Perth 3 March - End of the cruise with the Radiance of the Sea and back to Sydney

Check-out in Perth went smoothly: left the lounge at 8.25 a.m. and sat in the coach to the domestic airport with suitcase shortly before 9 a.m.

Saw with blue skies and 35 degrees the skyline and some parcs from Perth and got some information from the driver for free. Looked like a very clean city surrounded with lots of water due to its situation at two rivers.

Had nice food in the airplane and, contrary to Europe, your neighbors say hi and also talk to you.

Transfer to the hotel was fine, too.

At Sea 2 March 2014

Preparing my suitcase.

In the morning covered but around 3 p.m. the wind died down and could go for an hour upstairs and lay  in the sun.

Esperanca 1st March

Arrived before 8 a.m. this morning, not much to see, cheated my way out on an early tender boat and bought a senseless 5$~ticket for a shuttle bus, traveled with it just to the little museum and then walked back to get on my tour bus. Walked around the little town to wait for my afternoon excursion down to sandy, sunny beaches.

Had a lovely lunch in Domes with free WiFi.

At 1.30 p.m. our tour bus took us first to mermaid leather, specialist in fish and shark leather (www.mermaidleather.com.au) and then to an artist creating glass decoration and jewelery.

After that the bus went down Ocean road, dropped us first off at Twilight Beach, then Sandy Beach and to a look-out to have a lovely view on the city of Esperanca and our ship. Lovely white beaches! Lovely, expensive villas at this coast.

Than I had a glass of white wine and an espresso at the pier before hopping on the last tender to bring me back to ship.

Tomorrow it is sea day to finish my suitcase and to leave the ship on 3rd March in Perth.

At sea 27 and 28 February

At sea, hope not too rough and sunshine to work at my suntan.

Was not rough at all, luckily. On the 1st sea day covered but on the 2nd day the sun come out and there was less wind so I sat one hour in the morning and one in the afternoon on deck in the sun.

Adelaide 26 February

Today we arrived around 7 a.m. in Adelaide. Took a bus tour to see the highlights of Adelaide and up to Mt. Lofti. Than I stayed in town to do some shopping and look round. Will take the shuttle back to the ship later. We will sail around 10 p.m. (Two sea days and than Esperanca). Was not too excited about Adelaide.

At sea 25 February

Melbourne 24 February

Today we arrived after a rough and rocky sea for almost 3 days in Melbourne with lovely sunshine. Bought a Mikey Ticket and took the tram to downtown in full sunshine.

First I took the tram downtown to Collins Street, had lunch and rushed back to my tour starting at 1.15 p.m. We saw a lot of this dynamic and beautiful city from the comfort of our motor coach passing at St. Kilda beach with all the nice old, renovated houses looking over sea and beach and lots of restaurants. We strolled through Fitzroy Gardens and passed at all the arenas built for the Olympics in 1956, renovated and still in use. We than had an hour break on a ship on the Yarra river which revealed the sites of the city from a wonderful unique point of view. 

Melbourne has approx. 4.3 million inhabitants and the number is growing by about a thousand a week. Contrary to other cities Melbourne kept his Tram net which spans over more than 220 km with between 40 to 50 different lines which take you almost everywhere. Melbourne became wealthy in the 1940s when they found gold. The gold rush attracted lots of Chinese but also others. During the rush around 7000 tons of gold were brought in a day! The biggest community in Melbourne is the Chinese one followed by a big Greek community of about 450.000 people and more than 350.000 Italians which brought not only good food to Melbourne but also coffee. Melbourne is coffee crazy and I must say, I had several good expressi and a fantastic smoked salmon sandwich in an Italian coffee bar. 

Alan, there was also an excursion to visit 3 local micro breweries with tasting sessions of fine Australian beers. 

Contrary to Christian, I think I like Sydney better. But we will see as after this voyage I will have three full days in Sydney before going on my 2nd cruise followed by another 3 days in Sydney after the Fijji cruise before flying to Ayers Rock and going back to Europe.

At Sea and Milford and Doubtful sound - 21 to 23 February

Left Dunedin around 6.30 p.m., in full sunshine, thought we would see the Albatross Island where about 40 Royal Albatrosses are actually breading! Nix! Lots of fog! It's a bit spooky.

