From the executive lounge on the 28th floor of the Marriott Harbour Hotel at Circular Quay in Sydney, NSW.
Our view from our room on the 21st floor of the Marriott Harbour Hotel on Circular Quay.
From the executive lounge on the 28th floor of the Marriott Harbour Hotel at Circular Quay in Sydney, NSW, looking at the Sydney Opera House.
The Sun Princess slides under the bridge in Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Sun Princess nearing its dock in Sydney, NSW from the 28th floor of the Marriott Harbour Hotel on Circular Quay.
Mom and Dad Poitras in Circular Quay in Sydney, NSW.
Circular Quay in Sydney, NSW.
The Sydney Opera House from Circular Quay, NSW, Australia.
Mom and Dad Poitras at Circular Quay in Sydney, NSW, Australia.
The Marriott Harbour Hotel in Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Flowers on trees in Circular Quay, Sydney, NSW
The Museum of Art in Sydney, NSW.
Circular Quay in Sydney, NSW
Clean Sydney, NSW, Australia. Couldn't find garbage cans here oddly.
Amy's car in Australia. The tag says "Queensland - Sunshine State"
Deb got the better picture of the Sydney Opera House later the same day.
And she got the better picture of her parents too.
Deb's picture of the Circular Quay in Sydney.
On board the Sun Princess in Sydney, NSW.
Deb on board the Sun Princess in Sydney, NSW.
Sydney, NSW from the Sun Princess.
The pool deck and Lido deck on the Sun Princess in Sydney, NSW.
The Sun Princess in Sydney, NSW.
More of Sydney, NSW from the Sun Princess.
Old and new in Sydney, NSW from the Sun Princess.
The aft pools on the Sun Princess.
The Sun Princess flying her colors in Sydney, NSW.
The Atrium of the Sun Princess.
More Atrium of the Sun Princess.
Deb's view of where we started in Sydney.
One of the tugs used to wheel the Sun Princess around 180° in Sydney Harbor, NSW.
The Harbor Bridge in Sydney, NSW. People climb it to watch ships leave the harbor underneath.
As the Sun Princess is being spun around in Sydney Harbor, a FedEx DC-10 is on final into Sydney's international airport.
The observatory in Sydney, NSW.
Sydney Harbor.
Passing under the bridge is a big attraction to Australians.
The Sun Princess' stacks approaching the bridge as people who've climbed it watch.
Deb got a good shot of the climbers.
Looking back at Sydney from the Sun Princess.
A look at the other side of the harbor from Deb.
I thought this looked neat.
A good picture of someone taking what's likely a better picture of the Sydney Opera House.
Sydney Opera House.
Another picture of the opera house, this time from Deb.
A final look back at the Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge.
Ok, one more.
Ah, these always look good.
Sydney Harbor National Park on the way out to sea from the Sun Princess.
One last shot of Australia as we enter the Tasman Sea on our way to New Zealand.
Early the following morning at sea.
For some reason I like taking pictures of sunshine on the water.
Passengers eat breakfast on the Lido deck in the Horizon Court buffet on the Sun Princess.
The mast of the Sun Princess.
And, of course, where we'd been.
Munchkinland! This is the smallest cabin I've been in. Deb is still in bed.
My half of the cabin.
Our refridgerator, storage with safe and TV stand. The door on the left is the cabin door and to the right is the bath.
The bath.
Evening time on the Sun Princess. You can see the slow swell we experienced most of the time crossing the Tasman Sea.
The following morning, the pool exhibits the effects of the swell. Spiderman nets the pools to keep people out when the seas are rolling like they were.
Here again you can see the pool's water sloughing to aft.
Rich and Deb on Formal night.
The Poitras' on Formal night.
Millford Sound in Fjordland National Park, NZ looks a lot like the coastline of Alaska.
Another look at the falls in Milford Sound, Fjordland National Park, NZ.
Breath-taking scenery.
Passing by the waterfall and seeing into the valley in Milford Sound, Fjordland National Park, NZ.
It was chilly here this morning.
More beautiful scenery.
The settlement of Milford Sound.
Cold and forbidding!
I see Alaska in these cliffs.
A tour boat approaching the falls.
Closing in on the base of the falls.
I wonder if they are getting wet?
More Alaska look-a-like.
Deb freezing at the falls.
A fishing vessel at the mouth of Milford Sound on a cold and dreary day in NZ.
I was trying to capture the mist along the coastline here.
Munchkinland shower.
The rugged coastline of Fjordland National Park on the south island of New Zealand.
The top floor of the Atrium of the Sun Princess, where Verdi's Pizzaria is located.
The sun came out for a short while this day and received a warm welcome!
Just another of those neat pictures I like.
These rocks intrigued me.
Another picture of the rocks.
Rocks in the distance are all that stand between us and Antarctica.
More pictures of the sun.
Pulling into Port Chalmers for our day in Dunedin.
The hills are incredibly green here.
Just beautiful.
