Tuesday, January 22, 2008

The End of Vacation: Auckland

By the time we arrived in Auckland, Zack and I were "all vacationed out" as he put it. He was thinking about work again, and neither of us was sure that we really wanted our two extra days in the city. But there we were, so we tried not to waste them. Yet, somehow, we managed to leave without getting a single picture of the city. Sorry about that.
Our first morning in Auckland was filled with the process of getting off the ship, finding our hotel, and getting settled in there. Then we caught a cab back into town and did a self-guided walking tour of the downtown area, during which we managed to find the Victoria Market and do some last minute shopping. We had dinner at a Mexican Restaurant downtown (Zack was going through withdrawal) and then headed back to the hotel to call it an early night.
The next day we slept in. Our theory was that we'd be up before the crack of dawn the next day to catch a plane, and Zack was back at work the day after that, so it was our last chance to get a nice long sleep. Having accomplished this, we set out for the Domain: a park in downtown Auckland that contains lots of nice places to sit and read, and a museum that was supposed to be both free and excellent according to our guidebook. The park was quite lovely. We sat, read, fed some birds and then headed over to the museum. It turned out to be excellent, but not free. They had exhibits on the native Maoris, the history of New Zealand, animals, and an entire floor devoted to the wars in which the people of New Zealand have fought. It was very interesting stuff. By the time we left the museum, it was time to seek some dinner, so we wandered back into downtown, ate and then returned once again to the hotel to see if it was possible to make all our stuff fit into our suitcases.
The day after that, we were back on a plane heading into the Northern Hemisphere and life as usual. It was a great trip, but it was time to go home.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Days 12-14: White Island and Tauranga

The day after Wellington was our last full day on the ship. We sailed past a volcanic island. White Island was named by our friend Cook for it's tendency to be covered in white ash. It also smokes from time to time. This is what it looked like when we went by:

The next day was Taraunga. It turned out to be a little busy in the area on the day we arrived. They were hosting a half iron man, so several streets were blocked to make way for bikers and runners, and most of the locals were out cheering them on. Zack and decided to take a hike around this hill:

The trip took most of our morning and was beautiful. It was nice to just walk and enjoy the scenery for the day. Here's some of what we saw:


When our hike was over, we retreated to the ship for lunch. We ventured out in the afternoon again to investigate the local shops. There were several artists set up on the street selling beautiful (and expensive) paintings, and everyone was still out and about from the morning, so there was plenty to see. Before we knew it, it was time to get back on the ship for our last dinner aboard, and our final leg of the journey to Auckland.
Posted by Picasa

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Day... what day are we on?... :Wellington

So the day after our trip through Christchurch, we arrived in Wellington all set for our biggest excursion of the cruise: a trip through middle earth. You see, Peter Jackson is from Wellington, and filmed several bits of the movies in the area. Nearly the moment our bus pulled out of the harbor, our guide was showing us the rugby stadium in which the first sound clips for the movie were recorded. Jackson had the fans at the game stamp on the bleachers and shout and what not, and this became the sound of gazillions of orcs preparing to attack Helm's Deep in movie 2. Oddly enough, our next stop was Helm's Deep itself:


Yes, I know it looks like a regular old quarry, but Jackson took it over, remodeled a bit using a combination of steel, wood and glorified styrofoam, and it became Helm's Deep. Then, when he was done, he took it all apart again, leaving us with this lovely quarry. That, as it turned out, is how Jackson works. He'd come in and change everything, but only after making sure he knew how to put it all back the way he found it. As a result, many of the sites from the movie look nothing like the movie anymore.

The good news is our guide was extremely knowledgable. For one thing, he was an extra in the Helm's Deep section. For another, I think he was the most Peter Jackson obsessed person I've ever met, so as we drove around through beautiful natural scenery, he told us all kinds of stories about the makings of the movies, and then helped us get our pictures set up just right so we'd take pictures of the right places. Movie or not, it was all beautiful. Anyway, here's one of four rivers used for the scenes with the gray boats at the end of movie 1:


After visiting that site, we did like the hobbits would and had a morning tea complete with scones rasberry jam. Then we took a winding road through these lovely mountains that have no claim to film fame, but are still gorgeous:


And that brought us to New Zealand's wine country. (Did I fail to mention that this was also a wine tasting tour?) So we stopped and tasted some fine wine from several local vineyards:


Having successfully tasted wine and eaten a delicious lunch, we set out to visit the Lady Galadriel. Here, you see the bridge from which she waved good by to the fellowship of the Ring:



And just behind us, right next to the bridge where Galadriel waved goodbye, is the patch of grass on which Smeagol killed his best friend to get his hands on the precious:



Incidentally, both this is the only privately owned setting for the film, and we had to walk through some poor family's sheep farm to get to it. I'd feel bad for them if I wasn't certain they were getting a little compensation for having the tourists tramp through by the busload...

