Happy Valentine's Day (Sydneyside) And It's Our Last Night

Today, Joe and I went to Bondi Beach...made famous (or infamous) during the Sydney Olympics in 2000 when they played women's beach volleyball on it.  And I know why.  The beach is huge and beautiful...

And the sand is so fine it almost has no grain.  Walking on it is like walking on kittens, without all that annoying mewing.  And it doesn't stick to you...it just brushes off with a single stroke.  It is lovely sand.  And the water is the perfect temperature...a little chill, but not cold like the Pacific, and not bathtub like the Caribbean...delightful.

And we had a delightful day shopping, wading, and eating/drinking.  

But it's our last night here.  We fly out late tomorrow afternoon for LAX.  But it IS Valentines Day, so Joe and I have reservations at a nearby boutique beer cafe/brewery, Redoak.  REALLY looking forward to that.  But not to packing...in fact, we haven't even started.  We did have to buy another suitcase...it was cheaper for us to buy an additional bag than to pay the overage fees on our two bags.  (Yeah, we bought a lot of souvenirs, but we always do!)

So, for now, Cheers from Sydney.  USA here we come.

Manly Beach

We slept in today...we were so tired...we've been soooo busy...simply exhausted.  Oh, and lazy.  Once we were up, though, we hit the ground running.  We took a ferry over to Manly Beach, one of the surfing capitals of the world.  In fact, the Australia Surfing Open Competition was going on!

Here's the Quay wharf in Sydney where a Carnival Cruise ship was docked.  Joe calls Carnival, "When Oklahoma sees the world."  He's such a little snob.  You can see part of that terracotta warrior installation on the right.

Here's a better view

Manly reminds me of a little beach town in SoCal.  Lots of surf shops, bikini-ed girls, tanned surfer dudes, open-air cafes, and awesome water.

Wharf-side

beach side

We walked up the beach and then back along the boardwalk.  We stopped in a couple of bars.

Mmmmm...good beer.  

While we were relaxing drinking beer and watching the surf, an announcement came over the loudspeaker on the beach with a shark sighting warning and a request for everyone to get the fuck out of the water.  Sooo glad I was safe in the bar!

We had a great day at the beach without getting eaten by a shark!  Tomorrow, sight-seeing and Bondi beach.  Yay!  More sharks!

Sydney And The Harbor Cruise

Day two in Sydney.  Let me just say that I love this city.  I. Love. This. City.  Not only is it beautiful, but it is, without a doubt, a world class place.  The people, the restaurants, the bars, the events, the venues, the people...such a wonderful place.  It's no wonder that so many call this home...over one-third of the whole of Australia's population live here.

Today, after standing in line for a taxi after disembarking the ship, we checked in our bags at our hotel and headed for the Quay...pronounced key.  (Try pronouncing Cay with your best Australian accent...it sounds sort of like key.)  Anyway, we had tickets for a harbor cruise lunch.  Back in 2008 when we were here last, we did a harbor cruise lunch, but the day was rainy and cloudy and downright ugly.  Today was gorgeous.  Here's some of what we saw...

I never get tired of this view...

It's such a lovely city, even without the icons...

A much different sky than last time...

Joe's happy!

So am I!

There'a a new art installation right at Dawes' Point to celebrate the Chinese New Year.  It's a representation of the Terracotta warriors.  You can see the art...it's the colored statuary below...I'll try to get closer to it tomorrow (it's still roped off like it's not ready for the public).

And here's the view from our room:

As I said, I never get tired of it.

Tomorrow we're thinking about taking the ferry to Manly beach for some fun in the sun, some shopping, and, yeah, there's a brewery.  Cheers!

Hello Sydney! Goodbye Marina!

We pulled into Sydney today - our last day on the ship.  On the one hand, I'm sad to leave our beautiful ship, the Marina...the great food, our cute room stewardess, the fun and games, being pampered (I don't know what I'm going to do when I have to put my own fresh cracked pepper on my food).  On the other hand we have four days in Sydney!

Joe and I woke up early so we could watch the ship pull into the harbor.  Not much going on at first.  Well, except this...sunrise in Sydney

While we were at the breakfast trough, there was a little rain shower, then Joe says, "Hey, there's a rainbow!"  Sure enough, although it's kind of hard to see in this picture (I think Joe got a better one), there's a rainbow right over the harbor bridge.

We didn't take a tour today, but decided to just wander around today.  The ship was anchored in the harbor instead of docked, so we had to take a tender in....and what a great view!!

Walking around the Rocks, we had lunch at the Lord Nelson, dessert at the Fortunes of War, and a snack at Hart's pub.

Recognize this bird?  Anyone?  Anyone?

We headed back to the ship for dinner.  I had the schnitzel...it was as big as a pie plate.

What was that I was saying about being sad to leave the ship?

Tomorrow we've booked a harbor cruise.  We took one back in 2008 but it was a cloudy/rainy day.  Maybe tomorrow we'll have better luck!

So We're Moving To Brisbane

Sorry for the delayed post, we were at sea yesterday  - and not that much happened.  We didn't win at bingo, we didn't win at black jack, we were third in trivia...but, hey! the weather was perfect, and we hung out by the pool most of the day.

Today we were in Brisbane.  What a lovely, lovely city.  It's inland on a deep river and absolutely gorgeous.  The climate is wonderful, the people are friendly, the city is clean and full of green spaces and public art, the museum and cultural centers are gleaming and structurally beautiful...I'd move here in a heartbeat.

From the ship, we took a quick walk along the wide sidewalks to catch the CityCat - a river ferry that will take you just about anywhere along the river in the city for next to nothing.  What a great ride.

