Sweet Adelaide

We have been trying to think of an adjective to describe Adelaide and a city in the United States to which we could compare it. The best descriptor for this charming city is "pretty." Think of a woman whom you would call pretty and you have the human equivalent of Adelaide. This city of more than 1 million people in South Australia combines the friendliness of a small town with the urban feel of a European city so no city in our country comes to mind. Adelaide ranks in the Top 10 of the World's Most Livable Cities.

Adelaide was Australia's first and one of its few planned cities. Unlike Sydney, which was settled by convicts, Adelaide was settled by predominantly religious dissenters and other immigrants who were free of the "convict stain." Under the guidance of Colonel William Light, the plan for Adelaide was drawn up along the River Torrens and was named after Queen Adelaide, the wife of King William IV. Adelaide's current elegance comes from its traditional stone architecture, formal park lands, more than 100 churches and wide streets. The overall effect is one of openness and cleanliness.

When we debarked the ship, we were met by the friendliest contingent of tourism ambassadors that have ever greeted us. Wherever we went in or outside the city, the residents were most gracious in helping us find our destination. Rundle Mall offered a free shuttle into the center city, which is about 45 minutes away from Port Adelaide.

Following the lead of Ginger and Joe, who have visited here before, we selected as our destination Hanhdorf, a charming village with streets lined with cork elms that was founded in 1839 by German Lutherans, about 45 minutes by bus from Adelaide. We immediately encountered a group of third and fourth graders who were involved in a project called Heartstrings & Happiness. A local artist had designed a town center from cardboard, and each child had created a home from a cardboard box that would bring the child happiness. The students were both creative and enthusiastic in their endeavors so we enjoyed our time with them very much.

Then we strolled the main street, popping in many of the wonderful and unique shops. In the Leathersmith & Bush Gallery, Ken purchased a leather glass holder honoring his hero, Ned Kelly, the original bush ranger who was hanged in Melbourne. Joe bought a handmade leather belt while Ginger selected a woven basket used by the indigenous women when they gathered small fruits and vegetables that she will use an evening bag, and a necklace strung with native seeds and nuts. We enjoyed German beers and admired the old-fashioned cottages with their German touches. Time really does fly when you are having fun, and before we knew it, we had to catch the bus back to Adelaide so we could make the last shuttle to Port Adelaide.

(While everyone commended Sara for getting us to the last shuttle on time, the real story is that Sara misread the bus schedule so we ended up catching the last possible bus from Hanhdorf to Adelaide. Fortunately, she was befriended on that bus by an Adelaide businessman who made sure we got off at the right stop and told her the shortest route to the shuttle. So don't tell Sara's traveling companions who think she is such a skilled navigator.)

The overall atmosphere of the day was comfortable yet sophisticated. Adelaide bills itself as "Australia's most relaxed city," and it certainly lives up to its publicity, which was a nice contrast to the vibrancy and excitement of Sydney. With its wonderful welcoming ambassadors, it deserves more tours and cruise ships. If we have the opportunity to visit Adelaide again, we would like to see the Cleland Conservation Park, a wildlife reserve on the slopes of Mt. Lofty, which offers a true bush experience with kangaroos, wallabies, emus, cockatoos and dingos. When we sailed away, we were sorry to say "farewell" to such a charming city.

Beautiful Blue Mountains--Day 2

Somehow we seemed to have lost the magic and good luck that accompanied us on our first day in Sydney. Day 2 was chilly and rainy. Our tour to the Blue Mountains, two hours west of the city, was delayed by almost two hours because of problems with the sound system on the bus, which, after changing buses, turned out to be a faulty microphone. It was not until 10:30 a.m. that we left downtown Sydney for a trip that took us through miles and miles of structures and arenas that had been built or expanded for the 2000 Summer Olympics to the Blue Mountains and Jamison Valley, a national park described as the Grand Canyon of Australia, which has been named a World Heritage Site. Captain Arthur Philips, then governor of New South Wales, named the range because when the sunlight hit the oil from the eucalyptus trees, it created a blue haze.

