Blogs from Oceania - page 17

Tour Day 35, Cruise Day 35 – Day at Sea Tour Day 36, Cruise Day 36 – Melbourne, Australia – Melbourne was a total bust this time around. First, my roommate from the 22-day tour of Europe last summer had some craziness in his life, and he begged off until I return in January. No problem, I’ll do the hop-on, hop-off bus tour. Second, I awoke to a case of the blahs – not really sick but just not feeling well. Third, it was raining – not a good day for the hop-on, hop-off bus tour anyway! So, there will be more about Melbourne in January. Tour Day 37, Cruise Day 37 – Burnie, Tasmania, Australia – Best of the Northwest: A Taste of Tasmania (8 hours) - Taste Tasmania's diverse northern specialties and meet some ... read more

Tour Day 32, Cruise Day 32 – Day at Sea Tour Day 33, Cruise Day 33 – Day at Sea Tour Day 34, Cruise Day 34 –Sydney, Australia – I had kept in touch with a couple I had met while on the tour of France in Summer 2022. It worked out that we were able to hook up for the morning of ms Noordam’s stop in Sydney. We had breakfast and walked around the harbor area, including the Sydney Opera House.... read more

Tour Day 28, Cruise Day 28 – Day at Sea Tour Day 29, Cruise Day 29 – Day at Sea Tour Day 30, Cruise Day 30 – Cross International Dateline, Day at Sea "The Crocodile Hunter" was standard television fare in my household during its 1996–2004 run, and Australia Zoo was definitely on my attractions list; however, it is about an hour out of Brisbane and would not be easily accessible to a “fella without a car” during my return visit. Soooo, I opted to subscribe to the “spoon-fed” shore excursion version, albeit more expensive and of shorter duration than I would have enjoyed on a free-lance visit. It’s a great facility and worthy of your time and effort. Tour Day 31, Cruise Day 31; Brisbane, Australia – CRIKEY! It's Australia Zoo (7 hours) – Boarding ... read more

Last thursday Ina and I spent our first full day together at Franz Josef Glacier. We arrived around 11:30am and emediatly started the 5½h return hike up to Roberts point to get a good look at the glacier. In the beginnig we had perfect hiking weather: Not to warm and a bit cloudy, but not rainy. 15 minutes in ut first started raining, but according to weather reports it should stop again soon so we were still optimistic. Turns out the weather report was wrong and we spend all but 30min of the 6h it took us to get up and back down walking through rain. Walking is a generous term in this case, most of the time you had to climb over rocks and waterfalls. Once we reached the top, we couldn't even enjoy the ... read more

Tour Day 25, Cruise Day 25 – Day At Sea Tour Day 26, Cruise Day 26 – Day At Sea Tour Day 27, Cruise Day 27 – Cascade, Norfolk Island, Australia Norfolk Island is an external territory of Australia located in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and New Caledonia, about almost 1000 miles northeast of Sydney. Together with the neighboring Phillip Island and Nepean Island, the three islands collectively form the Territory of Norfolk Island. At the 2021 census, it had 2,188 inhabitants living on a total area of about 14 square miles. Norfolk Island is one of Australia's most isolated communities and one of its oldest territories, having been settled six weeks after Australia's founding settlement at Sydney. The first known settlers in Norfolk Island were East Polynesians but they had already departed when ... read more