Anyway, after this we went to the most completely changed cite of the day: Rivendell. More specifically, we visited Frodo's bedroom, a courtyard, and the area in which the council was held. Now, it's a lovely park filled with trees and plants and you'd never know it was Rivendell at all except for this:



And then it was time to return to the (almost) real world, where our ship waited to take us off to check out the white island...


Posted by Picasa

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Day 11: Christchurch

The day after Dunedin, we arrived in Christchurch. Zack and I had decided to take a mountain biking trip while we were here, and it turned out to be quite an experience. The guide was a teacher during the school year, and a very informative guy. The first thing we learned was that the harbor where our ship was docked was actually the remains of a dead volcano. We were taken to the top of hills surrounding the crater to get a better view:


And on the other side of the same hills lay the city of Christchurch:


Next, we drove through Christchurch to the park where we would be biking. On the way, we discussed the ecology of New Zealand. See, everything grows really well there. Every time some European brings a favorite plant from home, it tends to grow twice as well as it would have in its original habitat and three times as well as any of the native plant life. We kind of knew this because it has resulted in strict importation laws in the country. Every time we got off the ship in New Zealand (and in Australia, for that matter) we were greeted by dogs trained to sniff for any sort of food in our bags. It was all forbidden. They don't want to take any chances.

However, the New Zealanders are not above using the tendency of plants to really take off in their country to their advantage. We learned on our way to biking that a pine tree that would take 60 years in the Northern Hemisphere to reach its fullest height potential takes about 25 years to do the same thing in New Zealand. Therefore, the good people of Christchurch have planted a ton of pine trees on the edge of town to create a recreational park for the citizens. They also cut down the full grown trees and ship them off to other countries, making a lovely profit and replacing them as quickly as they cut them down. Aside from being a good business, the trees provide lovely scenery for a morning bike ride:


The path we took led us through the trees and eventually out to the pacific ocean:


Then we traveled back through the trees and to our waiting bus to return to the ship. After a quick lunch, Zack and I set out to see some of the city. Mostly, what we saw was the market in the city center, and, of course, the church:



















Before long, though, it was time to get back on the boat and sail away. Next stop: Middle Earth!

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Day 10: Dunedin

We arrived in Dunedin early on New Year's Day, or may be it just seemed early. This, as it turns out, is not the best single day of the year to visit Dunedin: the vast majority of everything was closed. Not to be daunted, we set off for the botanical gardens, which my guide book promised were lovely. The gardens were just as lovely as promised, and the weather was perfect for wandering around outside, so this plan worked out very well. Here we are on New Years Day:


There was even a duck pond and the duck food was free:



And a lovely specimen of the redwood:





The kind volunteer at the garden's information center informed us that in New Zealand, New Year's Day is one of very few national holidays, and that a recent law mandated that if a business chooses to open on a national holiday, it has to pay all employees time and a half to work plus give them extra vacation another time. Hence the severe lack of open shops.

When we were done at the park, we wandered around town looking for open restaurants and anything else that might capture our attention. Other than tourist traps and American chains, the only shops that were open all seemed to be little family owned places where the owner was the only one working. We had a late lunch at a Chinese place and managed to do a little shopping.
Dunedin is a lovely little town, and about as British as they come:


The slowish day and the walking felt good after three days on the ship and a late night. And before we knew it, we were back on the boat and headed for Christchurch...