One of the most famous rock formations in the Blue Mountains is the Three Sisters from a Dreamtime story. Three warriors of one tribe fell in love with three gorgeous sisters from another tribe but marriages between the two tribes were banned. The three warriors developed a plan to capture the three sisters, which resulted in a tribal war. Fearing for the safety of the sisters, the witch doctor turned them into stone but was killed in the war before he could turn them back. Statues of what a sculptor envisioned as the beautiful sisters and the witch doctor greet visitors at the entrance to Scenic World Park. After viewing the actual rock formations, one knows that the sculptor had a vivid imagination.

Two factors that contributed to this tour not receiving stellar ratings were the number of visitors, mostly Asian Americans, and the brief amount of time we had to tour the valley after our late departure. Taking the Scenic Railway with its steep drop to Jamison Valley rivaled many roller coaster rides and the walkway in the valley with its history of the early miners deserved much more time. Standing in lines for the railway down and the cableway up took way too much time. On the railway up, Sara was more concerned with two fighting young brothers in her lane on the car so she thought she had missed the Three Sisters. Ginger has a great photograph of that ride that shows Sara looking as if she were pouting. Fortunately, the bus stopped at Katoomba, known a the Valley of Falling or Shining Water, for a different view of the rock formation, and Ginger took a photograph of Sara smiling as the possible fourth sister.

On the way back to Sydney, we stopped at Featherdale Wildlife Park, where visitors can interact with the wildlife. We had visited the park in 2006 but enjoyed it just as much this time. Our arrival just before closing time was very fortunate for us because we had the park to ourselves. Punxsutawney Phil especially enjoyed this part of the trip because he was at home with all his furry friends. We headed first for the koalas, who had been feed at 4 p.m. and were now enjoying nap time but were still incredibly cute in their sleepy state. Then we purchased a ice cream-cone container of feed for the kangaroos that were jumping free in the park. Ken tried to feed a wallaby who approached him who had to teach Ken the correct technique. Don't simply scatter the seed but let the animal eat directly from the cone and then eat the cone. Two species of animals that we really wanted to see were the dingos that look like dogs but are much more vicious, which we did see, and the Tasmanian Devil, who refused to come out of his hiding place in his cage.

On the 45-minute drive back into Sydney, our guide told us why Australia did not fall victim to the subprime recession in 2008 that caused havoc worldwide. The major reasons were that Australia exports its coal to China; the government poured $40 billion into the economy to support businesses, especially small businesses; the banks on the continent are large and not family-owned small banks; and the self-funded pensioners must meet a financial test before receiving money from the government. Australia is rich in mineral resources (coal, iron ore, uranium, diamonds and gold) but not rich in land because most of the country is desert with the majority of the population living in the coastal areas. Australia also is the biggest dairy exporter in the world. But the government seems to have the same problems that our country has with the Democrats and the Republicans through its Labor and Conservative parties.

Driving into Sydney from the west reminded Sara of driving from Robins0n Township to Pittsburgh. We even drove through tunnels that are similar to the Fort Pitt Tunnel but much newer at only three years. A sign flashed because cruise ships were visiting today, we should expect harbour traffic. After we crossed over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, we arrived at our ship and prepared for the sailaway party on a very cold and windy Deck 9. Ken got a hug from Leyla, his favorite dancer, and Sara was photographed with our Cruise Director Brett, for whom she feels maternal love because she is the same age as his mother. Sydney will always be one of our favorite cities!

Spectacular Sydney--Day 1

Sydney ranks as one of the 10 most livable cities in the world and the city Sara has visited the most outside the United States (three times and the city Ken has visited the most is London, where he completed his junior year of college.) Except for the extremely high cost of living, it is easy to see why people are proud to call Sydney home.

Not good for us on this visit was that Holland America's Amsterdam and Cunard's Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria, all on grand world voyages, also were docking in Sydney for one or both days that our ship was there. Those three ships had priority docking in the Overseas Passenger Terminal, where we were last year in the middle of all the action, while the Pacific Princess was relegated to Darling Harbour because our ship could sail under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was like being in a distant suburb. So after our little band of merry travelers (Ginger, Joe, Sara and Ken) finally found our way to Circular Quay, our goal was to buy tickets for the opera at the Sydney Opera House. Ginger thought we could get a better deal at the facility than online. Ken declined our invitation to join us at the opera.

