New Zealand and Australia Vacation Highlights

On January 16, 2009, we left Shanghai for a 15 day vacation. We took a cruise on the Celebrity Millennium from Auckland, New Zealand to Sydney, Australia. And it was a great vacation!!! We all agreed that it was our best family vacation we ever had! I have placed some of the picture we took out on Picasa, just a few of the 4 Gig worth of pics I think I took!

But we started the trip with a bit of excitement. When we got to the Pudong airport to fly out 2 1/2 hours before our flight was to leave, we unloaded all of our bags and got ready to head in. But a quick count resulted in the identification that we had in fact arrived one bag short! We packed 5 bags and only brought one. Oops. And yes, we did consider just going without it. Unfortunately it was my bag we forgot. Probably the most expensive and complicated to replace. Luckily I stopped the driver before he pulled away. We quickly decided Tom should go back, get it, and haul his behind back to the airport. So he jumped in and the driver drove like a madman back to the house. Another mistake was that 5 minutes after Tom initiated his luggage adventure, I realized his journey was going to include all of our PASSPORTS. Not smart. At that point, I couldn't check us in or change our flights if we decided we couldn't make it. Geesh. The trip home usually takes at least 40 minutes. So, Tom had at least an 85 minute trip. We had 95 minutes until they closed the check-in for our flight! We decided that it would be best if Tom took the Maglev back as that makes the trip to the airport in 12 minutes, though you still have the 15 minutes to get there. We figured that the extra 10 minutes we might save was worth it. I finally found someone who would check us in with copies of all our passports. When Tom arrived, we had 7 minutes to spare! We had crappy seat assignments, literally as they were by the bathrooms, but we had seats together and we got to Sydney. That was a stressful way to start the trip, but we figured that was our fiasco for the trip, and it turned out to be!

So, we flew to Sydney, and after a 3 hour layover, flew on to Auckland, New Zealand. We arrived around 9 pm. It was 10 hours to Sydney and another 3 to Auckland. Plus a 5 hour time change. We all took showers and went to bed. ALL of us slept until about 10 the next morning! So much for seeing the Auckland Zoo! We just took a walk, had lunch, and then headed to the cruise terminal.

Auckland, New Zealand
Saw most of the city and stayed at the Holiday Inn. Nice harbour town. We got on the boat and checked out our room, 2029, level 2. We also visited the Fun Factory which was Natalie's favorite place on the boat for the rest of the cruise! It is a kids club and they do a nice job. I highly recommend for kids up to teen age. That night we met our dinner mates for the trip: Warren, Kate, and Emily. Emily was 16 months, so Natalie had a great time for the trip playing big sister. Our waiters were Carlos and Mickey. After dinner, Natalie headed to the Fun Factory and Tom and I to the Casino. I lost $20 in about two hours. Tom did better, but he never tells me how well...

Tauranga,New Zealand
Visited Hobbiton, a movie set where some the Lord of Rings was filmed. Remember the Hobbit homes? Where the tree and the party were for Bilbo Baggins? We were there. It was pretty cool. We also visited the Glow-Worm Caves at Waitomo. You take a raft inside the caves and see that they are lighted by the millions of glow worms on the ceiling. Finally we saw Billy Black's Story of the New Zealand bush at the Woodlyn Park. Tom volunteered to help Billy sheer a sheep during the show. Interesting to see Tom work that hard! It was a long day, but we saw a lot that day.


DAY AT SEA

We just hung out the pool. Well, Natalie spent half the day at the Fun Factory (as usual) since the water was a bit chilly! New Zealand is not the warmest place in the world! Tom spent the day in the Casino and Art Shows!



Napier, New Zealand
At Napier, we opted for a less busy day. We took the bus into town and walked to the National Aquarium. After that, we had to stop by Possum World. Possums, which are not native to the island, are quite the pest, so the New Zealander's figured out that they could use the fur from the possums, mix it with wool and market the heck out it to tourists! Seems to be working. That afternoon, I opted for a "Mom Only" trip. Napier is near the xxx wine area. I visited Brookfield's Vineyards (founded in 1937), Church Road Winery (founded in 1897) and Mission Estate (founded in 1851). Of course the wines were all good! But the Sauvignon Blanc at all three was especially nice. I also recommend the Shiraz at Mission Estate. Unfortunately, I do not think these wineries export. But you can order the wine online.

Wellington, New Zealand
We did our own tour here and took the boat bus to the Trolley/Tram, downtown. We took the Tram up to the Botanical Gardens. Then we walked down to the big play area in the gardens. It was nice just to hang out and let Natalie swing, slide, and play. After the Tram, we went over to the bay area and Natalie and Tom went to the Museum of New Zealand - Te Papa Tongarewa. That was really nice! I went shopping. Didn't buy much, just some NZ Wool yarn for the Ayi.

