On Dec. 26 we drove to Phoenix and left the Explorer at the Red Lion Hotel (Park and Fly). We flew out at 9pm to LAX and then directly to Auckland which was a 13 1/2 hour flight. We upgraded to Premium Economy which was well worth the money.
We got into Auckland and walked around the town, waiting for our room at the Cordis hotel. We walked down Queen Street to the Auckland waterfront. Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand and has about 1/3 of NZ's population.
The next day we had a tour up to Arataki Visitor Center and then onto Maukatia Gannet Colony, one of only two mainland gannet colonies in the world. We then went to Hunting Lodge and Winery in Marlborough and then traveled through the countryside and Devonport, across from Auckland. As we drove back to Auckland we passed Queens Wharf. Auckland is known as the City of Sails and has the largest population of boats per person in the world.
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| Also a Winery |
On Sunday, Dec. 30 we boarded the cruise ship Viking Orion and then on Monday we were off to tour the Sky Tower and the Sea Life Aquarium The Sky Tower stands 1,072 feet tall and we watched people free fall on cables off the tower, slowing just before touching down. This is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. Then we went to Kelly Tarton's Sea Life Aquarium which had a replica of Captain Scott's 1911 expedition quarters and the sub-Antarctic penguins along with many other sea life.
The ship did a great job in celebrating New Years Eve with many options for celebrating. We went up to the pool deck to hear the singers and Viking Band.
On Tuesday, Jan. 1 we docked in Rotorua (Tauranga). Since it was New Years, many of the shops were not open at the Historic Village but we enjoyed the highlights of the harbor side of Tauranga enjoying the great beaches and the view of Mt Maunganui.
Our next stop was in Napier where we took a 4 wheel drive bus out to the second mainland gannet colony, this one being the largest, Cape Kidnappers. This one was much more impressive than the one outside of Auckland as the birds were so much closer. The birds mate for life and produce 1 egg per year which takes about 6 week to hatch. They have a 6 feet wing span.
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| Sharks tooth |
Napier is a newer town and is known as an Art Deco town, after the 7.8 earthquake that destroyed most of the town in Feb. 1931 and the town was rebuilt.
On Jan. 3 we arrived into Wellington. Our first tour that day was to visit Zealandia Eco Reserve. This sanctuary is 550 acres and is involved in bringing back the native trees and bushes so they can attract and help protect the native birds, such as the Kiwi bird. We did not see the Kiwi as they are nocturnal birds.
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Drove by of Wellington's Botanical Gardens on
way to Zealandia |
Our second tour that day was to see the highlights of Wellington to include the parliament buildings, the Wellington Cathedral, Old St. Paul's church and the botanical gardens. We couldn't make it to the botanical gardens as the tunnel and roads to get there were closed due to a distressed man with a knife. The police surrounded the area and had traffic diverted for over 11 hours. Traffic was a mess throughout the entire city. We did drive by the buildings that Lord of the Rings were filmed in.
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| Library |
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| Treasury building |
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| Beehive Parliament |
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| View from Mt Victoria |
We had 5 sea days, some happening on different days than had been planned. We did not make it to Christchurch nor Tasmania. The Cruise Director did a good job adding and handling the planned entertainment. Besides the music entertainers on ship, they brought on an electric violinist, Jane Cho, and a tenor singer who used to sing for the Australia Ten Tenors, Bradley McCaw.
We took a tour of the kitchen where they have 99 staff working. This is the main kitchen that provides food for all the restaurants and bars throughout the ship.
Of all the Viking cruises we've done, this crew had the best guitar player who also sang in the Torshavn lounge every night. We would listen to him in the atrium and then again in the lounge.
We arrived into Dunedin on Jan. 5. We went to Penguin Beach at Natures Wonders. The wildlife park has two kinds of endangered penguins; the blue penguin which we saw with little ones in the nest (so we couldn't take pictures) and the Yellow eyed penguin which we did not see. They also had an area which was a breeding area for seals. As we sailed out we saw the Otago Peninsula which has the only mainland colony of albatross birds in the world.
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| Breeding area for seals |
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| Penquin beach |
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| Yellow striped Penguin |
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| Albatross breeding area |
The Tasman Sea is apparently the second roughest sea in the world and we did have some rough seas. They slowed the ship down to help all the sick staff and passengers, but by doing so we missed Hobart, Tasmania. We arrived into Melbourne early and had two days there, rather than the one that was planned. Melbourne is known as the Garden city and has a lot of green space and also is very sports oriented with 5 stadiums, all with retractable roofs. They also hosted the 1956 olympics.
The first day we took the Melbourne highlights tour, driving to Fitzroy Gardens where we saw Cook's Cottage, family home of Captain Cook along with the conservatory and fairy gardens. We also went into the Shrine of Remembrance, where we viewed the sunlight shining through the roof into the main exhibit there.
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| Cooks Cottage |
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Eureka Tower
Top 10 floors plated in 24K gold |
Day 2 in Melbourne we took an all day shore excursion to a winery, Rochford, where we did wine tasting and then had a wonderful lunch. From there we went to the Healesville Sanctuary to see the Australian wildlife and then ended our trip with a 30 minute train ride on an old steam train known as Puffing Billy.
The next day we disembarked the ship very early and had a flight to Cairns and then an hour bus ride up to Port Douglas. The hotel was beautiful and we felt like we were in Hawaii. Of course we were so close to the rain forest that this area was quite humid, but very beautiful.
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| 4 mile beach |
The first full day here, we went to the Daintree National Park which is the oldest living rain forest in the world. Our guide through the rain forest after lunch was an Aborigine, the native people of Australia. Throughout the tour, he shared the customs of his people to include a smoke ceremony before we entered the forest.
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| Tools his ancestors used |
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| How they made paints from rocks & plants |
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| Turkey |
The second day we boarded the Quiksilver boat and had about an 1 1/2 ride out to their platform over the Great Barrier Reef.
On our last day, we took a bus to the Cairns airport, seeing wallabies in the fields, then from Cairns we flew to Brisbane and from there to LAX and lastly to Phoenix. The total time of traveling was 27 hours from hotel to Phoenix airport. On Jan. 17 we drove back to Yuma.
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