minutes. Sad – if you can afford to take one of these cruises why would you need to steal stuff. I've also heard that the salt & pepper grinders in the lido are hot items to take... I'll keep a closer eye on anything I take out in the public areas... but that's not much as I do most of my computer stuff in the cabin and we do most of our reading here too.

• The speakers have been pretty good, but I'm surprised that there is so much topic duplication. I enjoyed the speakers that talked on the earth's tectonic plates and earthquakes, etc and the one that talked about WWII in the Pacific, but now we have new speakers onboard that are talking on the same subjects... I didn't like the topics well enough to hear them again.

• Where are the flying fish? We usually see them all over the world except in the very coldest waters. This trip we've seen very few anywhere – maybe there will be more now that we are heading north again.

• While the food is good, but I think the overall quality is down a little from past cruises – we are hearing the same from other people.

• Cookies... the first two days on board there were some oatmeal cookies to die for! That cookie baker must have left the ship in FLL because none of the cookies since then have been anywhere close to that good. We like to bring a couple cookies back to the cabin for emergency munching and I'd kill to get some of those good ones again!

• MS Amsterdam is a flagship for Holland America and you can tell the difference – it's slight, but the décor is slightly better than the other ships. The cruiselines spend just a bit more on their flagships and you can tell the difference.

Picton, NZ – February 11

Picton, NZ – February 11

Picton is a cute little resort town surrounded by mountains and water at the head of Queen Charlotte Sound. The town itself is much like resort towns anywhere it's the surrounding area that makes it special. It is served by several very large ferries that were filled with people, motorhomes and regular cars and trucks. The waterway in and out is as beautiful as any of the fjords we've ever seen – 20 miles of mountains coming down to the sea, islands and hundreds of little fingers leading off in all directions. It's easy to understand why it's so popular. I'd love to come visit and explore it by boat for a couple weeks.

We were visited by a bunch of dolphins both on our way in and again on the way out. There were at least a hundred of them and the water was so clear you could see them swimming along the side of the ship.  In the last shot here I happened to capture three mothers with their babies all jumping at the same time.

We start the trip across the Tasman Sea tonight as we head up to Sydney. Our last trip through here in 2009 was some of the worst seas we've ever had – nearly as bad as crossing the Drake. This time it is predicted to be much better.

Wellington, NZ - February 10

Wellington, NZ - February 10

Wellington is the capitol of New Zealand and a large city – about 450,000 in the whole metro area. We had decided to take a tour through the mountains and out to the seal coast instead of seeing the city. It looked like it would have been fun to see but that will have to wait until next time. 

 

Our tour started right after lunch and we were lucky to have only 4 people in the back of our 8 passenger range rover so we had plenty of room. There was one other vehicle with 6 people so it was a small group. (I've found afternoon tours to usually be much less crowded) Gorgeous country! We traveled for a good hour through the mountains on a very narrow and twisty dirt road and then came down to the coast and went along the sand for quite a distance. We stopped at an area of jagged rocks with the Leaning Lighthouse in the distance – great pics!

There were only a few seals sunning on the rocks, but one of them put on a great show for our cameras! He preened and stretched and waved his flippers – ok, maybe there were only a couple of us that really got a kick out him but I loved him! Our guide brewed some tea for us and we had some fresh muffins and then it was time to head back through the hills. We saw some deer and a couple ostriches came right up to the fence along the roadway to see us; they were all quite domesticated and were saying 'feed me'. But we didn't.

I was very proud of myself that I managed to do the tour without killing myself [grin]. My foot held up remarkably well, but I was ready to be off of it when we got back to the ship.

Napier, NZ – February 9

Napier, NZ – February 9

We again woke up in time to watch our approach to Napier. The entrance into the harbor and the harbor itself are very small and there were already three freighters docked so it was a very tight turn into our spot. Of course, it went just fine and we were actually a bit early. My foot is pretty stiff so I decided to skip going into town and spend the day doing some of the Host stuff to get ready for Valentine's day and then relax. (since I'm writing this on the 10^th, I can add that my foot feels much better today!)

It was a beautiful day and after getting the Valentine's cards and candy ready I spent some time on the balcony watching the ships being loaded with lumber. That seems to be the main export here, huge amount of logs stacked on all the docks and being loaded into ships. Our guide yesterday said most of it goes to Japan. We drove through some logging areas on that trip and she showed us their process of clear cutting, and then stripping the branches. The slash stays on the ground for 6 months and then they burn the area – then they replant. It takes 19 years from replanting to the next harvest. That's pretty fast.