While waiting in line at the Sydney Opera House, we talked to Sylvia, the computer-at-seas instructor on the ship, who had just purchased a ticket there because she was tired of waiting to access the Internet on her computer. So all our complaints about how slow and sporadic Internet access on the ship is have been justified by the ship's expert! However, the Internet access is the only thing on this trip that is worse than last year. We think that the food and entertainment ranks above the extremely high ratings we gave the 2010 World Cruise. Even the comedic magician was good!

While Joe and Ken drank Lowenbrau beers for $11.50 (how do people afford to live here?), Ginger introduced Sara to the art work of Ken Done and a museum selling Aboriginal originals. When we were eating lunch at an outdoor cafe, we noticed an advertisement for The Rocks Walking Tour, which was billed as "...the best, most entertaining and informative way to get to know the area..." that was the first settlement in Sydney. When we were in Auckland, our guide told us that the difference between New Zealand and Australia is that the former was settled by people who came because they wanted to live there while the later was settled by prisoners that the government had sentenced to live there. Our destination lecturer Richard had told us the when he was applying for his Australian Visa, the woman asked him, "Do you have a criminal record?" He answered, "No, do you still need one?" She did not think his response was funny.

The walking tour was one of the highlights of the day. The late 1700s was a time of poverty in Great Britain, and the jails were overcrowded because many of the poor people started stealing small items to keep alive. The government rounded up the offenders and dumped them in jails, the most famous being Newgate Prison. England has started a program known as transportation of prisoners in which they put them on ships and sent them to colonize other areas of the British Empire. Convicts were sentenced to seven or 14 years but once they had completed their sentence, it was a capital offense to return to England, so basically it was a life sentence. Unfortunately for the empire, Great Britain had lost its colonies in North America during the Revolutionary War (not a good time for the Mother Country). The officials remembered Bounty Bay in New South Wales and decided to send the First Fleet of 11 small ships, under the command of Captain Arthur Philip, to Bounty Bay in New South Wales on the east coast of Australia. After eight and one-half months, the ships, which carried 750 convicts and 550 marines and family members, arrived on January 26, 1789, which is now celebrated as Australian Day.

Many passengers had died in route and Bounty Bay turned out to be hell on earth. Phillip set out in a smaller boat and discovered the beautiful bay of Sydney Cove so the Rocks became the first settlement in Sydney. The convicts who were very ill prepared to colonize the territory, suffered very dismal beginnings. They had no building or farming skills, and the crops that they attempted to grow were unsuitable for the soil. But they carried on making for an incredible story. In all, more than 160,000 convicts were transported to New South Wales between 1788 and 1840 to colonize the continent. While it was not always looked on favorably, now having the "convict stain" in a person's heritage is a badge of honor.

The second highlight of the day was attending The Barber of Seville at the Sydney Opera House. The government had sponsored a contest in 1959 that resulted in 233 entries for the design of the opera house. The original estimate for the winning entry was $7 million. After the cost of construction had exceeded the budget many times over, the government decided that they could not complete the project. But the ingenuity that always has been a trademark of Australians resulted in the development of a lottery. Within 18 months, the government had raised enough money to finish the opera house, which was opened in 1973 at a final cost of $102 million. But what price could be put upon a masterpiece of human creative genius that has become a global icon, which is unparalleled as one of the great buildings in the 20th century? (Give credit to the advertising geniuses for this description.)

The performance of The Barber of Seville was everything that could be expected in the most famous opera house in the world--the orchestra was incredible, the choir was fantastic, the leads were outstanding in both their verbal and nonverbal offerings, the setting were beautiful and Figaro, the barber, received a well deserved standing ovation. It was a perfect ending to a delightful day in spectacular Sydney.

Happy 101st Birthday!

The age range on this ship is phenomenal with Alexi, at age 6 on his second world cruise being the youngest, and Stephen Gettus of British Columbia, also on his second world cruise because his interest in the world continues, celebrating his 101st birthday on February 17. What could create a better photo opportunity than getting those two passengers together in the Pacific Lounge on the day before we docked in Auckland to wish Stephen a very happy birthday and many happy returns? In addition to a packed room of passengers, the Pacific Princess World Cruise 2011 Choir gave the birthday boy a musical salute. With the wild and wicked seas, we all swayed back and forth but not necessarily to the music.

