As we travel up the eastern coast of Australia, we parallel the Great Barrier Reef.  This is the largest coral reef system in the world.  Townsville is a very nice city overlooked by Castle Hill.  Our tour took us up to the top of this hill, but the fog and a sudden rain shower limited…

Today’s excursion is “Discover The Blue Mountains”. The Blue Mountains are a range of mountains that begin about 30 miles west of Sydney.  The name Blue Mountains is derived from the blue tinge the range takes on when viewed from a distance. Due to their rugged nature it took many years before early settlers found…

Before we move on to Australia, I’d like to say that I was very impressed with New Zealand.  The people and country felt “young”.  If I were to consider moving to another country, New Zealand would be the first place.   After we left Picton, we sailed across the Tasman Sea for two days.  This…

Our fourth port in New Zealand was at the small town of Picton.   We boarded a bus and drove about 40 minutes to the wine vineyards for our excursion, The Wines of Marlborough.  New Zealand has become an important wine producing country.  Grape growing and wine making in New Zealand only began in the…

Ok…get out your NoDoze because this is going to be a long one! Let me backup a few days.  Since we left South America we’ve had Polynesian cultural ambassadors on board.  They taught classes in dancing, crafts such as necklace and bracelet making, and, taught Ukulele classes. They were scheduled to leave upon the ship…

Tauranga, according to our bus driver/tour guide, is like Auckland with the volume turned down several notches.  The area around the port is resort-like with good surfing, lovely beaches, shops, restaurants, and a relaxed atmosphere. The port itself is the largest and most efficient in the Southern Hemisphere.  The claim to fame of greatest interest…

We have four ports to visit in New Zealand.  The first of these is Auckland.  On this tour, the tour guide was also the bus driver, so as we traveled down the left side of the road, we had commentary about the driving skills of the other drivers as well as the points of interest…

After we left Bora Bora we sailed Southwest towards Tonga.   According to the calendar we sailed for four days but it really was only three as we crossed the International Dateline before we reached Tonga.  We went to bed on February 19th and awoke on February 21st. The Kingdom of Tonga is comprised of…

We left Papeete at 4:30 in the morning for a short couple of hours trip to Mo’orea.  Unfortunately the storms were still in the area causing large ocean swells and the Captain decided to bypass Mo’orea and go on to Bora Bora.  Since Mo’orea has no natural or man made breakwater, it would have been…

Two days after leaving Pitcairn Island we reached a very cloudy and subsequently rainy Papeete on Saturday morning. Papeete is a somewhat modern city.  We’d planned on doing a bit of shopping after our excursion today but found out that all the stores close at 1:00 pm on Saturday and don’t reopen until Monday!  So…