Sydney 28th and 29th February

Opera House at Dawn

Our first view of the Bridge

We woke up at about 6.30 to see Sydney Opera House inching past our window as the Captain manoeuvred the ship into dock, so we rushed up to the deck and got some pictures of the Opera House and Bridge in the dawn.  Our dock must be the best location in town with great views to rival those of any of the hotels and centrally located for shopping and attractions. 

Sydney is huge  with around 4.5 million people, it is centred around two Quays – the Circular Quay where we docked which is the hub for all of the ferries and leads into the centre of town and Darling Harbour which is home to the Aquarium, Museums and Exhibition Centres.  Behind our ship are the original wharf buildings which have been regenerated as in London docklands, and the oldest house in Sydney (maybe in Australia) dating to 1816 (first settlers came in 1788) – plus a statue of Captain Bligh (of Mutiny on the Bounty) who was governor of New South Wales – presumably after he recovered from the mutiny.  The outskirts are not so attractive and ressemble some of the more run-down suburbs of London or Brimingham – it also seems to suffer from traffic problems as we discovered when we went on a trip.

Manly Beach

As soon as we could we left the ship to take a 30 minute ferry ride to Manly beach.  We had been told that the ride would give us a great view of the harbour (which it did) and that Manly was just as good as Bondi – don’t know if that is true as we didn’t have time to see Bondi as well, but the locals said it is.  The sea looked so inviting that we had to go in several times – would have loved to be able to surf as it looked great fun and the sea was actually warm.  It was a very hot day – about 30 C.  We returned from the ferry and went for a close-up look at the Opera House which really is amazing – it was finished in 1973 having taken 14 years to complete (instead of the promised 6) and cost 102 million dollars instead of 7.  The main problem seems to be that although Jorn Utson came up with a super design neither he nor anyone else actually knew how to build the roof.  He worked it out eventually but later left the project due to forced cost cutting on the design of the interior – he died in 2008 having never returned to Sydney, but his son has recently been employed to try to redevelop some of the interiors to his original design.

Following that we walked into the town centre and then explored the old part behind the ship, called The Rocks.  There are still lots of old buildings dotted around  the town dating from around 1840 – some are still used as hotels,  and have been refurbished keeping the old style.  We also did a circuit on the monorail which weaves in and out of the buildings.  In the evening all of the world cruise passengers were treated to a posh dinner in the Town Hall – an impressive Victorian building which houses one of the biggest organs I have seen.  It was a super dinner, we were treated to a short organ recital and then speeches from the head of Cunard and the captain – they put a lot of effort into trying to make their guests feel special, and it seems to work as so many people keep coming back!  Anyway the food and drink were good and we did a bit of dancing and really enjoyed ourselves.

We stayed overnight in Sydney and had booked a trip to the Blue Mountains for the next day.  This is marked in a book at home as one of the hundred places to see before you die!  Unfortunately it bucketed down with rain all day and we didn’t see the Mountains at all, though we did descend on the world’s steepest railway into the rainforest in the valley  - I suppose it was atmospheric to see it in the rain but not really much fun!  We returned by cable car but again it was too misty to see anything.  The highlight of the day was the small wildlife sanctuary we visited on the way there where we could get up close to some of the indigenous animals – lots of koalas and kangaroos and wallabies of all kinds were wandering around. 

Let’s hope the rain stops when we reach Brisbane in two days time!

Melbourne Sunday 26th February

After the rough Tasman seas, the final run into Melbourne was relatively calm as we passed Tasmania and several smaller islands.  We were delighted to see thousands of sea birds feeding off large shoals of small fish – presumably those in turn had been forced up to the surface by large predators underneath.  We had been disappointed that the Pacific seemed rather empty up to now.  In the evening the second officer gave us stargazing seminar and it was wonderful to be able to see the southern sky with no light pollution.  I now know how to find due south if I ever get lost down here!

Melbourne is a super city – it is the capital of the State of Victoria and Australia’s second largest city with more than 3.5 million people.  It was founded 50 years after Sydney, in 1835 but boasts that its settlers were free men whereas the early Sydney settlers were from penal colonies!  We were delighted that my friend Heather flew over from Tasmania to spend the day with us   and we were joined for lunch by her daughter Holly who lives in Melbourne.

We started the day with a tram ride from the ship right into the centre of town then went up the Sky Deck tower to get a view of the city – it stretches over a large flat plain and has a lot of coastline with some super looking beaches.  After that we wandered along the Yarra river which has been developed with a lot of restaurants and bars, passed the big old Flinders Street Station and headed to Fitzroy Gardens, which, in addition to a superb Avenue of Elm trees (remember those?) houses Captain Cook’s Cottage.  We thought that was where he lived after he discovered Australia and before he got murdered in Hawaii, but actually it was brought over from England and is the cottage in which he was born – very sweet and very tiny.  They have made a creditable English country garden around it with lots of shady trees, just as well because it was a very hot day.