When the "most life-experienced" passenger was asked by Cruise Director Brett what his advice was for living a long life, he quickly replied. "Follow your instincts and drink lots of Scotch whiskey!" Then Alexi presented him with a gift from Princess Cruises and tried to leave. Brett asked him if he wanted to help Stephen open his gift as he would his own birthday. It was a picture frame with Pacific Princess engraved on it. Brett also had arranged for greetings from the Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper and the president of Princess Cruises who wrote "very few people who have sailed through the Panama Canal this year can say that they were born before the Panama Canal was completed."

Not to be outdone, 101-year-old Stephen, who likes to rhyme words, recited a poem he had written for this day that started with "Why have I lived to be 101 when it's perfectly plain the good die young?" and ended with "I'd rather have you here today for my sake than have you here for my wake!" Then the captain and Executive Chef Antonio Cortese helped Stephen cut into the huge cake decorated with a 101st Birthday sign and a Canadian flag while the choir sang, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow."

All interested passengers then had an opportunity to take photographs of Stephen and his trophy wife, Mel, who is a young 90-year-old. This is the second marriage for both Stephen and Mel, who was married for 62 years. They met while playing bridge and were married six years ago. Chico and Dawn, a musical duo, serenaded the couple with Canadian Anne Murray's "Can I Have This Dance for the Rest of My Life?" Needless to say, a good time was had by all!

Amazingly Awesome Auckland

Auckland is the fourth most livable city in the world, and anyone who has ever visited or will visit it finds this designation easy to understand. Because we had taken the hop-on, hop-off bus to visit many of the must-see museums and man-made and natural sites last year, Ken decided that he wanted to watch sheep shearing in New Zealand. Fortunately, the ship offered a tour to the west coast of the northern island that offered a tour of a farm and Muriwai's untamed coast with its nesting gannets. Punxsutawney Phil needed to be assured that no sheep shearer would want his coat of very short, extremely rare groundhog hair so we told him we know of no one who weaves or wears garments of groundhog hair.

So we headed for the hills out west, which are really the eastern ridge of a large volcano. It was good for us that the last volcano erupted more than 700 year ago. The drive took almost an hour with a journey through the small village of Helensville, which an early settler had named after his wife. The people of Helensville want to keep their lives rural. Last summer, the government started a train that ran once a day to Auckland and back. Because of the lack of passengers, the train was discontinued in December.

The Hauomoana Farm, owned by Barbara and Greg Ross for the last 16 years, is north of Helensville. The name for this 200-acre farm means "sea breeze" in Maori. And the couple has a beautiful view of the sea from their house on a hill. In addition to sheep, which are Suffolk sheep from England, they also raise deer and cattle. Their 15-month-old granddaughter was visiting them, and she quickly became a favorite with the female passengers on the tour.

Andy, their foreman, informed us that the each sheep produces about four inches of merino wool fiber each year. The wool, which is not itchy, has many fibers per square inch with the kinks holding pockets of air that retain warmth. The sheep are usually sheared in December so they are ready for New Zealand's summer. A shearer receives $2 per sheep with the good shearers being able to shear 300 to 400 sheep daily. The record for shearers is 840 lambs in one day. Because the shearer bends over the sheep while shearing, the trick is to shear quickly in order to get a break while standing up. Andy demonstrated the technique that involves sitting the sheep on its rear, holding it between the shearer's legs and making sure the sheep is comfortable so it does not squirm.

Using electric shears, Andy was able to bring most of the wool off in one large pelt. He said it takes about 55 to 70 strokes or blows to shear a sheep. Squeak, the border collie that was of the breed that had their long hair bread out, yapped the whole time while Andy kept screaming to him, "Shut up!", which Squeak never did. Once the sheep was sheared, Andy stroked it at its pressure points behind its ears, and the sheep immediately quieted down and relaxed into a sleep-like position. "Just like your wife!" proclaimed Andy. Boo! Hiss!

