Albany

Today was spent in Albany in southern West Australia. It was a bright, sunny day but quite windy. We were in line to get the shuttle bus to town when a German couple asked us to share a taxi and driver with them and take a drive around the area. We got a taxi with a driver named Terry. He was a nice Australian gentleman, quite personable, and he drove us along the coastline to where we saw the last whaling station that closed in 1977. We saw a whaling ship, pretty small and narrow, a natural bridge and a lot of granite rocks along the cliff shore. There were pure white beaches with turquoise water: what could look better! The German man wanted to taste some fresh oysters so the driver took us to an oyster place where the boat had just brought in some fresh ones. He said they tasted good. They looked disgusting to us. Another site we saw was a wind farm and our driver said it supplied 90 percent of Albany's electricity. There is always plenty of wind coming up from the Antarctic to provide power for the generators. We walked around town, through a little market, and then came back to the ship. We had to be back by 1:30 because the ship was to sail at 2:00. Albany seems to be just a small country town. The people seem to be laid back. As we driving through the country we passed a farmyard where there was a rusty old steam-driven tractor and a couple of old, rusty, decayed cars. The coastline is so beautiful that the town is spread out because the people want to enjoy the view of the ocean. Morag says she keeps trying to think of something funny to say but the ship is filled with old people (older than we) and nothing much funny goes on. One interesting thing though was that one man was celebrating his 100th birthday on the ship and he was invited up to the bridge and allowed to blow the ship's whistle. He blew it for a long blast, too.

The last two days at lunch we sat beside Scots. Yesterday it was a couple from Fife. During the course of the conversation it turned out that the wife had gone to school with Morag's cousin Dakers Fleming. We wouldn't know him if we saw him. Today we sat with a couple from Aberdeen. He was a medical doctor with a specialty in rheumatics. We asked him if he knew Verner Wright and it tuns out he did. So while nothing too funny is happening, it's interesting that you bump into people the other side of the world who know people that we know.

Last night we went to the Lido for dinner. It was to be oriental and we we had an enjoyable evening there. That's all for now. We are steaming at full speed for Fremantle, which is the port for Perth. More from there.

Adelaide

We had a lovely, sunny, warm day with no humidity, just nice to be out in it. The city is the driest, southernmost capital on the driest continent in the world according to the driver of our coach as we headed into Adelaide. The port of Adelaide is probably 20 miles from the city so it took about 40 minutes to get into town. At the port we had to run the gauntlet of opal dealers just to get outside to where the buses were waiting. Our driver gave us a running commentary of all the attractions as we made our way into the main part of town. For those of you who are in Edinburgh you can feel quite comforted that Adelaide is bringing back trams. It was a very nice city, wide streets, well planned with nice parks but it was very dry and the grass was brown in most areas. The people were very helpful like we have seen in other Australian cities. Morag was struck with the fact that despite the hot climate the business men were dressed in long-sleeved shirts with ties. While it was very nice, Adelaide was not our favorite city. We walked around the center, then even further to the city market, took a bus ride around the main district, all very nice and then we came home. When we sailed away there was a lot of people waiting to wave goodbye to us. This was the first time Queen Victoria had been to Adelaide and it made the local television news. At 7:00 that evening we went to a classical piano concert by an internationally known musician from Shanghai who played some of his own works and a couple of pieces by Chopin. His name is Tian but I am not sure of his complete name. Now we have two days at sea before we stop at Albany in West Australia. The seas are calm but it's a bit breezy making it cool on deck. More to come after Albany.

Melbourne

Melbourne has proved to be another interesting city. It was a mixture of old and new: extremely modern buildings and skyscrapers, then there were old cottages and mansions that were put up by the first settlers. In fact, the old governors cottage had been fabricated in England and sent out here board by board, so it looked out of place in this city. The Information Center was the best we had ever seen, extremely helpful people who were dressed in red and stationed throughout the city to help you. The only other place we have ever seen anything like that was in Helsinki. From the moment we got off the ship we found the people to be friendly, hospitable, and proud of their city. We took a short bus ride into the heart of the city where we got on a tram that ran in a circular route around the center. It was old, rickety and crowded with locals who hopped on and off as we traveled around. There was a commentary over the PA system but the din from people on the car was so loud we had difficulty hearing what the guide was saying. Did I forget to mention the tram ride was free.

