Five days before we leave. Lots to do!

Waiting for his drink in the Atrium. \240He says he feels like he is in a movie.

Some replicas of real Viking helmets-no horns! \240They didn’t put horns on their helmets.

We took a three hour ride around part of this island. Carribean poor with a few vacation homes in the hills and nice sail boats in the harbor.

Leave around 5 PM. Almost 800 miles to Tahiti- all day Monday.

Practice makes better

Our Guide - a native of the island.

A homemade outrigger on the beach

Entrance to the Catholic Church

Today it’s a glass bottom boat ride! I am getting used to this retirement life😄. These are the Tenders that take us to and from shore.

Docking in Tahiti, Papeete, French Polynesia. \240Our Pilot boat.

Our guide inPapeete

The Public Market - Fish, Fruit,- Vegetables, Handcrafts, Tahitian Pearls of various qualities.

Polynesian dancers in a park next to our ship. \240Tattoos are very popular in all of the Pacific Islands - Part of the culture.

Bora Bora - The top is generally in a cloud. We went on a glass bottom boat to view fish on the Coral Reef that surrounds Bora Bora. \240The town is mostly made up of jewelry stores selling Tahitian Pearls.

Our ship in the background.

Dick, enjoying the sights on Bora Bora.

We crossed the International Dateline last night and lost Martin Luther King Day, even though the certificate says January 20th. Last night was the 19th on the ship. \240It is now January 21 and we are reaching Tonga. \240It is an independent country with a Constitutional Monarchy.

They’ve gone about as far as they can go, and I know “car Washes”

Another church! \240Notre Dame of Tonga

Best beach on Tonga

Selfie from beach

Pretty good beer

Ladies making Tapa cloth

Tattoos Tonga Style

We got a certificate for crossing the International Dateline

Good size container port

View from our balcony. We took a 3.5 hour tour, mueseum and ride through a couple cities and over the mountains. Lots of poor people

Downtown Suva Fiji. \240800,000 People 55% Fijians and 45% Indian. \240The Indians were brought to Fiji in the 1800’s as slaves, by the British. Many decided to stay after their indenture was completed because they could have a better life in Fiji than they could in India. \240330 Islands in Fiji.

A visit to the Museum of Fiji. \240A Whale’s tooth Tabua, a ceremonial gift - very important in Fiji culture and very significant - like the Magi’s gifts. They are now very rare and expensive. \240No more cannabilism, which was very prevalent, but strong cultural beliefs and mores. \240

A common house. \240Everyone grows their own fruits and vegetables. \240Our guide told us that Fijians don’t have money and don’t like to work but are happy people.

An upscale house in Fiji.

January 26th on our way to New Zealand. \240Our entertainer after dinner - Juliette Primrose. \240She calls herself a “Fiddler” and she does wonders with the violin. \240She is from New Zealand.

Sheep farm outside of Auckland. Sheering done in about 10 minutes. 200 a day if you are good at it.

Herders, awaiting their instructions.

Bungi jumping from Auckland space needle

Lunch at the Space Needle in Auckland. Not as high as Toronto but a panoramic view of Auckland.

Culture comes at a price here in Tauranga N Z

Don’t I look enthused about having my picture taken? \240Lovely rose garden - a small part of the Wellington Botanical Gardens.

The city of Wellington, NZ. The Capitol of New Zealand. Beautiful waterfront area which extends for miles with great walking and biking paths all along the city center. We visited the National Museum, an extensive museum focused on the country, people and wildlife.

Memorial to Admiral Byrd. He used Wellington as a base for his 5 expeditions to Antartica. \240He was the first person to fly over the South Pole.

The Parliment Buildings in Wellington. The round building is called the Beehive!

The Parlimentary Library

Lunch and a beer on the way to the national museum - Te Papa. It is an extensive museum with exhibits on wildlife, culture, history of the native people (the Maori) and immigrants.

Jet boating on glacial river, exciting🤪

A ride into the “High Country” in a 4 wheel. Rubicon Sheep Station in the Canterbury Plains, the largest area of flat land (although it wasn’t flat and the hills were rugged) in New Zealand.