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Day 9: The Fjords

For two days after Hobart, we were at sea, heading to New Zealand. On the third day of this, New Year's Eve, we took a little detour through three of New Zeland's Fjords: Millford Sound, Dusky Sound, and Doubtful Sound. We couldn't get off the ship, but it was not like a normal sea day because there was so much to see from the ship.
Here's my completely non-scientific explanation of what is so special about a fjord. Fjords are basically pieces of coastline that were cut to bits by glaciers a gazillion years ago. The ones in New Zealand also happen to be extremely unique ecosystems. The water in the fjords of New Zealand is crazy deep, despite how narrow they are. By crazy deep I mean that scientist come here to study ocean life that they can't get to anywhere else in the world because the water has to be so deep for it to survive. The water at the bottom of the fjord also has no current because of the depth. There's a layer at the top that moves, and below that it's stagnant. To make things more interesting, it rains 200 days a year in this area of New Zealand, and as a result the top top layer of water is freshwater. The land is basically rainforest, and the fjords are home to all kinds of weird animals that you can't see anywhere else because they have evolved on the New Zealand islands and never had anyplace else to go.
All of this was very interesting to read about the night before we arrived at the sounds, but at 6:00 a.m., when the alarm went off, I had serious doubts about whether it was worth getting out of bed. Then I saw this:



Milford Sound (6:00-8:00) was the most dramatic of the three we passed through, and an extremely stressful experience for Zack, as somone who knows how driving a ship works. The waterway was not that much wider than the ship comparatively speaking. He spent a good bit of the trip saying "We should not be taking this big ship in here. This is a bad idea." Then, just when he had gotten used to the idea, we got to the dead end show here, and actually turned around in that tiny little waterway! The water in Milford Sound was black black black, but not murky. It was the clearest black I have ever seen. And the view was totally fantastic.


Anyway, it was totally worth getting up. Once we were through, there was a mad rush for breakfast and then things slowed down again for awhile. We went back to bed. Then at lunchtime, we were given a tour of Dusky Sound.

Dusky Sound was named by Captain Cook (although he might not have been a captain at that point) for the weather he encountered there. Luckily, we arrived on one of the 100 days that it doesn't rain, and we got some great pictures as a result.




We left Dusky Sound without having to turn around, and by 3:00 we were at Doubtful Sound, named because the good Captain Cook wasn't sure he'd find a place there to pull in and pick up supplies. Personally, I think Cook could have used a lesson in creativity, but I suppose when you've discovered the coast of a whole new continent, you start running out of names...


At any rate, we enjoyed the views, and by 5:00 we were back into the open sea, which gave us plenty of time to get ready for our formal New Year's dinner.

After dinner, we spent our evening in the Grand Foyer listening to live big band music and watching the small group of dancers (most under the age of six) until midnight rolled around. We have now officially celebrated New Years in the first time zone to roll over!


Happy New Year!


Monday, January 14, 2008

Day 6: Hobart

We arrived in Hobart, Tasmania around 7:00 am after another day at sea. Zack and I signed up to go sea kayaking at this stop, and that started at 10:30, so we started our day with a quick walk around town to check things out. In the grand tradition of civilized people everywhere, the shopkeepers of Hobart refuse to open before ten, but we did get a general lay of the land, which was nice. Also, we got the clear impression (based on the number of people out and the tents going up all over) that something exciting was going on in town that day.
The something exciting turned out to be the finish of a very important sailing race that runs between Sydney and Hobart. The race can last anywhere from three to five days, and the winners were due into Hobart that day. We arrived at our sea kayaking starting point just in time to see the winner pull through the bouys that marked the finish, and as we paddled around the harbor hearing about the history of Hobart from our guides, several more boats pulled through the finish (including one of the kayaks which ran away with its passengers!). It was a nice little trip.
It was a little chilly in the morning, but by the time we finished our kayaking, the day had warmed up and the sun was shining through. We went back to the ship for long enough to change into dry clothes and eat lunch, then headed back into town to take in the fair atmosphere of the harbor where the sail boats were coming in. We also stopped in to a little pub in the afternoon to taste some of the local refreshments. Because (again) water and digital cameras don't get along, and because most museums don't allow pictures either, these are our only pictures from Hobart:





After our refreshments, we visited the Hobart Maritime Museum, which turned out to be much more interesting than either of us expected it to be. Hobart exists because the harbor used to be a common place for two different species of whales to come during mating season. Apparently the harbor would be just packed with whales, which made it a perfect spot for whalers to come and live. The whaling industry created a town, but destroyed both the whale population and the trees surrounding the harbor (which were all used to keep the fires going to boil down the whale blubber). The museum had a fascinating display about the industry which led me to be very glad we don't do that anymore. Yuck.
By the time we got through the museum, it was approaching our departure time, so we said good bye to Austrialia, and returned to the ship to move on to New Zealand!

