Sun, Sand, and Sydney!

G’day from down under!  I can’t believe after all my years of travelling, I have finally made it to Australia!  I’ve officially reached 5 out of 7 continents, so it looks like I need to plan a few trips to Africa and Antarctica soon…

Before we arrived in Sydney, Australia, we spent three days in New Caledonia.  I had never heard of New Caledonia before this trip so I was excited to explore the French colonial island at each stop.  

Easo, Lifou, New Caledonia

Our first stop was in Easo, Lifou.  This was a port that didn’t have much to offer at first sight.  There wasn’t a cafe, restaurant, souvenir store, or public restroom in sight, but if you wanted to get your hair braided, the options were endless.  I’m not sure why they expect so many cruise passengers to want their hair braided in port, but I think they would try to convince us that Spencer should get his hair braided if they had the chance.

Anyway, after getting off the tender boat, we began walking.  This seems to be a common thing that the three of us do.  We start walking and then we just…keep…walking.  It really is my own fault that I don’t wear running shoes in each port but who wants to wear close toed shoes in the tropics?? I’m all about the flip flop life.  Anyway, we walked for 5 km and just as we were about to turn around, we found ourselves a hidden sea cave.  A little way off the beaten path, there were small cliffs that we could climb.  It wasn’t long before Spencer jumped off and began exploring the nearby sea cave.  The water was beautiful!  Spencer snorkelled in between the cliffs and Dad and I went swimming.  This was definitely a place that was not normally frequented by tourists (our favourite places to find)!  After swimming, we dried off while taking in the views.  Then, Spencer and I walked back and Dad went to see some “ruins”.  I put this in quotation marks because we never heard anything remarkable about them, so I’m not sure if he even saw anything.  Overall, a surprisingly great day!

The hidden sea cave

Always snorkelling...

Pin, Isles De Pines, New Caledonia

I always thought Dravuni, Fiji was the only piece of untouched paradise that I would get to experience (not only on this trip, but in general).  However, Isles De Pines proved me wrong!  The island was the first island that we’ve seen in the Pacific that had both palm trees and, you guessed it: pine trees!  It was so cool!  This small island also had the most beautiful water I’d ever seen.  With amazing snorkelling, white sand beaches, and trees that offered shade from the sun, it was a dream.  Dad, Spencer, and I spent the day taking turns snorkelling (yes, I snorkelled even though I am terrified of fish) and relaxing in the sun.  Pictures don’t quite do the island justice, but it will give you an idea of this wonderful port.

Noumea, New Caledonia

Our day in Noumea was spent drinking coffee and…well, that’s about it.  Dad spent the day walking around the town looking for spokes and tubes for his bike (which he was unsuccessful in finding) so Spencer and I didn’t really have a plan.  Noumea still feels very french and is a bigger city than the previous New Caledonian ports we had visited, so there were lots of cafes and patisseries on the streets with nice patios.  We had cappuccinos which were delicious and…expensive!  We didn’t realize the exchange rate before we ordered and realized afterwards that it was about $9 CAD for EACH cappuccino.  Crazy.  However, there wasn’t really much to do in the city so we walked for a bit and tried to find wifi to get caught up on some work.  We had to go to another cafe and ended up spending another $9 each on coffee so in total, we spent $40 on coffee that day.  Nothing else.  It was still a great day because we just got to hang out with each other, drinking coffee and people watching.  Nothing I can really complain about!  It wasn’t the most exciting port (I literally didn't take a single picture...) but it was our last stop before Sydney!

Sydney, Australia

I had high expectations for Sydney, Australia and IT DID NOT DISAPPOINT!!! WOW!  What a beautiful city!  We had perfect weather and had a full, but enjoyable day.  Before we actually got into the city, we had to disembark the ship and go through customs.  It was a bit of a long line because it was the end of the trip for lots of people (suckers!!).  Only us and a handful of passengers were staying on the ship and continuing on from Sydney to do the New Zealand cruise.  Customs usually aren’t a stressful thing for me.  But with Dad, I always have to be extra prepared.  This is because my dad is SUPER honest (sometimes, to a fault) which usually isn’t an issue, but I wanted to make sure we were on the same page before going through.  Good thing I double checked with him the night before as we filled out our declaration cards because…you know those questions on the forms like, “Do you have any meat products?” or “Do you have cash over $10,000?” or “Have you visited a farm in the last 30 days?” that we all just gloss over and tick “no” for everything and don’t think too hard about them?  Well, my dad is not that person.  I remember my mom being so mad one time because he visited a farm on some trip to the states with her for a hot minute and put that down on his declaration card.  This led to the two of them being taken to secondary questioning, their luggage being opened, you know how the whole rig-a-ma-roll goes.  Anyway.  One of the questions was “have you been in the wilderness in the past 30 days?”.  After a long debate at dinner between the three of us as to what “wilderness” qualified as, Dad insisted that we had been in the wilderness (including looking up the word in Webster’s dictionary),  Spencer and I believed we hadn’t been in the wilderness because anytime we weren’t in a city, there was a marked path.  Of course, Dad said we absolutely had been in the wilderness.  We knew we had to all be in agreement because we were travelling together and it would look weird if one of us had answered “yes” and the other two answered “no”.  Anyway, when we read closer, we saw it asked if we had been in contact with “fresh water, rivers, or streams”.  Well…we all know we spent some time swinging from ropes into waterfalls in Fiji so…they kind of got us there.  But, how would they ever know if we didn’t say we had just to save us the hassle?  I mean, did it really matter that  much?  Anyway, in classic Dad fashion, he said “Oh I’m going to be honest.  You can do whatever you want.”  So of course…we said that we had been in the wilderness.  We got questioned about it and they asked us if we were wearing the same shoes as we were when we were “in the wilderness” for fear of us bringing in soil/dirt from other countries.  Thankfully, we’d thought of this beforehand and all wore shoes that we did not wear in the “wilderness”.  So, the questioning was relatively quick and easy.  I will say, however, that almost everyone that I saw ticked “no” to all the questions even though they went to a lot of the same places as us!