Sheep everywhere, although there are now only 40 million head of sheep, down from 80 million a decade ago. That's still 10 sheep to every person in NZ.
I couldn't get over how pastural it was here. I thought it looked like I would imagine Scotland or Ireland would, later comfirmed by Patrick, one of our dinner table companions who was raised in Scotland.
Nearly every port we stopped in had a large backlog of logs waiting to be shipped to Japan and Korea. Logging is one of New Zealands biggest industries.
This is where the Sun Princess parked!
We were swung around and backed in.
By two of these little guys, in fact.
On our way to Penguin Place, more green hills.
The world's steepest street, Baldwin St. in Dunedin.
A look back down from the top of Baldwin St.
The University of Otego.
"Give Way" signs instead of "Yield" signs.
This was the train station in Dunedin.
Our ride for the day in Dunedin; Sonny was our erstwhile guide turned taxi driver. You can see the Cadbury factory behind us.
They are paying the equivalent of $4.65 per gallon for gas in New Zealand, which regulates the price.
The Sun Princess in the distance across the Port Chalmers.
A Kiwi Bumble Bee at Penguin Place.
This is where we saw the Yellow Eyed Penguins, the 2nd most rare penguins.
Deb at Penguin Place. The Sun Princess is just at the upper left of the photo.
You can see it was a chilly morning.
This is a lovely picture as the sun comes out.
The barren coastline here is all farmland.
The beach of Penguin Place, where the Yellow Eyed Penguins come to breed.
Yellow Eyed Penguins, through a fence.
Yellow Eyed Penguins.
A Yellow Eyed Penguin and chick.
Another Yellow Eyed Penguin.
The area the Yellow Eyed Penguins call home and breed in.
Most likely, mom's unhappy with us peepers.
How they get to the beach.
Nice beach.
Deb and her father along the walk at Penguin Place.
A seal on the rocks at Penguin Place beach.
Roger and Ellen Poitras at Penguin Place.
Rich and Deb Kramer at Penguin Place.
A Maori holy site.
Intricate carvings of stone at the Maori holy site.
Us all at the Maori holy site.
We ate lunch here at the Portobello Hotel restaurant.
Deb even tried the fish and chips!
More green hills and sheep.
Larnach Castle, built in the 1870s. While the building is small compared to Biltmore, its gardens are far nicer.
Gardens at Larnach Castle.
The view from Larnach Castle. Gold was found here in the hills in the 1870s.
A closeup of one of the unusual plants in the gardens at Larnach Castle.
The leaves belong to this plant.
One of the Lions at the front of Larnach Castle.
Crazy beautiful, Dunedin was my favorite stop.
The observatory at Port Chalmers is an English hallmark. The ball still drops down the post at 00:00 GMT to this day, although now just for show.
Looks a busy port.
In Christchurch, we had a change in plans for our Indigenous Trails tour due to a Maori official's death. Here we are at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve.
You can just make out the eels in the water here, they were huge.
This was the craziest goose. We dubbed him the "Duck Police" because all he was interested in was chasing ducks, who dared to leave the water for dry land, back into the water. He was a very busy goose and seemed to be mildly annoyed when we would get in his way.
Here he is eyeing a duckling and its mother.
The duckling and its mother.
He's quite suspicious of their intentions.
A herd of fallow deer in the reserve. You can see the deer on the far right is standing on its hind legs to get to leaves.
An ostrich, not native to New Zealand.
Wallobee. Again, not native to New Zealand.
Wallowbee look like small kangaroo.
Ducks in a very green pond.
A pig. There were no 4 legged mammals in New Zealand before people.
Donkey
Llama
Goats
Sheep
An American Miniature Horse.
A New Zealand Falcon.
One of the interesting plants in New Zealand.
Lunch in Christchurch was at a buffet.
We ate lunch on the second floor here.
A Maori wood carving in Queen Victoria Park in Christchurch.
Where we went "Punting on the Avon"!
In case you weren't sure where you can "punt".
The interior of the punting shed.
I'm not sure if we are "punting" or being "punted" here.
A "punt"? I'm not sure really.
Along the Avon, a Coastal Redwood tree. They grow twice as fast here in New Zealand as in California but are not native here.
More pretty scenery.
The end of our 30 minute "punt". Our "punter" was from Canada.
Christchurch Cathedral.
The observatory in Lyttelton, just like the one in Sydney with the ball that drops at 00:00 GMT.
The green hillsides of Lyttelton.
Looking back at the Sun Princess above Wellington, NZ.
They use potassium cyanide liberally here to rid the area of "pests" like possum, cats, stoats and ferrets.
Seal Coast near Wellington, NZ
More of rugged Seal Coast near Wellington, NZ
Rocky Seal Coast near Wellington, NZ.
The crooked lighthouse in the distance at Seal Coast.
It was a very windy day at Seal Coast.
Our 4WD team of 2 Toyota Land Cruisers and 2 Toyota 4runners going to tea with the seals.
We get stuck in this area on the way back!