Bridge over Yarra River

Captain Cook and Friends

We headed to a local pub and had a roast dinner and quite a few beers before taking the tram back.  We still have lots of Melbourne to see but hope to come back another year on our way to Tasmania to see Heather!

Dunedin February 23rd

Olvesten House

This was our most southerly stop  and the weather didn’t disappoint us with a show reminiscent of Edinburgh after which the city is named -  torrential rain all day and 14C.  Actually it was quite atmospheric but curtailed our photograph opportunities.  The coastline on the way in looked beautiful with rolling hills coming right down to the coast and just room of a narrow coast road.

The first Scottish settlers arrived at Dunedin (an old Gaelic name for  Edinburgh) in 1848 and it flourished in the goldrush of 1861 (which petered out by 1881)  -  the town’s Octagon was modelled on the one in Edinburgh –  it does have a lot of impressive public buildings and private houses and a superb railway station.  We only had about 4 hours here and in view of the weather we opted for two tours.

The first was to Olvesten House, a magnificent Edwardian mansion built in 1906 for a wealthy family and willed to the town complete with all its beautiful antique contents.  A lot of the fittings and furnishings had been shipped over from England, including the stained glass windows, staircase and tiles,  and it contained lots of innovative features such as heated towel rails, internal telephones and some of the earliest electric fires – which I’m sure were needed in the winter.

Following that we had a tour of Speight’s Brewery – the most popular beer in New Zealand – finishing with a half-hour tasting where we had free access to the pumps for their six brews – they certainly tasted good, but maybe that’s because they hadn’t had to travel anywhere or we didn’t have to pay for them?

As we sailed away, still in torrential rain, we kept a hopeful lookout for the Albatrosses which have their nest sites in the area but we didn’t see any though some passengers said they did.

We are now (Friday) experience the tumultuous Tasman sea on the way to Melbourne – apparently it is normally rough as the Roaring 40s winds blow round the world at this latitude.

Wellington Wednesday 22nd February

The Cable Car

 

Not apparently as large or as culturally diverse and ‘touristy’ as Auckland, Wellington is an attractive little city stretching along the seafront on a narrow plain with the suburbs stretching up into the hills.  Like Auckland it has lots of British-style architecture though the houses are made of wood not brick.  It houses the Government having taken over as the  capital in 1865  - it is listed as being an important port and major industrial and transport centre.

We started the rather rainy day with a local bus trip through Victoria Mountain tunnel to  visit Weta Cave.  This is not a cave but a small museum and showcase for the WETA company (founded by Peter Jackson amongst others)  which built the animations for some superb films – their first large success was Lord of the Rings and they have also worked on Avatar, TinTin, Planet of the Apes, King Kong, District 9 and lots of others.  We watched a fascinating DVD showing some of their work and interviews with staff – it looks like a wonderful place to work with so much creative talent gathered together (design, model making, engineering, computer animations etc.).  I bought a book showing all of the locations used in Lord of the Rings – many of these are around Wellington, wish I had time to take the tour!

In the Weta Cave

Our next stop was the Te Papa National Museum of New Zealand on the waterfront where we visited the section on Maori life and traditions – they even have a full-size carved Maori meeting house created for them by a modern-day Maori craftsman.  We also answered my question about bird species and yes, the blackbirds, sparrows etc plus various mammals were imported from Britain ‘to make the immigrants feel more at home’ and possibly to replace the huge amounts of indigenous wildlife which were lost in the deforestation which made way for all the sheep pasture (around 90% of the original forest in NZ has been removed since the late 19^th century).

By this time the rain had stopped and we took the historic town cable car up the hills to the Botanic Garden.   The garden itself was lovely with lots of huge trees and plants and the view from the observation deck were worth seeing.  A couple, Jean and John,  offered to take our photograph and it turned out that they live near us and are friends of our friends Joy and Barry in Knebworth – a nice coincidence.

We found a nice pub in which to have a farewell beer but were rather shocked by the price – round about 8 pounds for a pint of Stella!  That was all the money we had left but luckily there was a nice free Cunard shuttle bus waiting to take us back to the ship.  Next stop Dunedin on 24^th.

Auckland New Zealand

What a super city! We have spent the day walking and exploring and on the way back to the ship we have found a bar called Andrew Andrew which has a happy hour and free WiFi - hence the early post.Will complete when back on ship.

This is New Zealand’s largest city with 1 million population, and it was the capital from 1840 to 1865.  It comprises a number of volcanic cones and was settled by the Maori tribes from 1350.  You will be pleased to know that after years of Land Wars following the take-over by British settlers  everyone now lives in harmony and since 1985 the Maoris  have even been able to “buy land and invest in education”.  Very generous to allow them to buy their own land back!