The wool is pressed into a 150-kilo bale, with four bales put together before it is exported. The sheep on the farm usually live 10 years. At one time, New Zealand boasted 70 million sheep but the number is now at 55 million. A typical farm needs five acres of pasture to support one sheep. When we noted that the farm lacked barns, we learned that the animals are kept outside all year around.

An average farm usually has between six and 10 sheepdogs that work about six to eight years. After the shearing demonstration, Andy took Squeak to the pasture to show us how a herding dog stares at the sheep, making sure that they know they are being eye-balled and singled out so that the sheep wants to get back into the group. Squeak herded the 12 sheep to Andy and kept them in formation, whenever they started to roam. Bev (Bev and Brent), who had been raised on a sheep farm in Idaho, mentioned the sport of sheepdog trails. None of us thought that Squeak would make the finals.

Then we were treated to a delicious lunch featuring lamb. After lunch, we had the opportunity to feed the leftover bread to the deer. Sara, who was raised in western Pennsylvania where the First Day of Deer Season is a school holiday, had no idea that farmers raised deer. We also were invited to tour the Garden Walk, which had among its flora and fauna a very unusual form of iris that everyone photographed.

After the owners bid us farewell (as two tour buses from the Queen Elizabeth, which is a Cunard ship on a world cruise, pulled into their driveway), our bus driver drove us to Muriwai Beach to view the gannet colony. Bev commented, very sarcastically, that she really likes tour guides who never say anything. If anyone from Princess is reading this entry, two suggestions are to have a separate tour guide from the bus driver and to have the tour guide provide commentary on what we will be seeing when we get to each stop. Also, we could have used at least an hour at this stop, not a half-hour.

The black sand beach at Muriwai is one of the most popular surfing beaches in the country. There is nothing between that beach and Australia. Hang divers jump off the cliffs when the winds are right. That is also the reason why the gannets call the rock stacks home because the strong updrafts provide for easy takeoffs. We were told by Richard, our port lecturer, that the gannets will dive bomb at up to 65 miles an hour to catch fish. When we were there, the birds must have already caught the fish because they were feeding their young, who are born blind, naked and helpless. When the young are 15 weeks old, they take their first-ever journey to Australia, 2,000 kilometers away. There they spend two to three years before about 25 percent of the gannets return to New Zealand to mate and start the life cycle all over again.

At the beach, we also watched a photographer photograph a wedding couple on the cliff. Because of the updrafts, the bride was having some problems with her veil, which created some interesting photographic opportunities for Ken. Ken also was the only passenger on our tour that made it all the way down the cliffs to the beach by running down the cliff. There, he photographed a cave on the beach. The extra half hour would have given all of us the opportunity to walk along the beach.

On our trip back to Auckland, our bus driver did point out the grape-growing areas in wine country and the kiwi, which are now called zespri if they grown in New Zealand because the country exported the kiwi plants all over the world so kiwis are not special to New Zealand any more. We also crossed over the Auckland Harbor Bridge, which was built as a four-lane bridge in 1959. Because the bridge opened up the area, it soon could not handle all the traffic. So New Zealand had Japan produce extra lanes, that the country call clip-ons, to make the bridge eight lanes. The barrier on the bridge is movable so the lanes can be switched so that there are five lanes going into the city during morning rush hour and five lanes going out of the city during evening rush hour.

When we arrived back in downtown Auckland, we wanted to tour Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World and Antarctic Encounter, where giant acrylic tubes offer views of free-swimming marine life and a colony of 80 sub-Antarctic penguins play in the snow and water. However, the employee at the tourist center told us we would need to take a taxi and would only have about an hour before the attraction closed. So we decided to do something unique after being on a cruise for 30 days--take a one and one-half hour cruise around Auckland Harbor, which is absolutely magnificent. The other tourists were passengers from the Pacific Princess and the Queen Elizabeth, who just couldn't get enough of water travel. We learned that one in five people in Auckland own a boat and one in three have access to a boat. No wonder Auckland is call the "City of Sails."

We ended our perfect day by spending all of our remaining New Zealand currency on beer and wine. It would not have been worth to try to exchange it for U.S. dollars. Don't worry, we didn't have that much money left but we hope that the beverages last us until we arrive in Sydney on February 21.