The Waimakariri River Gorge. Scene of our Jet Boat adventure.

Video of our jet boat ride

Return to Akaroa and our ship. Bays and vacation homes dot the hills and shores.

Taieri Gorge Railroad trip

The train was waiting on the track right where we disembarked from the ship.

Beautiful and rugged scenery

A tribute to the dogs who have herded the sheep here for over 150 years. \240There is still a sheep station at crest of hill where we stopped.

The Scottish people immigrated here in the mid 19th century. Reminded them of home.

The Taieri River at the very bottom of the gorge.

The Dundedin train station. The most photographed building in New Zealand.

Interior of the train station. The floor tiles were made by Royal Doulton.

We leave beautiful New Zealand and sail through the fiords. \240Doubtful Sound, named by Captain Cook as he was doubtful he would be able to navigate through it. We were to sail through Milford Sound but weather prevented us from going there.

We have been sailing for 3 days and arrive at Hobart Tasmania in Australia tomorrow.

These swells don’t look big but they are bigger than they appear. The ship has been rolling and throwing us off balance for a couple days.We haven’t had any sea sickness yet. \240We will make it to Tasmania but will miss Melbourne because of high winds and bad weather. ☹️

Kangaroos, Tanzanian Devils

And of course, Kangaroos. There were a couple with babies in their pouches.

Tasha did her best to feed a Kangaroo, but not much cooperation from the Kangaroo. They seemed to be napping when we visited.

But the best is yet to come, A real Tasmanian Devil.

A wombat! Held by the guide at the Wildlife Sanctuary.

And we learned a lot about the Aboriginal people. They were treated about as well as we treated our American Indians. We enjoyed several lectures on board on the history of not only the Aboriginal people, but all the natives of these South Sea Islands.

Inside the beautiful Opera House

But I could only take pictures in the stairwell 😋

Outside the Sydney Opera house.

Harbor Bridge and the Sydney Opera House

The Rock - the old part of Sydney

Cockatoo Island - Second oldest prison in Australia where the convicts sent from England and Ireland were housed- some with such minor offenses as stealing a loaf of bread or being Catholic.

The restaurant also restored motor cycles and coached amateur mechanics in restoration of cycles

Blame The Corona Virus!

The Bridges of Brisbane

The city of Brisbane

A building site in Brisbane. New buildings are going up everywhere. As with all of Australia, expansion and building everywhere!

A Water Dragon. We saw it off the side of the road. The driver said they are everywhere in Brisbane.

We are now on our way to New Caledonia on the Coral Sea. It is a French territory.

As you can see by the schedule Dick included, we are now rescheduled for just about everywhere through March 9 - all because of the coronavirus! \240We can’t go anywhere there is a possibility of infection. That means Hong King, anywhere in China, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. There may be more - disappointing but necessary.

We are reading a lot, going to talks on the Vikings ( Norsemen), the oceans, history of Australia,and World War II in the Pacific. We’ve tried to walk the deck when conditions permit. We’ve also seen several movies. Of course, there is always eating; but, we’ve tried to keep it within bounds. It’s hard because there is great bread and ice cream!

This is from a display on our ship. An old king of the Scandinavian countries had a Blue Tooth and was Nic named “Blue Tooth” today his initials are joined to form the symbol for our communications between computers and printers etc.

To keep rats from boarding by walking up the “lines” that secure the ship to the dock, barriers with the face of a cat are installed👍

Maybe art isn’t my thing?

And the latest offer! This ship is not going anywhere near Asia!

Decisions decisions decisions...

Nouméa, New Caledonia

Lots of water, lots of beach and water sports - sailing, surfing, diving, snorkeling, etc. if you don’t like water activities, you wouldn’t like moving to New Caledonia 🇳🇨

The Tjibaou Cultural Center in Nouméa. It was built to honor a native Kanak activist - Jean-Marie Tjibaou. It is designed by Renzo Piano, a famous Italian architect.