It is certainly a beautiful city – we started the day with a short ferry ride to Devonport which is a small Victorian seaside town  – I immediately wanted to buy one of the superb houses overlooking the sea and move there – but would have need a million pounds to do so – a local told me that there are far more beautiful spots which is no doubt an indication of how lovely New Zealand is.

We continued by following a walking route around the city.  It has some lovely old buildings dating to around 1900 and some impressive art nouveau and art deco.  Some of the older parts look just like  London suburbs but better kept.  There is  beautiful Albert Park in the centre with trees which pre-date the city and some large butterflies.  We were pleased to see sparrows, blackbirds and goldfinches but wondered whether they had been brought by early settlers or developed independently on two sides of the world?  We went up in the Sky Tower (1075 ft) and had fun watching the people who had paid over 100 pounds to jump off – they are conveniently dangled outside the viewing area before being lowered at an alarming rate to a small platform at ground level.

Dangling Man from Sky Tower

 A reminder that our favourite ever films - Lord of the Rings - were made in New Zealand - there was an exhibition in the Tower - wish we had time to visit all of the locations!

We were a bit disappointed at the lack of traditional pubs in the city but there was no shortage of cafes which served alcohol and we had lunch in one made out of the foyer of an old theatre.  We finished the day in the bar by the waterfront as mentioned

We are now at sea for a day and will arrive in Wellington on 22^nd. 

Fiji, 17th February

Beachcomber Island

After the empty Pacific Ocean on most of the journey from San Francisco it was great to see so many islands and reefs in the last 24 hours of the voyage – and amazing to think that they were all charted accurately over 100 years ago, it is really a minefield for navigation with lots of hidden reefs and small rocks pointing out all over the place!  This is Mutiny on the Bounty country and our captain had great admiration for  Captain Bligh who, having been put in a longboat with his loyal officers navigated 1000 miles through dangerous waters (both because of the rocks and the existence of cannibals on some of the islands) AND managed to produce a chart of the area whilst he went – apparently the Admiralty charts used today still quote him as the chartist!  I should have loved to visit Pitcairn Island where the mutineers settled but it is far too small for 2000 cruise ship passengers – also quite a way from Fiji.

We anchored outside Port Denarau which is a purpose-built resort on the end of Viti Levu, Fiji’s largest island.  It didn’t sound very interesting so we opted to take a day trip on a catamaran to Beachcomber Island which is a classic coral island about an hour’s sail away.  We spent the day on the beach swimming and snorkelling and also got taken out in a small boat so we could snorkel over the coral – we saw lots of colourful fish such as parrot fish and angel fish  but nothing large and luckily no sharks!  The day included a really good buffet lunch and local entertainment with singers and dancers – the best was the fire dancer who was able to put the flames on his bare feet and also seemed to set light to his clothes on occasion!

p.s.  We heard that one of our party nearly drowned on the island yesterday – he had his flippers on and  stood in some sort of quicksand in the sea – it came over his flippers and sucked him underwater and he couldn’t get out as the sand came up to his knees and the water over his head - luckily for him his wife saw it and called for help and apparently some people managed to pull him out.  He wasn’t breathing but someone must have known what to do and he recovered and was rushed back to our ship!  Makes me shudder to think of it!

pps - have just met the man in question and he said it is all true except it happened two years ago when he was on the Queen Victoria!

Pago Pago, American Samoa, 14th February

RainMaker Mountain behind the harbour

Pago Pago is on Tutuila, the largest of the seven islands which comprise American Samoa – the only US territory in the southern hemisphere.  Its neighbour Western Samoa used to belong to Germany but is now independent.  It’s not surprising that the US wanted this island as the magnificent natural harbour formed out of the volcano’s crater was ideal for their  navy.  The island has 200 inches of rainfall a year and when we arrived we thought we were going to experience lots of it but luckily it cleared up after a short time.  It gets a bit of a mixed write-up in the guide books  - mostly I think because there is a tuna canning factory in the harbour plus a big suburban area by the airport.  However we thought it was lovely and what we imagined a tropical island would be like – palm trees, secluded sandy beaches, really friendly people and lots of character with little local stores selling all sorts of things at reasonable prices (Keith even bought some boxing gloves!).

Alega Beach

Somerset Maugham was marooned here with measles and wrote a novel called Rain  (my history’s not v. good here but I would guess in the 1930s) which is apparently based on a real-life prostitute, called Sadie Thomson in the book, who came down from Honolulu and set up a brothel.  We had a drink in the Sadie Thomson bar which is supposed to be the location of her brothel.  In the book a priest sets out to reform her but she ‘reforms’ him instead – the ending is pure Hollywood where she gets drunk and is put unconscious on a ship to Australia – who knows if any of it is true, but it’s a good tale. 