Moorea--World's Most Beautiful Place

If there is a more beautiful island in the world than Moorea, we do not know what it is. Sara is afraid that she cannot find the right words to describe how stunningly gorgeous this small piece of land in the South Pacific is while Ken does not think any photographs that he took does that setting justice. So I, Punxsutawney Phil, have volunteered to write this blog entry and select the pictures. My writing will also give the news media a preview of the location that I have selected to make my weather prediction on February 2, 2012.

My first impression of Moorea was the incredible turquoise and sapphire blue water with white waves in between in Cook's Bay. Once we debarked the tenders, we were invited by Don and Donna Stein from Ketchikan, Alaska, to join them and two other passengers for a four-wheel drive Circle Island Tour. The Steins had moved from Washington, DC, after they sold the funeral home that they operated to Ketchikan, a port on their Alaskan cruise with which they fell in love. Our first stop was an overview of one of several hotels that has grass huts built on stilts over the South Pacific Ocean. Then we walked along one of the beautiful white sand beaches, where I found a hole in a tree trunk overlooking the water that I claimed as my new burrow for forecasting the weather next February. I am ready to give up the cold and snow of western Pennsylvania for this island paradise.

We had a photo stop at the mountain that was used for the filming of the scenes in Bali Hai in the movie South Pacific. This mountain also appears on the 50 and 100 francaise coins in French Polynesia. Our driver also stopped at a small picture-perfect Catholic Church. Even the statue of the Virgin Mary was wearing a lei of topical flowers.

Then the road climbed steeply up an old crater to Belvedere Lookout, with its awesome panorama view of the deep-blue fingers of Cook's and Opunohu Bays separated by Mount Rotui. The obligatory photograph was of the ship's passengers standing at the top of the lookout with the Pacific Princess anchored in Cook's Bay in the background.

When our driver dropped us off at the dock, Sara and Ken were talking about going back to the ship for lunch and to change into their swim suits. I was afraid that they may leave me behind in the stateroom when they departed. By luck, a passenger approached them to state that a boat needed two more passengers before it would set sail for an afternoon of snorkeling. They immediately signed on, thus ensuring the continuation of my island adventure.

The boat sailed out of Cook's Bay, past Mount Rotui and another photo opportunity of Bali Hai, and into Opunohu Bay, which the captain said was more natural and unspoiled by man or woman. We then stopped to snorkel with the stingrays and sharks. The crew had assured Sara and Ken that there was a place on the beach where they could change into their swimsuits but the boat wasn't at the beach. Sara didn't want to miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so they took turns holding up a towel for each other. Ken was sure that a woman on another boat was taking pictures of them as they changed so if you see them on the Internet sans most clothing, please let them know.

They learned how to pet the stingrays on the top and became accustomed to be bumped by them as the crew fed them. Then the sharks arrived, and they were assured that these sharks did not bite. Sara was happily snorkeling among the stingrays and sharks when a man, whom she assumed was Ken, grabbed her wrist. When she stood up and took off her mask, she was facing a member of the crew who told her to move to the other side of the boat because she had too many sharks surrounding her. (Remember the Jimmy Buffet chorus, "Fins to the left of me. Fins to the right of me and you're the only bait in town.") With Sara's Scottish, Irish and Welsh heritage, she was primo white meat for all ocean inhabitants.

The boat then took us to a beautiful white sand beach where I was welcomed as the celebrity that I am. The crew set out a lovely array of topical fruit, and Ken and Sara enjoyed more Hinano beers that were even more expensive than the ones in Tahiti ($6.25 each). While we all could have stayed there staring at the scenery and walking along the beach until nightfall, we had to head back to Cook's Bay to catch the tender to the ship.

Once on the Pacific Princess, the fun continued with a Champagne Sailabration on the open Decks 9 and 10. This had to be one of the best sailaways ever with jaw-dropping vistas and champagne glasses that were constantly filled by the crew.

While Moorea is only 12 miles from Tahiti, Captain Bligh never landed on that island. My theory is that if he had experienced all the beauty that Moorea offers, he would have been the leader of a mutiny to stay there forever.

We now have five days at sea before we reach Auckland in which we will cross the International Date Line, lose the day of Sunday, February 13, and celebrate Valentine's Day. Check back with us February 15 for an update on these happenings.