Sunday and Monday, November 6-7, 2011: Phillip Island and Melbourne, Australia Phillip Island, located about 90 minutes south of Melbourne, is the home of one of the largest colonies of Little penguins in the world as well as a reknown Grand Prix Racing Track. An interesting combination for a place only about 20kms long by 10kms wide, but the place seems to be...
Saturday and Sunday, November 5-6, 2011: Great Ocean Road, Australia Once we had reached the coastline of Australia, we had the chance to slow things down a bit and take “the scenic route” between Warambool on the west end of the Great Ocean Road and Melbourne, the capital of Victoria on the east end. The Great Ocean Road is much like the Pacific Coast...
Friday and Saturday, November 4 – 5, 2011: Grampians National Park, Australia We began our road trip from Adelaide, in South Australia to Melbourne, Victoria with a 600km drive to the south and east and headed to Grampians National Park. The Grampians is home to dozens of sights, scenic outlooks, bush walks, waterfalls, and reminded us quite a bit of Yosemite...
Friday, November 3, 2011: Barossa Valley, Australia After the incredibly long and rewarding day on Kangaroo Island yesterday, we gave ourselves a bonus couple of hours of sleep and started our day this morning at 9:30am. Since we were headed to the Barossa Valley, a world renowned wine producing region, we figured that wine tasting would be best started later in...
Thursday, November 2, 2011: Kangaroo Island, Australia Arriving into Adelaide from Sydney, we have begun the final leg of the journey, spending the next 17 days hopping from place to place in Australia as we close out our travels on this 100 day adventure. After a late departure from the Dawn Princess in Sydney, we landed in Adelaide on Wednesday evening and...
Saturday, October 29th, 2011: Bay Of Islands, New Zealand After more than 50 days onboard the Dawn Princess, we have arrived at our final port of call, Bay Of Islands, in the northeast corner of New Zealand’s North Island. We had the good fortune of spending two days here earlier in the trip, experiencing the amazing history of Waitangi, sandboarding in Te...
Thursday, October 27th, 2011: Tauranga, New Zealand Though it was tough missing the port of Napier, due to a delay caused by a mechanical problem in the ship’s engine, it provided us with a welcome day at sea before our arrival into the Bay of Plenty and our port stop of Tauranga. Tauranga is an interesting port for us as we had originally tried to get onto a...
Friday, October 28th, 2011: Auckland, New Zealand There are those moments when you can recognize that Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, is home to more than one-third of the country’s entire population. With its towering skyscrapers, morning commute traffic, and urban sprawl, it can certainly fit the description. Amongst the organized chaos of the...
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011: Wellington, New Zealand We’ve returned to the capital of New Zealand with a full day in port as we continue on a northbound course with the cruise ship Dawn Princess. As this was our fourth straight day of active ports, we were excited about a leisurely day at Zealandia, an animal sanctuary for endemic birds and animals. ...
Monday, October 24th, 2011: Akaroa, New Zealand A last minute port replacement for Christchurch, which while making good progress still has a lot of reconstruction to complete before thousands of cruise ship passengers can enter its damaged city center, the tiny town of Akaroa was this year’s beneficiary of 83 cruise ships to represent the Canterbury region...
Sunday, October 23rd, 2011: Dunedin, New Zealand Our first day back on New Zealand soil came as our ship arrived into port alongside the dock at Port Chalmers. This small town about 12kms northeast of Dunedin is the working port for the city, as the main body of water that borders Dunedin and the rest of the Otago Peninsula is simply not deep enough for most large...
Saturday, October 22nd, 2011: Fjordland, New Zealand As we completed two relatively calm days in the Tasman Sea, headed southeast from Sydney, we arrived into Milford Sound early on Saturday morning for scenic cruising of Fjordland National Park in the southwest corner of New Zealand’s South Island. Onboarding our ranger and pilot for the sounds, though it...