After exploring the village of Pago Pago where we docked we got a local ‘bus’ to take us to Alega Beach (these are privately owned trucks, all decorated by hand and fitted out with wooden seats, they ply for trade around the island’s only main road and of course will take tourists anywhere for a price – not expensive compared to other places we have been ).  We chose this beach because it is advertised in the Lonely Planet as having Tisa’s Barefoot Bar – we weren’t disappointed as it is in idyllic spot.  The bar is all built out of driftwood – apparently by some New Zealanders who turned up a few years ago (who knows if they bought the land or just took it, but they now charge 2 dollars to go on the beach!).  It is obviously popular with the crews of ships who have donated signed flags  - a bit reminiscent of Ollie’s bar in Valetta where they all donate their hat bands.  Anyway there was a great party atmosphere and we had our first taste of home-made breadfruit crisps – v. tasty.

Finally we wandered round the market by the ship and bought a few souvenirs – great not to be hassled by anyone whilst we looked around.

One of the highlights for Keith was to see a huge tree full of fruit bats – they are about as big as crows – they were mostly roosting but every now and then a few would fly around before settling down again –  an amazing sight.  Picture shows him with local police - he says they were amazingly strong

Crossing the Equator 12th February

Kissing the Fish

We crossed the equator today at 11.24 am.  The ship organised a traditional ceremony for the Pollywogs (people who had not crossed before) to meet King Neptune and get permission to enter the southern seas and become “Shellbacks”.  As it involved kissing a dead fish and then having what looked like fish innards and blood  poured over you before jumping into an increasingly murky pool we were quite glad we had decided that as we had crossed the equator by air we didn’t have to take part – actually there is no way I would have kissed a dead fish!  It was fun to watch though – particularly at the end when the new crew got some particularly enthusiastic treatment and finally the captain jumped into the filthy pool in his immaculate white uniform!  Of course they then had to set to work and drain and clean the pool, I can imagine those sailors didn’t think the ceremony was so much fun!

Captain with King Neptune's Court

In the evening we won a prize (bottle of champagne, worth a fortune at shipboard prices!) for best-dressed couple at the Venetian masked ball!  Lots of people took photos of us but we don’t have one on our camera –  it was the same outfits we wore at a New Year’s Eve do a couple of years ago – the Madame Pompadour wig and Keith’s tricorn hat (both courtesy of ebay) clinched the victory!

We have now officially entered The Doldroms where the wind has died down and it is very hot – when we reach Pago Pago tomorrow the sun will be directly overhead at mid-day.

Honolulu, Hawaii 9th Feb

Honolulu Harbour

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After 4 days in huge Pacific seas we were pleased to wake up this morning to a calm sea as we sailed in to Honolulu.  This is the capital of Hawaii (the 50^th state of the US) but the island it is on is called Oahu – one of seven inhabited islands – there is actually an island called Hawaii.  These islands are incredibly remote and were apparently settled by travellers from Polynesia (the Fiji area) in about 500 AD – quite a feat to travel several thousands of miles by canoe even if they were big enough to hold over 100 people!  Hope they had better weather than we did!  Anyway Captain Cook arrived in 1778 and things started to change pretty rapidly.  After first welcoming him as a god the novelty wore off and when the islanders stole one of his small boats he was killed in a skirmish trying to get it back.  By this time King Kamehameha had got his hands on lots of nice European weapons and he promptly used them to subjugate all of the islands into one state – we visited the cliff where reputedly thousand of rebel warriors were forced to jump off!  Unfortunately for him the Europeans had brought disease and the population of the islands collapsed from anything up to 1 million to 50,000 by the end of the 19^th century.    The islands were annexed by the US in 1894 and finally became a state in 1959. 

Oahu, home of Pearl Harbour seems to be a huge US military base with attached holiday resorts – it has eight golf courses reserved for the military but also some famous beaches and quite spectacular mountain scenery.  We visited Pearl Harbour (built in the cone of a volcano) which is designated as a memorial for all the military personnel who died in the Japanese attack in 1941.  We were able to go on board a WW2 submarine called the Bow Fin and then we joined the tour to see the Arizona memorial – Arizona was one of the large warships which was sunk with over 1100 men on board when a bomb hit its ammunition supply – the remains, containing the bodies of the men can still be seen in the clear water and a sort of shrine has been built over the top of it which you get taken out to by navy launch – all very impressive and of course sad.  You can still sea oil seeping from the wreckage – estimated at 2 litres a day and another 50 years to go!

Following the history lesson and a tour of the island we visited the famous Waikiki beach.  Thre were lots of surfboards but no waves – the sea is amazingly shallow,perhaps that makes for better surfing when the waves come in?