Saturday, February 26, 2011 10:00pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time
The events described below took place in New Zealand
The events described below took place in New Zealand
After our day of adventure we drove out to Milford Sound which is really a fiord but there is no english word for fiord so they called it a sound. (A fiord is cut by a glacier, a sound is fed by a river) The water is calm in the fiord because of the terminal glacial moraine dumped at the mouth which protects it from ocean swells. We took an overnight cruise in a cabin smaller than a closet. It had no closet because it was already closet with a bed and bathroom inside. We had beautiful weather. I spoke with the skipper who has been on the ship for 11 years, running the exact same route every working day (seven on seven off). He admitted that it does get boring. I think his biggest skill is answering the same questions over and over without sounding impatient. Every guest who came into the bridge asked: "How long have you been here?" and "Where do you call home?" He was a good sport. Maybe he is a robot? Same food every day, too. How would you like the same buffet seven days in a row every other week for eleven years? Maybe the captain brings his own grub. He was not overweight.
It was slightly breezy. Please keep your wardrobe comments to yourselves. I'm wearing a clean shirt and clean underwear. If you want a fashion show you can come along as my valet. We're 9 kilos of baggage overweight already ($120 excess baggage fee for this one flight. That's with our coats on and pockets fully loaded). We're mailing our cold weather gear to Sydney (last stop) when we reach Melbourne (first Aussie stop). I paid extra for exit row on this flight so a family of four is in the row behind us where the crew just completed a white bag clean-up. I thought this was a massage chair and tried to turn it off but it is the lovely, kicking, screaming, puking child behind me. (Thank G-d I'm not that parent.) I hope I don't have to wash my hair after the flight. This is why we took a road trip last summer.
Milford Mariner. The sails are for display only. We are on a nature tour but all they talk about is the ship and move us around so we can get photos of her from different angles.
Our spacious cabin. My back is against the door. The bathroom (thank G-d we have one "ensuite") is to my left. The walls are not soundproof so you will know the size of your neighbor's bladder by morning. We were advised to pack light.
The crew was amazed that the weather was so good. I think it rains over 220 cm a year (over 7 feet). That's why they call it a rain forest. We will not be so lucky in Melbourne. We have been flying over one solid cloud on the Tasman Sea since we left New Zealand two hours ago.
That's it for now. This concludes the adventure portion of our journey. I expect our Australia experience to be much more sedate, but who knows? I still have two car rentals ahead of me and driving on the left is certainly an adventure.
Regards,
Steve and Laurie
PS: We are at our hotel in Melbourne, Australia. We left the sunshine in New Zealand.
PPS: The drive to Milford sound was spectacular but everything here is spectacular.
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