Christchurch, New Zealand
We didn't have any formal tours at Christchurch. We simply took the bus into town (our port was actually about 30 mins from Christchurch) and walked around the town square. We shopped a bit and checked out a local market that was set up in the square. Natalie and Tom headed back early and I continued to walk around and explore. I took the trolley around, but found it a bit over rated, at least at $8NZD. This was not our favorite stop, maybe we should have done a tour here!

Dunedin, New Zealand
At this port, we rented a car for the day. The driver took us up to the top of a small mountain for a nice view of Dunedin. Dunedin was a nice city and is home to the world's steepest road, which we did drive up and down, but it was pretty much a tourist trap! From downtown, we headed to the Penguin Place, which was out on Harrington Point. Unfortunately it was a long, windy road to get there, and Natalie go car sick about 10 minutes away! But she was a good trooper and held it until the driver got the car stopped. Of course I didn't bring any motion sickness pills with me in the car!!! Bad mom. Anyway, we got to the Penguin Place and got to see quite a few Yellow-eyed Penguins. You went from nest to nest hidden under/behind man-made blinds down in the earth. But it was really hot that day, so most of the penguins not out fishing, were hiding deep in the shade. But it was good for Natalie to experience nature so close up.

Dusky Sound, Doubtful Sound, Milford Sound, New Zealand
This day was really not a dock day, instead we were supposed to visit the famous fiords of Fiordland National Park in Southland, New Zealand. But the weather was so bad we could only enter the final fiord, Milford Sound. The waves were so big this day they were breaking onto our window, which was on the 2nd level. But once we got into the fiords, I was blown away at how beautiful it was. It is really hard to describe the size and grandeur of the place. I am sure there are other similar sites you can visit, but I found this to be one of the most beautiful places we have ever visited. I took about 240 pictures, but the weather was not great, so they are all pretty grey. There were really neat waterfalls and rock formations. Also, we had a formation of dolphins follow us into the fiord and swim and play right alongside the boat. Natalie and Tom were in the room at the time and took some great video of it almost at eye level! It is hard to see, but if you look, you can see the white "waves" which are really the dolphins jumping a bit out of the water.

DAY AT SEA
Was nice just to hang out. Natalie spent all day at the Fun Factory. Tom and I checked out the Casino.

DAY AT SEA
This day we really did nothing. It was pretty chilly for pool. Natalie again hung out at Fun Factory and Tom and I hit the Casino.Tom and continued our new found love of art and art auctions! We ended up buying some decent art, though due to duties and shipping cost, we had to ship it all home instead of China. Here is a Picture of an original oil by Milchael Milken.

Melbourne, Australia (2 days)
We went to the Healesville Sanctuary. We got to see lots of Koala's, Kangaroos, Wombats, and Dingo's. Unfortunately it was also 44 C. Poor Natalie about melted by the time the tour was over. The 2nd day at port, Tom went to see the Australian Open, which was underway at the stadium at the time we were there. He got to see Serena Williams play a set in the semi-finals. But it was too hot for Natalie and I and we stayed at the pool, in the water!

DAY AT SEA
Today was the final day at Sea and the final art auction. Tom and I continued our new found love of art and art auctions! We had a lot of raffle tickets since we had purchased an item (somewhat expensive!) early in the cruise, and we ended up wining a $500 credit to spend. Tom ended up getting about 2-3 serigraph prints (Pinot and Linda Le Kinff) along with a big item of a Dali print set from the Destino movie he made for Disney. I am not going explain how we became owners of Dali paintings as it is seems a bit bizarre and naive when we tell the story out loud. But we really loved the artwork we bought and look forward to the day when we own a home where it can be displayed!

Sydney, Australia (2 Days)
We went to Bondi beach and took in a bit of sun. Natalie and I swam a bit, but the water was really cold and we also had a big wipe out, so we mostly just relaxed in the sun. Bondi was pretty busy and we watched young kids (8-12 years?) learning how to be lifeguards. Pretty hard work. We had a short day as we had to head back and pack. On Sunday, we flew out of Sydney and back to Shanghai.

Summary
First of all, 14 days was the longest vacation we ever took. I HIGHLY recommend to those of you who have trouble relaxing until 5 fays into it. It really gives you a chance to slow down and not worry about cramming too much in to each day. And we absolutely loved New Zealand. hard to explain exactly why, it was more a combination of things. The people were great, the homes and businesses were tidy, and the landscape was clean and "unprocessed". Australia was OK, but paled in comparison to the NZ ports.