I call it day 1 & 2 because I’m flying from Houston at 8:30 PM on Nov 15th and arrive in Sydney on Nov 17th at 7:00 AM due to the international time line. I used miles to fly to Sydney, so I’ve flown more miles for free on United on this one flight alone…
I had booked a shared transfer from the airport to my hotel. It was $18 AUD, while the metro has an outrageous $20 platform fee at the airport. I was actually able to check into my hotel quite early in the morning. The room is nice, but not fancy. I took a shower then took…
Today I took advantage of the discounted fares on the train to visit the Blue Mountains. A couple of years ago I visited via a bus tour that left from Sydney. Going by train was much cheaper… it was supposed to be $2.70 each way, but when I got back to Sydney Central train station…
The plan today was to take an $18 bus tour of the eastern suburbs including Bondi beach. Before the bus tour I visited Queen Victoria building. It has two large mechanical clocks. A few more interesting buildings along the way…. The bus tour first took us to Mrs Macquarrie’s chair…. I took a couple of…
I walked along the goods line which has a very interesting building called the paper bag building to the Central Park Mall which has a very interesting amount of greenery on the outside and water in the skylight. I joined a free tour of Sydney that walked past most of the areas I am familiar…
This morning I visited the Chinese Garden of Friendship in Darling Harbour. It’s a nice garden in the midst of the city. I took a walk through Paddy’s market in Chinatown for souvenirs. There were a number of good deals. The uber took a while to get to the hotel, but eventually I made it…
Just a relaxing day at sea with a Turkey dinner for Thanksgiving.
Finally able to catch back up. Sea is cold and choppy. The ship will be sailing through the Fjords tomorrow. I’ll have the GoPro set up.
I’ve technically arrived in New Zealand today, although I didn’t get off the ship. I set up my GoPro to create time lapse videos. The first Fiord was Milford Sound. We entered about 7:30 AM after the Princess ship. We stopped briefly to let a few passengers off that was doing an overnight experience. I…
Today is my first day on land since boarding the ship. I chose the Taeri Gorge Train and Dunedin Highlights tour. The weather didn’t cooperate today, it was chilly, rainy and a bit foggy. I walked onto the train from the ship. There were a few outside areas between the cars that allowed for better…
This morning the ship used the life boats to tender us to shore. I took the Christchurch on your own tour. I was a bit disappointed in the late meeting time. Once we got on the bus the driver said we were supposed to have 4 hours of free time in Christchurch, but we wouldn’t…
Today’s weather is cold and rainy. I went on an excursion by boat through Queen Charlotte Sound. The sound here is very inspiring, lots of green ferns and other trees. After the cruise they took us back to the bus after making a comfort stop. The only interesting thing at the comfort stop was this…
I woke up this morning to a cold, windy and rainy morning. I was nearly covered in Gore-Tex from head to toe when I left the ship in the morning (my Red Wing boots are waterproof, but not Gore-Tex unlike my pants, coat (with a hood), and gloves. Mysteriously the rain let up almost immediately…
I spent part of today resting, and part of it going through a few photos from Sydney. Tonight was the fancy formal dinner complete with prime rib and lobster. The lobster was fantastic. My prime rib was also good. For the starter I had French onion soup. For dessert I had baked Alaska and creme…
It appeared that it would be another chilly and rainy day. I had reservations to tour the Hobbiton Movie Set at 12:30, so it was a bit of a struggle to find things to do in the rain. I did find a small aviation museum near the airport. Like all aviation museums they had a…
Unfortunately it’s time to disembark. The cruise was great with the exception of one tour. I dragged my bags for 20 minutes to the Sheraton. I walked back to the Queens wharf to find the tour guide. The tour visited many of the places I already had seen already walking to the tour. After the…
I woke up this morning, had a wonderful breakfast in the morning at the hotel and wandered down Queen Street for a bit. I found a shop with $10NZD shirts and bought a couple. They had a hilarious ‘Fake News’ game on sale. I missed the Christmas parade and took the SkyBus to the airport….