We are going - with the pilot - very, very slow. On 21 February, we cruised the Doubtful and Milford Sound! Milford Sound was great but foggy. Hope the fog does not persist! Weather just awful and quite rocky. Now as we are steaming to Melbourne the sun comes out but the sea is rough. On 22nd and 23rd crossing to Melbourne, heavy sea expected! Promising! This is not for me!

Dunedin - 20 February 2014

Today we met at 8 a.m. and left around 8.30 a.m.! First we took the vintage Taieri Gorge Train (www.taieri.co.nz) waiting alongside the ship in the Otago Harbour, across the Taieri Plains and into the rugged hills and country side of New Zealand. At 10 a.m.breakfast and around 12 p.m. lunch was served on board. The train consisted of old carriages with wooden seats, middle age ones with lovely upholstered seats, luckily we were in the newer carriage.

Alan, you will not believe it: I had lovely local beer, a Speight's Summit lager brewn in Dunedin. 

At around 2 p.m. one could either go directly back to the ship or go into Dunedin. I choose to see the highlights of Dunedin City including a tour of the Otago Museum and a visit of the Botanical Garden. 

Dunedin ist New Zealand's first city, constituted in 1865, and it is indeed a city of firsts. It has New Zealand's first university, botanic garden, daily newspaper, co-op dairy factory and skyscraper, the tallest tree, the first girls' high school in the Southern hemisphere; New Zealand's oldest farm buildings and working brewery; and the world's steepest street and only mainland albatross colony. The Māori name is Otepoti, "place beyond which one cannot go", where waka (canoes) could travel no further and were put ashore.

A bit more information: Dunedin is a bustling University city, at the picturesque Otago Harbour. Originally a Presbyterian Scottish settlement, this is the second-largest city on the South Island and retains a distinct Scottish ambiance. The 19th century buildings and homes reflect the wealth deriving from the goldfields in the Otago Province in the 1860s.

The early arrival of settlers in Dunedin and the anticipated growth of the gold rush obliged the authorities in Britain to undertake some hasty planning. Plans for a typically classic 19th Century English town were quickly drawn up in England without regards to the topography of the land. As a result many of the streets go straight up very steep hills (since 1879 they used to have cable cars like in San Francisco, rails are still buried under the asphalt and the cable cars remained working until 1957 when they were replaced by coaches, but the authorities are checking the possibility of re-installing the cable cars!) Dunedin actually boasts the steepest street in the world as recorded by the Guinness Book of Records!

Akaroa (Christchurch) - 19 February 2014

Today we arrived at Akoroa, harbour use in replacement of the Christchurch Harbour, severely damaged during the last two earthquakes. As the harbour is too small for our ship we had to tender to get ashore and into our tour buses. Tendering was a disaster. Terribly slow.

The bus took us to Christchurch. There is still lots of damage to be seen. They try to repair the old houses (about 300 of them were damaged) as well as the old cathedral but it will be a long time job. About 200 modern buildings were damaged, too, and have already been torn down or wait to be torn down; will still take a long time till the city will be restored to its old beauty. 

Then we had tea at a cheep station (yesterday's farm was just a "show" farm where they demonstrate sheep shearing and tell you all about it), but this time it was a "working" station.

After tea we did not only have sheep shearing demonstration but also a sheepdog demonstration. We not only saw Christchurch but as the icing on the cake we also rode through the beautiful countryside. 

At Sea - 15 and 16 February

After two days at sea, with a quite rocky sea, in the afternoon the sun came out but it was too windy to sit outside and work on my the sun tan! 

On the 2nd day a bit more sun with blue skies but very windy. Food is OK.

Picton - 17 February 2014

Today we visited Picton at the Shakespeare Bay, part of the Queen Charlotte Sound in New Zealand. Lots of wineries there, wines from the famous Marlborough area, named after the lord

We took a tour through the beautiful wine-making region of Marlborough and visited first the Cloudy Bay winery (www.cloudybay.co.nz) with tasting of Savignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris as well as Pinot Noir. Quite nice but not given, especially if you have to ship the bottles to  Europe.

After that we visited Makana Confections where they produce hand-made chocolates (www.makana.co.nz). Bought naturally too much lovely but expensive chocolates.

Then the bus drove through German founded Blenheim and Picton.

