Thanks Princess (updated)

You know that we missed our port of Dunedin and the Fjordlands due to weather.  We've cruised enough that we know these sorts of things happen, and while disappointing, that is just part of cruising.  The company refunded our port taxes to our onboard accounts and we thought that was that.  After all, we have still had excellent accommodations, food and entertainment for two weeks, plus our land tour of Australia is still to come.

The ship is about half-filled with New Zealand and Australian citizens, and they have all told us they took the cruise especially to see those two places that we missed.  Most had seen the Milford sound from land, but wanted to approach from the sea. (Which is not easy in a region that gets an average of six meters of rain a year).  And the Taeri Gorge is another spectacular sight, and again is not easily accessible for many unless they happen to live there or make a special trip just to get there. So there was a lot of disappointment in missing out on both of these on our itinerary; the other ports were lovely, but they were nothing like the scenery missed.  Apparently Princess realized and agreed with this because last night we received a letter notifying us that Princess has given everyone onboard a cruise credit of 25% of the fare paid.  

And this credit already appears online in our Princess accounts, to be applied to our Baltic cruise as soon as we return home and call the travel agent. This, of course, makes us very happy campers who will just have to add the southern half of the South Island of NZ back on the travel list 'someday'.  (Note to Leslie!)

Meanwhile, we are tired from our busy and long day yesterday, but as we get another sea day today for our run from Hobart up to Melbourne, we will recover...and read, attend a couple of lectures and of course play golf and trivia.  We've added one magnet clip, two handmade cards, a bingo dauber and a woven ribbon lei bracelet to our stash of free souvenir junk since our last report.   

One thing I have noticed today, as we sail between Tasmania and the mainland part of Australia, is that every now and then we pass a small cabin cruiser or pleasure boat.  They are apparently out for the day, perhaps fishing, perhaps just boating, perhaps traveling, but it seems so odd to see them so far out from land in such a small boat.  Here's one that I just noticed as we passed by:

While I am meandering here, I wanted to add we have met a very interesting lady onboard.  Kathy was born and raised in Hawaii but now lives in California with her husband of 46 years, Bob.  Kathy loves cruising, takes about 5 or 6 a year, and Bob goes on only about 3/4 of them because he hates cruising.  Kathy is an eccentric gadfly, knows just about everyone onboard and has absolutely no filter, whatsoever.  Fortunately she is a very happy person, and makes many friends, even if they don't share a common language.  You can easily spot Kathy around the ship, she is about 4 foot 9 inches tall, wears a muu-muu every day (adding long underwear when the weather is too chilly or wet to be wearing a muu-muu) carries a cane wrapped in glitter ribbon topped with a yellow sunflower and today is wearing a plush Tasmanian Devil ski hat "so she will be noticeable".  I'll ask if she will allow me to take her photo.....

And she did....

Wombats and Tassies and Roos, oh my!

Today we saw land (!) in Hobart, Tasmania where we went to Mt. Fields National Park and a wildlife sanctuary where we saw the wombats, kangaroos and Tasmanian Devils.  We even saw the sun for most of the afternoon, which came as a welcome relief from the predicted rain showers.

Feeding the very tame and likely satiated kangaroos.

They like a good neck scratch, too.

This is a paddy melon in the wild, a relative of the wallaby.

That's a baby wombat, about 7 months old.  By the age of two the get cranky and need to be returned to the wild.

One of 24 Tassies at the sanctuary.

The lower part of Russell Falls

Checking in from the Tasman Sea

We are told the depth of the ocean here is about 6000 meters.  Having boasted of our beautiful weather in Picton, I have doomed us to five days in a row of cloudy, gloomy skies. <sigh>. 

We New Mexicans start to wither when we don't see sunshine for that many days in a row.  Added to that is a prediction for 6 meter seas tonight. We're fine with that, but we really do wish for a little sunshine.

We have spent the past three sea days adding to our haul of booty; we've earned water bottles, flashlights (aka torches down here), tote bags and magnetic clips.  This due to participation in paper airplane, trivia and golfing contests.  The Thursday Boys Club will be stunned to learn Tom has won two putting events already.

We've become a bit bored with the four sea days, but we have managed to reduce our Netflix list by two movies a day.  Only one more sea day before we arrive in Tasmania!