People on the tram were friendly and willing to talk to you about their hometown. The circular route took you to the most interesting parts of the city including their stadium, shopping precincts, government buildings and a couple of yacht basins. We did get off the tram at one point and went into a big shopping mall. We spent about an hour there before getting back on the tram and completing the circuit. We then caught a city tour bus, also free, and went around different parts of the city and seeing other interesting sights. Both the tram and the bus were very crowded, the tram with locals and the bus with tourists of all different nationalities and cultures.

After we finished our two tours of the city we caught the shuttle back to the ship, had lunch and rested for a while before changing into formal duds and going back into Melbourne to the National Victoria Gallery for the annual World Cruise banquet. It was a very dramatic room and when we went into it we kind of caught our breath. There were 50 tables set out: in the center of the tables were very tall vases like we had at Rachel's wedding and they were filled with three dozen white roses, which were easily caught by the lights in the room. There was candlelight on the table, the candles being on a draped silvery cloth. The chairs were covered in white with silver sashes tied in the back. The astonishing thing was that this was set in a completely black room; black floor, black walls but the entire ceiling was like a stained-glass window. The menu was smoked salmon, a bread basket with lots of different breads, then filet mignon with mashed potatoes, green beans with some fancy sauce. The main course was followed by dessert served on long white dishes with three desserts on each plate. The first one was strawberries and blueberries; the second was chocolate mousse served inside a chocolate basket and the last was a small lemon-meringue pie with coffee or tea. Wine and champagne flowed freely during the entire meal. We were entertained by the Australian Boys Choir and they were outstanding, on a par with the Vienna Boys Choir. That sums up a very special evening. We departed some time after midnight sailing towards Adelaide. Today we are at sea, choppy but not too bad. Morag is doing a wash in the ship's entertainment center also known as the laundromat. I am sure we will have stories to tell you about that when we get home.

Sydney

Well let's add Sydney to the list of places we think are wonderful and would be a good place to live. The streets are clean and wide, people are friendly, really nice buildings, and lots of green parks. There are great beaches within a 30 minute drive where you can have a family beach with shallow water and good for wading to beaches where the waves are big enough for good surfing. As we looked at some of the beaches, the first thing that struck us was that the people had very few things at the beach. They just sat on their towels, no deck chairs, no loud music, no cabanas or umbrellas. If they were hungry they only had to walk across the street to find all kinds of restaurants and outdoor cafes to get food or drink. We liked the relaxed attitude because it kept the beach clean. Now that we are beach experts we notice things like that. One good thing, NO ALCOHOL allowed on one of the most popular beaches around Sydney, Bondi Beach.

We arrived on Friday morning and as we were walking up to the Lido for breakfast we looked out the window and could see the Opera House. The harbor is deep and we could sail right into the Circular Quay, which is downtown Sydney. On the other side of the boat we could see an area called "The Rocks," which is where the first settlers came in and set up the penal colonies. On the Friday we took a city tour and were struck by how very pretty the city is. Then in the afternoon we took another tour on a city bus out to the beaches and to some of the suburbs and small towns. It was a lovely, warm day, not too hot and with the sunshine everything looked beautiful. When we got back to the quay we decided to take a walk over to the Opera house. If we could have walked on water it would have only been a few yards away but because we had to walk around the harbor it was about half a mile. After climbing 72 steps the place was locked and we could only look in. They were performing "Tosca" that night and we didn't have tickets to go so we did not get inside the building.

Saturday we had to be up early because we had to move rooms. We only had to pack up loose items, not the clothes that were on hangars. The cabin attendants moved everything for us but it was still a hassle to us when we got back that evening just to put things away. During the day we took a ferry to Manly, a suburb with a nice beach. We looked at a few shops, walked to the beach, and then came back to Sydney. We were only there for an hour. When we came back we walked through an open-air market near to the ship. That market was full of artisans and craftsmen who had made all sorts of items but mostly jewelry. We had lunch then took a walking tour of the area called "The Rocks" which was the area where the first prisoners settled. The tour guide was very enthusiastic and humorous and he loved Australia. He said he had over 6,000 books on Australian history in his own private library. Fortunately he said Australian history is only recent so they didn't have to do any guessing or surmising. So from its start as a penal colony to the present day all its history has been recorded. He was one of the best tour guides we have ever had. He was wonderful.