Tauranga, NZ - February 8

Tauranga, NZ - February 8

We woke up this morning just in time to watch our entry through the reef and into the harbor in the Bay of Plenty. Hapag Lloyd's Europa is already docked (they were in Auckland with us too) so we spin around and dock with our stern to theirs. We had nothing planned here except to wander around the town for a while, but Jim went down to the information center and said they had some interesting tours. We ended up booking an all-day tour in a semi-private car with one other couple which would take us through the countryside to Rotorura for a visit to a Maori village and the thermal springs. It was a great trip, we thoroughly enjoyed the other couple; they had just boarded in Auckland so this was their first tour of the trip and our guide, Carolyn was good too..

We traveled through several small towns and much agricultural area – mostly growing kiwi now, but a lot of cattle too. Where are the sheep?? We had a quick stop at a kiwi place to see how it is grown (much like grapes) and tasted several different kinds of kiwi, slices, juice and wine... all good, but I've always liked kiwi.

When we arrived at Te Puia we did a quick walk through the old village that showed how the Maori lived a century ago and then went to a cultural performance. The meeting place is called Te Whakarewarewatanga o te ope taua a Wahiao.  It was interesting and the singing was excellent. After that we walked to the Geysers and Ngamokaiakoko mudpools areas which was what I was most interested to see. It's not a huge area, but there are several geysers, one shooting about 90 feet up, so it's pretty impressive; it continued to discharge the whole time we were there. There are hundreds (thousands?) of small vents throughout the area that steam and you can hear the gurgling down inside. I probably liked the mud pot area best and had a lot of fun trying to capture some of the mud blurps with the camera.

We took a different route back to the ship so we saw even more of the countryside and had a stop for lunch at a small restaurant overlooking a lake – altogether a great day. My foot is a bit sore, but I made it! After a quick shower to get rid of the sulfur smell I decided it would be a good idea to get off of it for the rest of the evening... so I mostly read. A little before 9:00 we passed an active volcano on our port side but it was really getting dark so it was difficult to see much, but you could see the puffs of smoke/steam coming out of it. That was all for my day... I was asleep shortly after 9:00.

Auckland - February 5-7

Auckland, February 5-7

I love Auckland--- It's such a great city to visit by ship as the ships dock right at the heart of the city. You just walk off the ship, cross the street and you are in the city. It is a great mix of historic buildings and new ones like the shot, at the bottom of this post, of the waterfront taken from our balcony.

Yesterday we just walked around the city for a few hours and didn't do anything special. We walked over to the sky tower, but didn't go up since we had done it last time. After about three hours we headed back downhill to the ship. My ankle held up remarkably well!

This morning we were going to go to the Kelly Tarlton Aquarium but exchanging money took considerably longer than we had figured and we missed the free transport bus – the next one wouldn't come for an hour and when we figured our time we wouldn't have but a couple hours at the aquarium because we have an early 'all aboard' this afternoon so we went to the city center shopping center and picked up a few things we needed (potato chips were at the top of my list).

We've had beautiful weather here, but the clouds are building up right now so we may get rain this afternoon. Holland America is requiring all passengers to attend the emergency drill this afternoon instead of just the new people. I've heard that we had 84 that got off and about 100 new passengers get on here.

Superbowl Monday

Superbowl Monday – February 4

We crossed the international dateline on Friday night so we had no Saturday. That, of course, means we get the Superbowl on Monday instead of Sunday. It starts at 1:30 and they will be showing it in the Queen's Lounge (the showroom). I have to admit this is a 'just don't really care' game for me but I'll go down and watch a bit anyway; maybe there will be some good football munchies. My biggest decision today was whether to wear a purple t-shirt for Baltimore or a red sweater for San Francisco – the red won mostly because I have several friends in that area so I'll go for their team.

The last few days have been regular sea days with nothing much of interest to talk about. I've read several books and spent time doodling and watching the sea go by. I think this is the longest stretch of sea days we've ever had on a cruise, but maybe it just seems that way to me because I missed the stops in French Polynesia because of my ankle. It's much better now and I'm looking forward to Auckland in a couple days. We will be there for several days and then have about 6 more ports in a row before we head to Sydney.