We continue to be fine, although Cheryl did wake up with a 'sub conjunctival hemorrhage' yesterday morning.  Nothing dangerous, just a burst blood vessel, but I won't be doing too many close-ups for the next 10 days or so.

Not Quite Dunedin

Our onboard intranet is still greeting us with this photo of the pretty town of Dunedin

But that photo is the closest we will get to it today.  Overnight it turned out the wind and waves picked up and we were unable to enter the channel, as the winds were over 50 mph and it would not have been safe to put into port.  And, as we watch out the window, we see the waves getting higher and the clouds thickening.  This photo below was at 7:30 am:

And this is what it looked like three hours later:

Because of the weather, which is now predicted to get even worse and become a gale force, the captain has also cancelled our trip into the fjords of the national park and Milford Sound, which was scheduled for tomorrow.  Instead we are reversing course and sailing back up the east coast of New Zealand, where we will cut through the Cook Strait between the North and South Island.  From there we will head across the Tasman Sea to Hobart, Tasmania to arrive as scheduled on Saturday.  Even so, we have been told to expect rocky seas and stormy weather for the crossing, as the weather on the southwest side is very bad.

Fortunately there is an ample supply of movies on demand, food and trivia contests onboard.  Along with lectures, entertainment, classes and more activities.  We are sad to miss both the Fjordlands and Dunedin, but we have plenty to keep us busy and occupied.  I likely will not post here for a couple of days....but we'll be back when we have something to show you.

Christchurch

We arrived this morning in Akaroa, a nice little port town similar to Picton, only French.  It is the closest current port to Christchurch for cruise tourists.  

Unfortunately, that means a long bus ride to Christchurch.

 Our 10 hour day consisted of 1 hour waiting to board tenders, 1 hour on the tenders, 2 hours waiting for the tour bus (which was over an hour late starting), 1 hour actually touring Christchurch, 2 hours at the Antarctic Center, and 3 hours on the bus between the two cities.

In Christchurch there is still a massive amount of damage from the 2010 earthquakes, whether it is the still boarded-up cathedral while they decide how to repair, the empty gravel lots where buildings have been demolished, or the modern rebuilds adjacent to the older traditional ones. 

Then we were off to the Antarctic Experience with cold, dark and windy simulated weather

And of course, penguins

I'm tired and we have another long day tomorrow... So off to bed I go!

Picton

Greetings from Picton, New Zealand where it is now Sunday afternoon. This is a pretty little port town, with two or three main streets, some shops, some homes, and a lot of trees along the beautiful Queen Charlotte Sound.  Ladies from the visitor center in town gave each arriving woman a mini corsage to wear. It was a very sweet touch and a very kind welcome to their town.

We had a very leisurely day here, wandered about the town and then returned to the ship.  Here are a couple of photos from our day.

During our travels, I have been collecting some interesting photos of quirky things or events. I am going to add them here just because they were kind of fun to see.

The first one is from Wellington, which is such a hilly city it reminds me of San Francisco or Laguna Beach. Many homes are perched so high on the hill that their garages are a couple of streets lower.  In order to reach their homes they either have a very steep walk up a narrow staircase, or in many cases they have their own cable car. We were told there are over 500 private cable cars in the city; here are a couple of photos:

The other thing I wanted to mention is that you can easily find the free Wi-Fi places in any port. Just look for the crowd of people staring at their phones in a cluster.

Windy Wellington

We had a lovely day in what they call Windy Wellington.  

We were fortunate to have a very lovely, sunny day with just a few clouds. After we re-boarded the ship the storm clouds moved back in, but our day was just glorious.

We took a privately booked tour, which ended up with only four people on one of those huge 50 passenger buses.  

Consequently, we were able to go to more places and see more sites than what had been originally planned. We received a nice city tour of Wellington, and a good visit to the Te Papa museum.

One of the sites we saw was old St. Paul's Church, which has a nice memorial to the United States Marine Corps.  The Marines, in World War II, saved New Zealand for our side. Even today the people are very appreciative of the USMC and make a point of telling you so.

After a cable car ride up the mountain and a stop at the rose garden, we returned to our ship for sail away.

LBNL, we won water bottles at Trivia, for those of you who appreciate that onboard drama. 🤓