And so back to the ship because we had to unpack and set up our new stateroom. We are now on our way to Melbourne on the south coast of Australia.

Love to you all.

Mel and Morag

Wellington, NZ

On Tuesday we arrived in Wellington on schedule. It was cloudy but not raining. By the time the day was over we had a very pleasant day. Wellington was our third stop in New Zealand and we still think it is very much like Scotland. In fact, one woman told Morag today in the laundry room that she had been visiting Scotland, but it was called New Zealand. We were met at the port by Patsy, who was the school friend of Morag's sister Rachel. Patsy left Scotland for NZ 54 years ago and Morag had not seen her since. As were walking through the parking lot on the quayside looking for someone, a car horn honked and a young woman came out of a car and hugged us. It was Jackie, Patsy's daughter who had come to meet us. Patsy was still in the car. So our adventure in Wellington began.

We first had a quick run around the center of Wellington and up to Mount Victoria, a lookout point from where we had a good view of Wellington, the harbor and the surrounding coastline. The place is beautiful. We then took a drive along the coast just playing tourist. From one of our lookout points we could barely make out the southern island where we had been the day before. We stopped for coffee and had a look around at several places, looking for souvenirs, etcetera. We had lunch at a nice restaurant overlooking the ocean and sitting on top of a big bluff. The ocean is everywhere in NZ: you are never more than 70 miles away from it. After lunch we went to Patsy's house where we met her other daughter and four grandchildren. We had a cup of tea and a blether and then too soon time had passed and it was time for us to return to the ship. It was a wonderful day and we never stopped talking about Scotland and times gone by.

Last night we went to a show after dinner, which was a talent show put on by some crew members. All the acts were musical and were very good. At the end we had to vote on which act we thought was the best. The winner is supposed to be announced tonight.

So now we are at sea and on our way to Sydney where we will spend two days. The weather in the Tasmanian Sea is stormy and wet. Hopefully it will be better in Sydney. It is still better than all the snow in Maryland.

Lyttleton/Christchurch

On Monday we docked at Lyttleton, which is the port for Christchurch and is on the southern island of New Zealand. What a beautiful place but the sky was overcast and it was raining slightly. We started out on a bus for a very short journey, about five minutes, to the railway station where we boarded the Tranzalpine Express. We were traveling with a couple from England who are at the same table with us for dinner. The train ride was a steady climb up passing first through the city of Christchurch and along the Canterbury plain until we began a steeper climb up into the alps. After we got out of the built up areas the scenery improved greatly. The scenery was spectacular as we traveled along the alpine railway up and up. We passed gorges and mountain streams, crossed over tall bridges and went through several tunnels dug through the mountains. We were served coffee or tea in the morning and then a picnic lunch on board, which was quite good. We stopped at a settlement called Springfield and were given some time to look in at the local railway station and to buy souvenirs, if we we were so inclined. Then we got back on the train and continued our upward journey to a place called Arthur's Pass. There we got off the train and boarded a bus that was to take us back to Christchurch and to the ship.

Our bus driver, Bernard, was very informative and gave us a lot of the history of the area as he drove us over the pass and then down into another valley before turning back to Christchurch. There was a red tree that is native to New Zealand, can't remember the name, and it is in bloom so the whole mountainside was bright red. We took a lot of pictures but the autofocus on the camera had been switched off so all the photos were ruined. The driver explained all about the local flora and fauna and gave us the history of transportation before the railway was built and told us about the people who had built the roadway and maintained it. There were cabins along the highway that originally served as the home of the person who was responsible for maintaining a 20 mile section of roadway, ten miles to either side of his cabin. We think that must have been a lonely job.

