Leaving Melbourne
A storm accompanied us out of Melbourne. The seas got rougher, with wind to match. The night before we were scheduled to arrive in Sydney, the captain made an announcement on the speakers in the cabins (they never do that!) that due to the weather, the port of Sydney was closed. Our original plan was to enter at 2am, and now everything would be pushed back. A little later, he made another announcement that anyone having shore excursions that day would be refunded. Some folks were ending their cruise at Sydney, and many others would be joining us there. What would happen if we had to skip Sydney like we did Dunedin? Obviously that was not an option… we’d just be late.
After a bit rougher night, we woke outside of Sydney harbour, with the sun shining and the sky as clear as possible. The swells were still pretty high, but it was gloriously beautiful!
It’s hard to judge the size of the swells when viewing from 5 decks above the water, but you get an idea watching this mighty tugboat approach us:
Once inside the huge Sydney Harbour, the water was glassy smooth. I know I’ve taken all these pictures before, but it was so gorgeous I had to do it again!
We passed pretty close to Fort Denison – Muddawahnyuh. It was used as a defense of the harbour, and features the best preserved Martello tower in the world. And what, you ask, is a Martello tower? A round heavy stone/masonry tower, up to 40 feet tall, which could support a single cannon on top. The cannon could rotate through 360 degrees, so this was an ideal design for the middle of the harbour. Many towers like this were made in the 1800’s all over the British Empire. Fort Denison is closed for 2024 for maintenance, so this is as close as we were able to get.
The Opera House is an awesome view, so you get to gaze on it again…
You might notice a Princess cruise ship in the pictures above. It is docked at Circular Quay, right at the heart of downtown Sydney. It is a bigger ship than ours, and cannot go under the Sydney Harbour bridge. Our ship can get under it with something like 12 feet clearance, when they lower some antennae. At low tide. So even though the weather was fine now, we waited till about noon to pass under the bridge and to our dock. The original plan was to arrive in the middle of the night, and leave Sydney at two in the afternoon… because of the tides and our bridge clearance. With our noon arrival now, we would leave at 11:30 that night. That would let folks see some of Sydney, let the exchange of passengers take place, and allow the roughly 90 pallets of supplies to be brought aboard. And let the tide go out so we’d fit under the bridge!
Notice all the busses lined up to take us on shore excursions!
More downtown Sydney architecture…
Mrs Macquarie’s Chair is an exposed sandstone rock cut into the shape of a bench, on a peninsula in Sydney Harbour. It was hand carved by convicts in 1810, for Elizabeth Macquarie, the wife of Major-General Lachlan Macquarie, Governor of New South Wales.
Elizabeth Macquarie loved to sit on the end of a peninsula and watch the harbour with all its ships coming in and out… in the early 1800’s. Her husband was the Governor of New South Wales, and used convict labor to hand carve a bench out of the sandstone rock on that peninsula, in 1810. That area now is part of The Domain, which contains the Royal Botanic Gardens. We hadn’t walked out to the point before, so it was fun to see the famous bench.
Sydney experienced some flooding during the storm, and while we saw some areas showing stormy evidence, most of the streets were fine by the time we got there. We could tell where water washed dirt and plant debris over some walkways.
St Mary’s Cathedral is another landmark we didn’t get inside on our last visit. This time we made it inside. It is as impressive as you’d think…
The Anzac Memorial is on the south end of Hyde Park. We hadn’t made it inside this interesting building previously either. It documents all Australians who have given their lives in service of their country. It is beautifully done. The main chamber has engraved on a circle on the floor, all the locations of battles where they fell. This is exposed to the weather by a hole in the ceiling, just as those sites were exposed. The names of soldiers are placed on marble slabs undercover, protected.
We used our cool Opel Cards to get around in the afternoon, but used Uber to get back to the boat in the evening. The traffic looked just like most big cities at rush hour.
Our boat was to leave around midnight, but I was beat and planning on being sound asleep by then! I turns out I was, but Cherryl woke up and took some pictures of Sydney after dark. She got some pretty cool shots of us passing under the bridge:
I love this picture looking back at the Sydney Harbour bridge.
New Caledonia
Our arrival in New Caledonia was peaceful and gorgeous. First stop was on the main island, the port of Noumea.
While the pictures might look beautiful, you can’t see how incredibly hot and humid it was! We hiked around town a while before giving in to the lure of an air conditioned ship.
Our second day in New Caledonia was on Mare island, a much smaller island a ways north and east of Noumea.
On Mare island we hiked up a steep hill to a small church. The view was gorgeous and we acquired a great deal of sweat to prove we’d made the hike.
The bay on the other side of this point was supposed to be beautiful, but it was closed for some rehabilitation or something. The only good news about that was that we didn’t have to hike there too!
Fiji
Lautoka, on Viti Levu island of Fiji, was our next port. We hired a taxi to drive us for the day… Our driver was great, and took us wherever we wanted. We started with the Garden of the Sleeping Giant, in the shade (not literally) of the Sleeping Giant Mountain. The gardens are full of flowers and more awesome views. Fantastic (if sweaty) hiking!
Sri Siva Subramaniya Temple… how’s that for a name? Our driver took us here, and it was obviously a sacred place for him. He assumed an attitude of prayer often as we viewed different portions of the temple.
The ornate carvings and colorful paint make it a very interesting place.
We had been warned that shorts were not allowed in the temple, so were prepared to stay outside. Our driver said it wouldn’t be a problem… because they had skirts for us to wear over our clothes. Once properly attired at the gate, we were allowed on the grounds. I asked about my hat, but was told it was fine to wear. When we got inside, however, I was told it wasn’t ok inside. The temple itself has no exterior walls, but has a few smaller shrines underneath a large roof. Rising above that roof is the highly ornamented tower. Photography is not allowed inside, so all these pictures were taken on the grounds surrounding the main temple.
We also hit a shopping mall, where we actually bought some shirts (we never do that!) A nice marina was nearby, as was a beach where we took a very short walk.
Adjacent to the beach was this nice resort area, with food we didn’t eat and a pool we didn’t swim in. But it was nice to glance at as we walked through!
Lautoka is on the north west of Viti Levu on the map above. Tomorrow we should be at Savusavu, near the center of Vanua Levu. That is the other major Fijian island. So come back next week for a report on Savusavu!