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Days 3-4: Melbourne

We spent Christmas Day 2007 at sea between Sydney and Melbourne. This was our "roughest" day on the ship. Zack says it was smooth, but other passengers on the ship were complaining about the rocky ride. Really, it wasn't so bad. Days at sea are a great excuse to do very little, so we spent most of the day reading and relaxing, though we did participate in a Merengue class.
Our ship, the Mercury, was very nice. There were about 2200 passengers and 1000 crew, which seems like a lot when you hear the number, yet by the end of the trip we recognized quite a few faces. The ship had enough pools, jacuzis and restaurants to keep most of the passengers busy in them for most of the day. In addition, they had several night clubs, a coffee shop, a mini-mall, and an internet cafe, as well as a movie theater and a stage theater. Yet, when left with time to explore all these options, we tended to choose to spend most of our time with a book near a pool or sleeping. This only proves that no matter how cool the vacation, it is important to schedule time for doing nothing.
On Boxing Day (the day after Christmas), we arrived in Melbourne. Zack and I signed up for a snorkeling trip that lasted the whole day, so we didn't so much go to Melbourne as through it. A bus took us out of the city and up the coast to a little town called Portsea that is home to a small colony of creatures called weedy seadragons. (Yes, the weedy part is actually a part of the name.) Zack and I had seen a few of these guys at the aquarium in Sydney, so we knew essentially what we were looking for. They look like seahorses, only longer and with leaves sticking out of them. If we hadn't seen them at the aquarium, I'm not sure I could have found one snorkeling because they live in kelp beds, so they really blend in.
The snorkeling guides split us into two groups and sent half of us to a nearby town, Sorrento, to check out the shops while the other half snorkeled. When we arrived back, they fed us lunch and got us into our wetsuits (making us wonder just how cold the water really would be) and walked us across the street to the beach. We literally walked straight into the water (which was actually quite a nice temperature), and right there near the shore were several beds of seaweed in which were hidden all kinds of nifty sea animals. We saw a few very colorful fish, a starfish, a school of pufferfish, and even a few of the elusive weedy seadragons in their natural habitat. After an hour of tooling around in the water, we were returned to our bus which took us back to the ship with just enough time to wash up before we set sail again, this time for Tasmania...
Unfortunately, snorkeling and digital cameras don't really mix, so we don't have many pictures from the Melbourne area, but here are a few of the skyline from the ship:



Posted by Picasa

Friday, January 11, 2008

Vacation Days 1-2: Sydney

That's right, folks, we spent our Christmas vacation this year on a 14 day cruise around Austrailia and New Zealand! It was entirely too much fun. On December 22nd, we left Sasebo and took a bus to Fukuoka. From there we flew to Narita airport in Tokyo. We had a long layover, so we took the subway to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. Then we flew all night, arriving in Sydney around 8:00 on the 23rd. The ship was still unloading from the last cruise it took, so we spent some of our morning sitting on the docks looking at this:
And this:
Oh! And this:

Once we were allowed on the ship, we dropped off our things and ran straight back out into town again to see what we could before dinner. We walked to the middle of the harbor bridge (but not up to the top because that was high enough for me). We also took a closer look at the Opera House. There was a market going on in the rocks, so we began our shopping too. At dinner, our view was of the Opera House and the various sailboats wandering though. It was lovely.

After dinner, we ran straight back out again to catch a little Sydney night life while we could. We walked as far as the WWI ANZAC memorial, and on our way back wandered in the Fortune of War Pub, which came highly recommended by several of the guys on Zack's ship.

Our second day in Sydney, we decided to hit the aquarium, since we weren't going far enough north to see the Great Barrier Reef. The aquarium has several places where you can actually walk under the creatures, and it was a pretty cool time. Unfortunately, I couldn't get any good pictures of the sting ray the size of my car, or any of the colorful fish through the glass, but here's one of the residents of the aquarium:

Posted by Picasa
After the aquarium we went back to the Rocks for further random walking and investigating, and on Christmas Eve, the Mercury set sail for Melbourne....

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

We're baaack...

Just so everyone knows, Zack and I made it back from our fabulous trip to Austrailia and New Zealand safe and sound. Pictures and stories will be coming soon. :-)