After we returned to the Canterbury plane, we were taken to a sheep farm where we were given a demonstration of a sheep dog at work. I thought it was funny that a couple of the sheep were not at all scared of the dog and even came out of the pack and challenged him but they went back into the pack after a short confrontation. Anyway, once the sheep were rounded up the local sheep farmer explained how the sheep were marked and how he chose which sheep were kept for breeding and which ones were sent away to be used for food. Lambs are generally slaughtered at about six months of age. When ewes give birth to twins, usually the twin lambs are kept for breeding and the ewes that give birth to twins are kept for another year. Ewes are usually kept for about five years, after which their teeth are worn down to where they don't graze well so they are sent off to the slaughter houses. Twin lambs are kept for breeding usually with single ones being sent to become lamb chops. Also most of the male lambs become part of the dinner table. We had such a good lecture that we feel qualified to start sheep herding.

After the sheep-dog demonstration, the farmer explained sheep shearing to us and sheared a sheep. He also explained how the wool was separated and how lanolin was extracted from the wool. This, too was interesting. And of course there was the inevitable souvenir shop. We followed this with "tea" in a farm house. It consisted of a good cup of tea and a couple of home made cookies. That was it.

So, we were brought home with a roundabout tour of Christchurch as we headed back to the ship. The city reminded us so much of an English town with a cathedral square, a river running through it where one could go punting or for a boat ride. The landscaping even looked English. We returned back to the ship just in time to sail away.

Sunday

Sunday, 7 February in American Samoa

Greetings from Pago Pago (pronounced pango pango) in American Samoa. We had a nice day. The weather was good but hot and humid. We took a tour of the island. The buses were ancient school buses painted outside in wild colors and decorated with real flowers. The inside of the bus had wooden bench seats, wooden floor and wood even on the ceiling. There were no windows but some plexiglass halfway up where windows should be. Needless to say there was no air conditioning and they were uncomfortable to say the least. (It's amazing that we spent money on such an uncomfortable ride.)

What is our impression of American Samoa? It is like a rainforest all over the island and when you come into the harbor you face a sheer cliff which is covered in jungle. The tour we took was to see village life in Pago Pago and sure enough we drove through lots of villages. The houses were built of cinder blocks with corrugated iron roofs. There were lots of flowers growing wild but the little villages were poor looking with fairly unattractive shops. We did notice that the island was full of churches and there were a lot of billboards warning youth against drinking, which we assume must be a problem on the island. The tour guide told us that there was a 6:30 curfew in the villages on Sunday evening and no one is allowed out after that. The idea is that the family gets together for evening prayers and then the youngsters can get to bed early for school on Monday. We finally drove up to a village in the hills and they had little set ups of village life as it must have been or maybe still is in some areas. They showed us how they cooked outside over a stone fire with the food wrapped in banana leaves. They also showed us things like how they roast the cocoa beans, how they do their washing etcetera. The cocoa, which is their national drink was delicious. They put on a dancing exhibition for us which was interesting. One guy climbed up a tree to get a coconut and showed us how getting the milk out of a coconut was done. To sum it all up, they were very hospitable and it was interesting to see what village life was really like.

Our tour guide, a high-school senior sang us a couple of songs in Samoan and English. We enjoyed her singing to us. It was rather sweet.

We weren't sorry to return to the ship after riding over the bumpy roads on this school bus. We are supposed to finish up the day with a barbecue on the top deck but they had to move it inside because of the rain. We have no Monday this week because we cross the International Date Line about 11:00 tonight which will put us into Tuesday an hour later. So, that's Monday gone. Never mind! We will make it up on the way home. That about sums up American Samoa. Next stop is Lautoka in Fiji.

Friday at sea

Since we last created a blog we have been on the sea sailing in a south-southwesterly direction. It has turned tropically hot and very humid. When we walk outside the air-conditioned portion of the ship we are hit by a tropical blast that feels like a sauna. For those of you in MD, I think you would enjoy this weather rather than the huge snowfall you are having.