Anyway, there’s a quick glimpse into travel with dad.  EVENTUALLY, we made it to the terminal (still not quite in the city yet).  We were planning on taking a cab, an uber, a shuttle, something to get to the world famous Taronga Zoo but for reasons I won’t go into, we had to…you guessed it…WALK.  

The lady at the terminal told us two things:

1. You can’t walk out of the terminal
2. You don’t have enough time to go to the zoo

Well, good thing we are used to nodding our heads and smiling and then ignoring whatever the person has said.  We did walk out of the terminal and hailed a cab that got us to the zoo relatively quickly.  On the ride there, we got a nice view of the city.  Sydney reminds me of so many different cities combined: San Francisco, Chicago, Nagasaki, Amsterdam, and Victoria.  These are all great cities, so you can imagine how awesome Sydney was.  The highlight of the cab ride was when Dad found out the cab driver was studying to be an accountant.  You can imagine Dad’s delight after learning this fact.  

We made it to the zoo before the rush and went on the cable car ride before it got really busy.  The cable car ride not only gives you a great view of various animals as you pass by, but an amazing view of the city!  We could see the opera house, the Sydney harbour bridge, and all the sailboats out in the harbour.  And not just sitting in the harbour, people were actually sailing!  (One of the fun parts about being in Sydney on a weekend, I guess)!  Anyway, Spencer really wanted to see some Australian animals.  He was very excited about koalas and kangaroos in particular.  Of course, we know that kangaroos are equivalent to deer in Alberta but still, we were excited.  

View of the city from the zoo

Overlooking the elephants while riding the cable car

So many amazing views of the harbour!

We saw so many cool Australian animals that we had never seen before (like the koalas, kangaroos, wombat, wallaby, emu).  We also saw sooo many snakes and other reptiles that were definitely not my favourite, but Spencer and Dad loved it.  

Koala cuties :)

Emu

Wombat 

Kangaroo (the best pic we could get...)

So many snakes!

Turtle 

Komodo Dragon

One of my favourite animals we got to see was a platypus!  I used to have a platypus stuffed animal growing up and, in my mind, they were waaaayyy bigger than they actually are.  It was CRAZY!  Do you know how small a platypus is?? I couldn’t even get a good picture of it, but it was only about one foot long!!

We also saw some of my favourite (though not all Australian) animals: penguins, gorillas, hippos, elephants, and monkeys.  We also saw tons of birds but..who cares about birds.  (Well, other than penguins, obviously).

After the zoo, we took the ferry over to the harbour.  This was the best $7.50 we ever spent.  We sat on the front of the boat and had an amazing view of the whole harbour as we approached the opera house.  The sail boats were whizzing by and the sun was shining.  It was absolutely FABULOUS.  I have learned that sometimes, the cheap city transit can give you the best view of the city.  In this case, it was definitely true!

Great view of the opera house!

Once we arrived, Spencer and I went to see the opera house and the harbour bridge while dad went on a walk.  He was still on the hunt for bike parts and, unfortunately, was still unsuccessful.  Due to the fact that he has two broken spokes and his bike doesn’t have regular sized wheels (remember when I referred to it as the “clown bike”?), he has given up on being able to ride his bike in the other ports.  This may be for the best as, the last time he came on the ship with bike, one of the security guards didn’t really buy his “land mobility device”.  However, he seems to be enjoying his time in the ports with Spencer and I even though we aren’t clocking 20 km/hr.  He is also hoping that he can rent a bike in some of the New Zealand ports because, as he knows from experience, cycling is a great way to experience New Zealand.  I guess biking for five weeks with Britt the length of both islands in 2014 wasn’t enough for him.

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Spencer and I enjoyed our afternoon eating gelato, drinking chardonnay, then coffee on a patio overlooking the harbour.  Well, actually Spencer had a flight of beers instead which he enjoyed.  The weather was perfect and lots of people were out for their Saturday afternoon stroll.  Needless to say, I had a great time people watching.  It was a day that my mom would have loved which made me smile.  

A Saturday afternoon in Sydney!

Coffee time is always the best time!

Aussie version of Spencer

The ship sailed away just as the sun was setting so we had a beautiful view as we said goodbye to my new favourite city (seriously! I think it is!)  

Beautiful sailaway!

Behind the Scenes :)

We are off to Melbourne next, then Tasmania before we hit New Zealand.  We are loving this corner of the world and can’t wait to see more!

Until next time,

Annika