A little hungover today from the excessive beer we drank yesterday at the opera house bar…. Having one sea day in between ports is wonderful… Unfortunately it doesn’t always work that way…. Before arriving at the Mediterranean at around 3/17 , we are going to have lots and lots of consecutive sea days …. Princess is already gearing up to swamp us with activities in case we get cabin fever…. Lol… And then the reverse will happen when we hit the Mediterranean, port stops almost every day with few sea days in between which means no rest mentally or physically or at least digesting what we had experienced on the last port…hope we can adapt..
We had officially hit the 1/4 mark of the 111 day cruise… Yay!!
They said the sailing in to the harbor of Sydney at dawn is going to be spectacular with the full view of the opera house and the harbor bridge and that is so true… They were covered in a halo of Pink clouds!!
Since we have both experienced Sydney’s downtown scene before, we decided to go out of town and join a Princess excursion that went to The Blue mountain (an hour drive out of town) .. Kind of like grand canyon but with Disney land like rides… Scenic railway (at one point they even play the Indiana Jones music) , skyway, cablecars and elevated walkways…. The place is very popular and crowded with tourist from Asia…..guess its the Chinese New Year holiday crowd
The Blue mountain and the famous three sistersLocal houses in the Katoomba area where the blue mountain is
And then they took us to featherdale wildlife park, told us we have 1 hour and release us into the wild …!! So many rare animals that is native to Australia
The koala bears are all super shy and sleeps with their face covered .. And also we were told they are not really considered bears…. Lol… Super cute Never been this close to penguins before…. They are right in front, caged in… Soooo cute πSoo many exotic Animals and birdsAnd of course… The not too shy kangaroos, they are very interactive in front of people, they eat from your hands, they scratch their back, they…. …. I guess it’s happy valentines day for them as well being today is 2/14 …Duo presence of the beautiful opera house and harbor bridge make this area magicalThe opera bar right by the opera house is equally magical… Big open space where locals and tourists congregate, have a drink and watch the sunset…. It drizzle today and sunset show is canceled. But that did not dampen anyone’s spirits…Saying goodbye in the rain… Cheers Sydney! We will be back!!!
The sea calms down a bit and feels warmer as we are traveling north towards Sydney Australia moving away from Antarctica.. Excited about Sydney! We were both here before but separately on short business trips and way before smart phones thus no accessible pics… Glad we were given a second chance with Sydney..
Sunrise today
Not sure how or when, but a little stowaway worm got into our cabin bathroom… Might be via the little bouquets the nice folks in Picton gave us?! It’s been many days now… Not quite sure what to do with it…. Maybe let it out in the wild in Sydney? Or maybe it’s not welcome in the continent of Australia?! Oh well…. At the meantime we will treat it as our pet
On wifi…. Sometimes we went silent for days during sea days…… We choose not to purchase wifi daily in order to get some internet fasting time… very relaxing… This is hard to do when we are on land and at home,we just don’t have the discipline ….
On drink package…. We did not purchase drink package as we only drink one or two glasses per day if we drink at all… drink package includes bottle water which is great but we don’t want to be environmentally responsible for those plastic bottles…. So there it is, we transport water from the buffet dining hall using our own drinking bottles daily.
On elevators… we only took the elevator a total of 2 times so far in 25 days (one time was when we moved in with lots of luggage) …. And choose to torture ourselves with stairs all the time in order to get some exercise… That average out to at least 15 floors of step climbing every day…. So more guilt free eating I guess π
The sea between New Zealand and Australia is called the Tasman sea.. It is notoriously rocky….
They flew three immigration officers from Australia to Dunedin, our last stop at NZ and sail them back to Australia with us just so that they can check us in for immigration at a pace that is comfortable for us and them!! … How considerate of Princess and win win for all…
A gentleman came and asked if we remember them from last years Antarctica trip…. And of course we don’t… We are bad at faces and names and it’s embarrassing….but it warms our heart greatly that someone remembers us
Formal night today, (3rd formal night in 25 days) we dress up today for Lobsters, Escargots and disco fun ππ. Usually during formal nights some ladies dress up in their most glamorous gowns and some guys even put on white James bond like jacket….almost half of passengers do not really participate and dress casual as usual… We just do the minimum with gown like attire and suit jacket…
The ship did a Chinese buffet today!! Yay…there’s suckling pig, ε ε―ΆοΌwonton Noodle.. Etc.. Appreciate the effort!! The captain walk around with a note of pronunciation reading out loud to people he met “ζ°εΉ΄εΏ«ζ¨” in mandarin!!!