Of course we thought of you Brett...

We got off the ferry at the City Centre and walked right into the downtown shopping area: Queen Street Mall.  It's very much like Denver's 16th Street Mall...tons of shops, restaurants and services all on a pedestrian walk.  After we took a couple of laps and picked up some fun souvenirs, we headed to the Victoria Bridge and crossed the river in search of beer.

A few blocks in on the south bank, we entered the West End, a vibrant and very hip neighborhood.  Just the sort of place I'd love to live.  We'd done some research and discovered that all the bars/breweries we really wanted to visit were too far flung to get to during our day-long visit to Brisbane, but we found one bar that had a great selection of Australia beers: the Archive Beer & Bistro.

They had about 20 pulls and 50+ bottles...almost all Aussie or Kiwi beers...YAY!!  We took the bartenders by storm and sampled 15 different beers.  All good!  And the food was most excellent: pork schnitzel sandwiches and really tasty fries.

As our day was coming to a close, we walked back across the bridge and found one more bar, The Embassy, where we had two more beers.  It was a good day. 

Tomorrow is our final day at sea as we steam down the coast to Sydney.  I really hate to start packing, but I'm really excited about seeing Sydney again!  Till then!

New Caledonia And Another Day At Sea

New Caledonia (which, honestly, I'd never even heard of) is known as the Paris of the South Pacific.  And it's certainly easy to see why.  The port looks like something straight out of the Riviera.  Beautiful.



We didn't have a planned excursion, but heard that NC had a string of lovely beaches just minutes from the city centre, so we looked for the hop on/hop off bus and bought tickets.  The bus goes around in a loop in the city and has about ten stops - you can see a lot just riding around on this bus.

Our first stop was Anse Vata beach.  A public beach right on the boardwalk with shops and restaurants lining the avenue.  We laid out our towels and took in the scenery - as well as a dip in the harbor.

And then there's this...

Because we wanted to see more than one beach, and we didn't want to wait on the bus and have to make the circuit, we back tracked to the stop before Anse Vata: Lemon Bay.  Of course, that walk got us a little hot and thirsty, so before we hit the beach, we hit a bar.  Sammys, this one's for you.

Here's Lemon Bay

Our day in NC was coming to a close all too quickly, so we hot-footed it to a nearby shopping center to do a bit of souvenir shopping...and to see if we could find some local beer to buy and take back to the ship.  Turns out that, while there aren't any Baptists in NC, their liquor laws are screwier than Texas ever thought about being.  You cannot buy beer on Friday, Saturday or Sunday.  Let's review: You cannot buy beer on Friday, Saturday or Sunday.  WTF???  I guess you have to plan on it if you want to get drunk on the weekend.  One of the locals told us that they have one of the highest drunk driving problems in the south pacific, so they put this measure in place to try to deter that.  Naturally, it's not working.  Bastards.  We returned to the ship beerless.

As we got cleaned up for dinner, the sun began setting over the harbor.  You're welcome.

Saturday (yes, it's Saturday here) was a day at sea.  We're on the way to Brisbane...quite a long way away.  Overnight, we hit a storm that rocked and rolled the ship almost to distraction.  I felt like an oarsman on the Edmund Fitzgerald.  By morning, it had subsided a bit, but I still didn't have my legs under me, and there was lots of spontaneous line dancing by folks walking around on deck.  The sea calmed and the day brightened, so we hung out by the pool all afternoon.

Tomorrow we'll be in Brisbane and have about three pubs on our agenda...along with a bit of seeing the city.  Next post from Australia!

Suva And A Day At Sea

We arrived in Suva yesterday - sometime in the wee hours - and were awakened about 7:00am by the strains of what we can only suppose was the Suva military marching band...enchanting us with their rousing rendition of YMCA.

I felt sorry for the folks on the port side of the ship.  They probably were sleeping soundly, stirred only by the lapping of the gentle waves against the side of the ship.  Poor dears.

After the band finished their set, which included Country Roads, Hello I Love You, and Brown-Eyed Girl, we all applauded (those of us hanging off the balconies - I'm surprised the ship didn't list) and returned to our beds...it was, after all, still REALLY early.

We didn't have an excursion in Suva; instead, we just walked around the city center for a couple of hours.  Joe needed some toiletries (why would you take an 18 day cruise, and only bring the remnants of a deodorant stick...I'm just asking), so we set out to find a drug store.  Disaster averted.

As we were walking, the day really started heating up.  We were HOT.  Sweaty hot.  So we ducked into as many air-conditioned stores as we could.  On our way to the drug store, we passed a Holiday Inn...Joe wanted to take my picture, so...here are my boobs.

We also happened upon this fellow:

That's a good look for both of them.  By the way, Wally, we bought you this outfit.  I couldn't resist getting in on the fun, either.

Among the weapons are a spear, a neck breaker, a hatchet, and a head buster.  Don't cross me.

Okay, time to head back to the ship...it's HOT and STICKY out here.

We had reservations at Red Ginger...reportedly the best Asian restaurant afloat.  I believe it.  I had a picnic of appetizers: calamari, tiger prawns in some kind of sweet chili sauce, an imperial spring roll that was crispy and packed with fresh veggies, and some fried rice that could have been a meal all by itself.  Joe had the same spring roll, Tom Kai soup (coconut, lemongrass and something - what?, I don't know...I was eating shrimp!), and pork luc lac.  A totally delicious meal!

Today we were at sea, heading toward New Caledonia.  Sort of a cloudy day, but warm enough, kind of relaxing.  For fun, we played Bingo, did two loads of laundry, and drank a beer on our balcony.  Ah, the cruising life! 

See you tomorrow from New Caledonia!