We are pitched at quite a lateral angle here and I can't correct for all of it.
The 4runner behind us was equipped with winch and snorkel.
Continuing on to have tea with the seals. Not many people out here and just a few baches (a batchelor-type weekend house or cabin.)
There were sharp rocks that pop tires along this stretch.
The seals have made it for tea too!
We had disturbed his slumber.
Again, the seals.
Having hot tea (and hot coffee) out of the back of the 4WDs was quite welcome in the cold wind.
The crooked lighthouse of Seal Coast. We were told an Italian built it.
Another shot of the crooked lighthouse.
Stuck in the sand!
The guides working to free us. We only had to walk perhaps 50 yards beyond this to get to firmer ground.
A nice shot of the dark sand beaches along Seal Coast.
Climbing up to "Devil's Gate".
It's hard to see but this section of "Devil's Gate" has about 50° of elevation here.
Another shot of the very steep departure from "Devil's Gate". The Land Cruiser crawled very slowly up, over and down this.
Here you can see why it's called "Devil's Gate".
Wellington's port with the ubiquitous lumbar and a sports stadium.
In Napier, Hawkes Bay, we visited this winery and another.
The winery's grounds were lovely, the wine... so-so.
The winery was once a stable.
There were some great opportunities for pictures here, most of which I'm sure I missed.
The grapevines.
From a different angle.
The Seleni winery seemed more snooty, but whose wines where rather better than Ngatarawa's.
This seemed like an artsy picture, but I should not have centered the tree.
Napier's port, and lumber.
As the sign says.... Welcom to Tauranga!
Pronounced: "Tay Poo-kay".
Kiwi fruit is grown like grapes, on vines.
A Maori welcome at the Skyline Restaurant in Rotorua.
Lake Rotorua from the Skyline Restaurant.
At Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Springs.
One of the stinky steamy holes in Wai-O-Tapu.
This area reminded me very much of Yellowstone National Park, only on a very small scale.
Lots of colors in the rocks.
The yellow of sulphur was in the ground everywhere and the smell was in the air.
I emphasized yellow in this picture to show that sulphur was all over the ground
A boiling hot mud bath!
More scenery at Wai-O-Tapu.
Even the trees were coated with sulphur.
I think I caught a good photo here.
Looks like a moonscape in black and white.
This is called the Champagne Pool. You can see the little bubbles in the water.
More bubbles in the Champagne Pool.
More of the emphasized yellow of sulphur.
This is called "The Devil's Bath".
Some of the nice park along Lake Rotorua.
About the only Kiwi you'll see easily is this sign.
This fern-like plant grows from what looks like a palm tree.
Coastal Redwood. They grow twice as fast here as in California and were planted for harvesting, but they've found the wood is too soft to be usable.
One of New Zealand's native reptiles, the Tuatara. It dates back some 300 million years.
Docked in Auckland!
You can't easily tell, but that's a Christmas tree of bulbs on the mast of the Voyager.
The Sun Princess in Auckland.
Auckland
A mall in Auckland with the old standards in the food court.
Another shot of the Sun Princess in Auckland.
The funny tower in Auckland from the Sun Princess.
Looks like something the Soviets might have tried to launch into orbit in the 70s.
Port city of Auckland.
Bay of Islands.
The Sun Princess in the distance.
We were greeted in Bay of Islands by more Maori people.
Dogs at play along the beach with the Sun Princess in the background.
The Sun Princess again.
You can see the Sun Princess through the islands here.
The northern end of New Zealand is just as green as the southern end.
In the small village of Kawakawa, the butchery's window.
We stopped in the small village of Kawakawa for coffee and a break.
The public men's bathroom in Kawakawa.
The glow-worm cave office.
More of the ferny palm that is New Zealand's symbol.
The entrance to the glow-worm cave.
The hike after the glow-worm cave was stout!
A Keri tree, similar in size to our coastal redwoods.
An old, fallen Keri tree.
The sap of a Keri tree.
Looking up at the crown of a Keri tree.
Here you can see the grove of trees.
More Keri trees.
Finally something live that is bigger around than me!
The Sun Princess, again.
Looking around the Bay of Islands.
The pool's in use, finally, on the Sun Princess.
Looking back at our last stop in New Zealand.
At dinner on our 2nd formal night, Heinz and Erica review the menu.
Patrick and Tina Deck at the 2nd formal night.
Koos Stiglingh, the Internet Manager on the Sun Princess.
I finally caught a beautiful sunset on the Sun Princess.
Rough seas and squalls on our last full day at sea.
Our hallway on the Dolphin Deck (deck 8) on the Sun Princess.
Our cabin entrance.
Back at Sydney.
The Diamond Princess in Circular Quay is too big to fit under the Harbor Bridge.
Sydney's funny tower.
Back where we started 13 days earlier.
Later on in the day that we disembarked, the Sun Princess sets sail on another cruise. Bon Voyage!
You can see how happy I am about people taking pictures of me. I really dislike it, if you can't tell.
AFLAC!