Original schedule is to do scenic crossing of New Zealands’s Fiordland but due to bad weather it has been canceled… A little disappointed on this one since it is one of unesco’s world heritage site… Oh well…. I love scenic crossings… You don’t need to get off the ship just stay at your own balcony and takes in the view….
Port Chalmers is 20 mins from the next big city, Dunedin, beautiful scenic drive from Port to Dunedin via shuttle bus alongside otago Harbour bay
Charming town of Dunedin, full of Scottish heritage with many Edwardian architectures, cozy cafes and pubs. It’s a vibrant university town
We appreciate the bag pipers!!
The train station is famous and the second most photographed building after Australia’s opera house in this part of the world
Beautiful Mosaic floorand stained glass windows
So lucky to run into their vibrant Saturday farmers market where the locals shop
But the luckiest of all is to stumble into this Clearwater Wildlife tour to Cape Saunders Farm at the Otago peninsula where the owner Rachel of this thousand acre big farm led us to her sumptuous farm, from breathtaking cliff side views of the sea to totally private beaches and experience unrivalled opportunities to view rare yellow-eyed penguins, New Zealand sea lions, fur seals and a variety of sea and wading birds. After the previous three ports where we did not really explore much of the NZ nature, this one did it for us….. We wish we memorized all the names of the birds and wild lifes that we saw… Etc, we were just in awe… Feels like it’s a national geographic private tour as we were the only two guests on this Minivan….. They provided us each with a heavy raincoat and binoculars and we felt like clumsy explorers…
Noticed the baby seal suckling on the mother seal while she takes a napRare Yellow eyed penguin, royal albatross, black swan and others….. Sorry i don’t know all your names.. Weaving up and down, left and right of this secluded private property where nature thrive and carefully protected
After the the tour we were in such a state of euphoria that the only thing we can do is to celebrate with a feast and drink of course…
Haha, green lipped muscle again.. The fresh fish of fish and chips was made with local blue cod…
We had a wonderful time here at our last stop of NZ…. Was supposed to do scenic cruising of NZ’s Fiordland tomorrow but was canceled because of bad weather….. So 3 sea days before we arrive Sydney Australia…
Happy Chinese New Year and have a prosperous dragon year everyone π
Again I apologize for as usual, everything was written in haste ( not enough time with internet) with a lot of grammatical mistakes…
Bought a seat cushion in Auckland and turn a balcony space into a comfy lounge spaceThe central air con air flow is way too strong and cold…. We are trying to leave a note for the technician to fix…Laundry room on ship… But we usually just hand-wash at sink and hang dry at balcony π, we pray for the day we become elite member of Princess (complete 150 days) which is going to be 4/17..then we enjoy free laundry… HahaInside our little refrigerator, there’s wine, coffee, chocolate and face mask πBathroom space is very “cozy”… A comedian jokes during his performance on ship that the shower is a strange place where you fall but can’t really fell because there’s no room to fell… π… Jokes aside, we are ok with it! Just can’t imagine how people much bigger maneuver in itAll the buds had bloomed into flowers now with one starting to wilt…
We were told the sail in and sail out scene at Picton is going to be marvelous and they are right!!…this is sailing in at dawn
We were surrounded by mountains⦠The little tugboat helped us park
The little town of Picton only has about 4200 people, our ship has 3000, so our arrival almost double the town population.. As soon as we stepped off the ship, we were each given a little fresh flower corsage pin as welcome gift… P immediately pin it on his hat and we do feel welcomed.
We joined a hop on and hop off wine tour which took us to around 17 wineries in Marlborough regent, world-famous for Sauvignon Blanc…. There’s also beer breweries…. The whole place feels like Napa but greener
To pick one restaurant out of all these stops and enjoy the vineyard dining setting is hard, but then we lucked out again by picking Saint Clair family estate… It has a great ambiance and delicious food… The platter we picked looks amazing and taste even better…. that plus two glasses of wine only cost us$60…
The platter called celebration of Marlborough was beautiful plated and bountiful with chicken liver pate, green lipped mussels, home smoked salmon, salami, local cheese, fresh fruits, olives,.. EtcAs we were sailing off, we can hear choirs of cicadas in the forests Pictures taken during sailing out turns from color to black and white, except the red pilot boat… In 30 mins, weather changed from sunny to foggy rainBye Picton!! I think almost everyone we knew onboard had a glass of your very fruity souvigon blanc… Cheers π₯