Today about 11:00 our time, 5:00 PM eastern standard time we crossed the equator. There was a big ceremony at the outdoor pool with King Neptune and all his crew. You are called a pollywog if you have not crossed the equator and a shellback once you have done so. The ceremony on a passenger ship is a lot tamer than it would be on a freighter or a naval ship. We watched the ceremony for about an hour but it was so hot we gave up and went inside. Besides we wanted to hear one of the lectures given by a retired British major general who had been in Berlin several times. I had a chance to talk with him and we know some of the same people,.

After the lecture it was lunch and then Morag went to the laundry room to do some laundry while Mel sat on the deck and watched the waves flow by. I think we have one more day at sea before we get to Pago Pago. We are looking forward to our trip ashore there. Next blog will probably be after our stop there.

For those of you in MD, hope you enjoy the snow storm. For those of you who were in Berlin with us, I found out today that Gene Bird passed away in 2005. We didn't hear anything about Donna. The general who was speaking did not know anything about her.

Hawaii

Wednesday, 3 February

Well, Hawaii is behind us and we have been remiss in keeping you up to date. Truth is we were so busy on Maui and in Honolulu that we were just too tired to sit down and write up our blog.

We had a great time on Maui. We got up promptly that morning so we would be ready to get an early tender to the shore. While we were having breakfast, we were surprised to see so many whales. The ship nearly tilted with all the people watching. Three came right up alongside the ship, we guess mother, father and baby. They really put on a show for us, spouting, porpoising and flipping with their tails coming out of the water and slapping down. Because of the whales being so close to the ship and in the waters nearby, the tenders could not leave right away. We were in the first group to get off the ship and went to the harbor and met Carol Beydler, her sister Mary and brother-in-law Norman who came into the same harbor we were in but about 20 minutes after us. Carol had hired a car and Norman drove us all over the Island. Maui is absolutely beautiful, especially with all the flowering bushes. It was hot and sunny and we could not have had a better time if we had planned it. It was nice at the end of a lovely day, sitting in the harbor, eating onion rings, having a drink, and just watching the people while we were waiting for our tender back to the ship. Maui is famous for onion rings. Carol and family had bought groceries to take back to their small island, Lanai, because there are no real grocery stores on the island. It was interesting to see all the people that had done the same carrying all their purchases on the ferry back to their island of residence. Thanks, Carol, for such a nice day. We really enjoyed it.

We sailed overnight and woke up the next morning in Honolulu. This is surely a nice way to see the world. While having breakfast we could see Diamond Head and the downtown area. Our ship docked alongside the Aloha tower so we could walk right off the ship into the city We took out our phone to call Sherry and Terry Tankersly and before I could dial they were calling us. Did we forget to tell you that it was absolutely pouring in Honolulu. The rain was heavy and the island was covered with clouds, which hid the mountains from us. When we got to Pearl Harbor Sherry ran and bought us ponchos so we could be protected from the rain. We could not get out to the Arizona because they were working on the docks, but we did get to see a documentary on the Pearl Harbor attack and wander around the museum area. We did see the Arizona memorial from the shore but were disappointed that we could not get out to it. We still enjoyed being there despite the rain and other difficulties.

Terry and Sherry treated us well by driving us around to places like the Punch Bowl and we ended up having lunch at the American military hotel on Waikiki beach. After lunch the rain stopped and the sun came out, so everything was much better. We drove along the coast and saw the ocean, surfers and kite surfers, whales, and some beautiful areas. Once again we were struck by the beauty and variety of the flowers and bushes and we also saw white pigeons. All the flora and fauna were so interesting to us. Again, Sherry and Terry treated us well and showed us many interesting sights in beautiful Hawaii. They have learned a lot about the island in such a short period of time. Thanks Sherry and Terry for showing us such a good time. After comparing our day with others on the ship, we think we had the best day of all.

Today they had a boat race in the deck swimming pool. People had made boats from things on the ship and they had to float from one end of the swimming pool to the other. The entries were graded on design, seaworthiness, and cargo carrying ability. I think those who participated had a good time. One ship was made by two little boys, but it didn't make it past the first seaworthiness test but they took it well. They lost part of their cargo as soon as their entry hit the water. Too bad.

So aloha. Now we are on a four-day sail to Pago Pago in American Samoa and will blog again after we have been there.