Wellington - 18 February 2014

Today we arrived early in Wellington. Visited Wellington's Anglican Cathedral of St. Paul (this Cathedral has been built with timber in a Gothic Revival architecture, as it became too small, the city built a new, bigger one, built with a funny orange concrete stone and closed the old one down.

They wanted to demolish the old one but the Heritage Fond fought against it. Now this church can be rented for Weddings, Funerals or other events but you have to pay for it and bring your own priest) (www.oldstpauls.co.nz).

Then we boarded the cable car (built in 1899 and operated with steam, since 1933 working with electricity as power, 1978 the original system was replaced by a new Swiss designed system).

After lunch the bus took us up to Mount Victoria with a panoramic view down to the city, later we attended a sheep shearing demonstration, than had Lunch at the Lindale Farm and saw at the Southward Car Museum (www.southwardcarmuseum.co.nz) a great collection of Antique cars.

The houses here are built with timber to be wobbly for all the earthquakes in the region.

Lunch at the sheep farm was lovely, we saw a lot and the trip, expensive, was worth the money

Sydney on board of the Radiance of the Seas' 14 February

Left the hotel by Taxi around 10.30 a.m. direction cruise port. Thought being early would avoid queuing, helas, already tons of passengers waiting to get aboard for a free breakfast and/or lunch!

So I dropped off my suitcase and went on to the other side of the harbour (the Opera house side) to have a lovely breakfast with a view on to the harbour bridge and the ship.

Then I slowly wandered back to the ship. Less people but very slow to get through immigration and security: worse than in the Committee. Finally in my cabin with view on to the Opera.

Cabin fine but no possibility to flush the toilet! Promissing!!

Went up for some noodles arabiatta. One good thing: the passengers are less heavy than on your last cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to the Caribbean! So I am not the thinnest one anymore. We will sail around 5.45 p.m. Just in time for the first of you to prepare for a early coffee in the Committee.

Sydney with Christian

Christian Weger (it is already more than 4 month since he left work for his trip around the world, time flies) met me at my hotel around 11h30 and we went down to Darling Harbour to have Pizza and a beer (me a beer! - will become a beer drinker here!) at the water. Then we went across the city with the help of Christian's Goggle map in his Iphone to Sydney harbour were a sister ship of my ship tomorrow docked in the middle of the town (these are smaller ships, suppose ships like Queen Mary 2 etc. have to dock somewhere else). The first passengers already arrived.

There we had a fantastic few on the Opera house and walk around to stand under the Harbor bridge. You can climbed on Harbour Bridge, don't know if I will do that after my cruise when I will spend 3 full days in Sydney before going on my next cruise heading to Fiji.

Climbing Harbour Bridge

After that Christian brought me back to my hotel where I took a shower after around 50 hours up and had a little nap before Christian came to take the tram to Chinatown for dinner in a Korean restaurant.

As I did not find it nice enough we walked around and ended up in a more fancy restaurant (with white table cloth and quite packed) and had a nice dinner. Christian walked me back to the tram who turned out to be a bus a night).

Sydney 13 February

Flew with an old Jumbojet, seats not too good and coild not sleep as usual in trains and planes.

Suitcase arrived as well, late but it arrived, nobody even looked at my visa!

More than 40 hours awake and now waiting for Christian to go for Lunch.

Pre-booked Transfer from the airport to the hotel worked fine and luckily I was the first one to be dropped off. Terribly hot. My room is not ready yet, therefore I am still in my winterclothes! Will get later a room on an upper floor with terrific view on the harbour (am a good client with Accor).

Bangkok 12 February

Flight from Brussels to Bangkok in a A380 went smoothly and we arrived 45 minutes earlier than foreseen. Very humid, will stay in the terminal and try to kill the 12 1/2 hours till departure of my flight to Sydney.

Departure Zaventem - 11 February

My friend Karen drove me to the airport.

Had to show at check-in my visa for Australia and the girl discovered that I had added a number to much after my passport number and therefore the visa was not valid. She called Belgian immigration and a nice guy called Australia and a notice had been made by Australian immigration that this was a typing mistake!

In between we had coffee and I spilled my lovely double espresso on the pants of Karen! Got a new one for free. First positive thing today!

Lets hope they let me into Australia and don't send me back to Bangkok! (Nobody even wanted to see my visa!)

Now a bit relaxing in the lounge and hopefully off we go!