Typical Kanak dwelling for 4 families. 45% of the native Kanak people still live in these and keep their ancestral way of life. The Kanaks make up almost half the population, the rest is very multicultural - French, Indonesian, Japanese. \240

Interesting interior sculpture.

Exterior sculpture. The colored cloths mean stay away. All of the previous photos were taken at the Cultural Center.

The Rock from which life began according to the Kanaks.

The trip to the Great Barrier Reef

Our Boat - \240The Tropic Sun

The pontoon which served as the base for snorkeling at the Reef.

Ready or Not! \240He was glad he did it but probably won’t repeat it.

Creatures from the deep.

A pineapple sea cucumber and a blue starfish from the Great Barrier Reef. I touched them but saw all of my sea life from on deck and the glass bottom boat.

From our tour in Cairns. A very rainy morning. Cairns has 2 seasons - the rainy season and the dry season! \240It is a modern city and the fastest growing in Australia, very attractive, even when it’s raining.

Beautiful Cairns Botanical Gardens - in the rain. I took these holding my umbrella. Dick stayed on the bus🤨

Wallabies and horses sharing a farm field. The Wallabies love the grass. \240

A bird we saw while walking along the shore of the estuary. Queensland has 20% of all the bird species in the world. \240This is also Crocodile country! \240They can get as big as 20 ft. No one goes swimming in the estuary because the salt water crocodiles live there. There are also the “Flying Foxes” - bats with wing spans as much as 5 ft across. We saw them last night, on our way back to the ship.

A view of the city, 190000 people. A rainy, foggy morning. Our ship in the distance. This photo taken from Castle Rock, the highest point in the city.

The Australian and American flags, flying together. This was the site of the most important air base in Australia in World War 2. There were 50000+ American and Australian troops here and was the location where the Japanese bombed Australia in 1942.

Here we are at the top of Castle Rock.

At the Queensland Museum and Reef Headquarters Aquarium, we saw the artifacts and model of the Pandora. Pandora was the ship that was sent out to bring back the mutineers from the HMS Bounty. It never completed its’ mission as it was wrecked on a sand bar, very near Townsville. There was a box like cage on board, to carry the prisoners back-hence the name, Pandora’s box!

The aquarium was also a turtle hospital but there were no turtles in care at the time. We had a tour with a very knowledgeable guide, who told us a lot about the reef and the sea life. What stands out in my memory the most is that the Reef is as long as the coast of California. Wow!

This is a very small island in the northernmost point in Australia. It is in the Torres Strait between the top of Cape York and the country of New Guinea 🇬🇳. Is is inhabited by the descendants of pearl divers who came from Japan, Malaysia and India and the indigenous people of the island.

We got there by a half hour tender ride in the hot morning sun. \240After walking for maybe 20 minutes, we had covered the length of the town and a lot of it looked deserted. We wondered what we we doing there. But, on our way back, we discovered the cultural center was open.

They are only offered treats once in 24 hours so that they continue to hunt their own food. They have their own “territory” and woe to the croc that tries to invade.

We got drenched, while on the boat. A storm cloud came over and the rain came down in torrents, for about 10 minutes. We were wet all the way back to the ship. I

This was a big one!

They are only offered treats once in 24 hours so that they continue to hunt their own food. They have their own “territory” and woe to the croc that tries to invade.

We got drenched, while on the boat. A storm cloud came over and the rain came down in torrents, for about 10 minutes. We were wet all the way back to the ship. I

This part of Australia is called the Wetlands. They have 2 seasons - wet and dry. \240It is very very wet right now.

We passed some Water Buffalo with their companion Egrets. Their milk is used to make mozzarella cheese.

Dick is happy to be on our way tomorrow, to a new destination \240

We arrive at Komodo and for the 1st time since the virus outbreak , we have to have our temperature taken and wear a face mask - to go to see the dragon 🐉

We take a tender into shore to go to Komodo National Park - not this one!

We go on a guided walk through the park and encounter several Komodo dragons at the water hole.

And here we are-face masks and all

We also see some Timor Deer - a stag and his harem

The next 2 days, we cruise the Java Sea. We think we will keep going. However, it all depends on what restrictions the virus has in store🤔