Wellington is on the North Island and has been the capital of New Zealand since 1865 when it replaced Auckland. It’s the second most populous city with 420,000 people and officially the windiest city in the world. It experiences 173…
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island with a rather minuscule 380,000 people. It was another magnificent sail in with cloudless skies and stunning scenery. The city is still recovering from a 6.2 magnitude earthquake which struck in…
Our first stop of this cruise was at Port Chalmers which serves the city of Dunedin on the South Island. Dating back to 1848 when a Scottish settlement was established, its nicknames are the Edinburgh of the South or “Dunners”,…
We left Sydney on Wednesday evening and had a breezy passage during our two days in the Tasman Sea before reaching New Zealand. I hope it's better on the return as nobody wants a breezy back passage. This is my…
Arriving back from Uluru I had one night in the Shangri-La which had great views of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Six of us were meeting for dinner. Dimitra and her son John, Anne and Keith, Barbara from…
As I left the hotel just before sunrise, walking alongside the river Yarra, my attention was drawn to the sky as five hot air balloons majestically floated across the city. I headed toward Fitzroy Gardens which has become my favourite…
Stretching along 151 miles of Victoria’s southern coastline, the Great Ocean Road is perhaps the most scenic drive in Australia. It starts some 60 miles southwest of Melbourne at Torquay and for the most part it’s a winding coastal road…
After returning from Hawaii I had one night at a Sydney airport hotel before a short 90 minute domestic flight to Melbourne to meet Anne and Keith who are the primary reason I’m here in Australia. I built the whole…
I’d managed to persuade Dianna that meeting in Hawaii would be a splendid idea for Anglo-American relations and as luck would have it, her work schedule allowed for such a plan to become a reality. This was my third visit…
