Izzywiz

It's cold and frosty here this morning so it was lovely to see the pictures of hot and steamy Darwin.

Today we are visiting Komodo Island and Bali plus anywhere on the way north from Australia to Bali.

Tomorrow we dock in Hong Kong and the surrounding areas.

The Komodo Dragons were BIG!!!!

Cairns port is used by the smaller cruise ships so the larger ones anchor off shore at either Port Douglas or Yorkey's Knob and tender passengers in. There isn't a lot to see at Yorkey's Knob but it is quite close to Cairns...

We didn't spend much time in Cairns itself although it is a nice , clean small city..

We drove up to the Daintree River....

and stopped at the Mossman Gorge on the way back...

We spent a lot of time at the Cairns Botanical Gardens...

In 2019 we stayed in an apartment for a week just outside Cairns which we used as a base to visit several places. The beaches were beautiful but swimming was restricted to caged areas because of the danger from sharks and crocs!!

We did the Kuranda heritage train ride up into the hills....

and a boat trip to Green Island to see a bit more of the Great Barrier Reef..

Good morning cruisers, Queensland today and then heading north. I hope you don't mind but I'm going to open up the areas a little more because there are often ports close together which offer wonderful photo opportunities. Bearing that in mind, tomorrow we are visiting Komodo Island and Bali. Please feel free to add pictures from Papua New Guinea and Indonesia as well.

Here are my Queensland pictures. We visited Port Douglas in 2011 and did a boat trip out to the great barrier Reef in cold and rainy weather. Fortunately, the sun came out as we reached the island but it was still too cold to swim...

We visited again in 2019 on part of our pre-cruise stay in Cairns and this time the weather was hot and wet...

Thank you for your vote of confidence so our ports tomorrow are Cairns, Yorkey's Knob and Port Douglas in Queensland. They are all within 40 miles of each other. I hope lots of you come along for the ride😄😄

Good morning posters and thank you Gettingwarmer for starting the thread which I have thoroughly enjoyed, not only because it made me look through my own pictures but also seeing those from the other posters. I don't mind continuing the 'Round the World. if no one else wants to take it on. My suggestion for tomorrow is the Cairns, Yorkey's Knob, Port Douglas area which are all cruise ship calls and quite close together....what do you think?

We visited Brisbane in 2011, not long after the dreadful floods that did tremendous damage to the area. We were very impressed with the speed of the recovery in the city. We caught the river cat from the dock to the city centre and then got the bus to the Lone Pine wild Life Refuge so again, we didn't see much of the city itself... 

We also rode the ferry from Sydney to Paramatta which is and hour's ride along the Paramatta River

...

In 2016 we hired a car and went south to the Royal National Forest.....

Making sure that I could recognise our car....

We stopped in Audley which takes its name from a village near out home in Stoke-on-Trent...

before moving on to the small seaside resort of Bundeena...

and then stopped off at Botany bay on our way back to Sydney..

In 2013 we also did a tour to the Blue Mountains which was very scenic...

We rode 'the steepest train descent' in the world which was originally a railway line used by miners to get down to the valley. It was very scary ..

There was a pretty walkway through the forest at the bottom and then a spectacular cable car ride back up to the visitor centre..

Happy Easter everyone. We have visited Sydney 3 times and have spent a few days pre or post cruise each time. We enjoyed the city and the sail-out in 2011 was fabulous....

It was strange seeing Christmas decorations up when it was so hot in November 2013..

but our main interest is getting out of cities so we really enjoyed using the ferries to the different areas...

Manley beach..

Watson's Bay

and Bondi Beach

We didn't think the scenery in Doubtful and Dusky was as dramatic...

Doubtful Sound...

Dusky Sound...

We visited Milford, Doubtful and Dusky Sounds which were all spectacular in their own ways but we thought Milford Sound was the most picturesque. We were up at 05.00 so we could see the sail-in and the Captain told us that we were extremely lucky with the weather as there had been heavy rain when the ship had been there 2 weeks before....

Milford Sound - I never worked out how to set the time stamp on my camera!...

Dunedin City was very pleasant and had a definite Scottish feel....

Gosh Gettingwarmer, I thought my Taieri Gorge pictures had posted themselves when I saw yours😁The scenery was stunning!!

Here are mine....

Stunning photos of Akaroa. If we ever go to that part of the world again, I think we would probably stay around the Akaroa area as the countryside was beautiful and I would like to visit the gardens.

We also visited Dunedin on the 2013 cruise and, because we like to get out into the countryside, I booked an independent tour which took us on the Taieri Gorge train and then on a bus tour of Dunedin city. The ship docked in Port Chalmers where the ship's version of our tour started with the train waiting on the quayside. We were taken to the station in Dunedin and got the train from there.

Port Chalmers....

We then travelled to Christchurch and we were shocked at the amount of damage caused by the earthquake. It must have been an awful experience as the city, 2 years after the event, was still undergoing major repairs. The day we visited was the day that the trams started running again....

Our last visit of the tour was to the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve...

We picked up some passengers from the Antarctica Experience on our way back to the port. 

We visited NZ in 2013 and anchored just off Akaroa as Littleton was closed due to damage sustained in the 2011 earthquake. Akaroa was a lovely small seaside town, 70 miles from Christchurch. We tendered into the town and then did an independent tour which took us through the town and then to the Banks Peninsular....

The Kapiti coast

coast...

Our tour took us out into the countryside and we had a stop at the Nga Manu Wildlife Sanctuary before heading along the coast...

We are not big city people so, although Wellington looked very nice and your pictures confirm that, we did a trip out to the Kapiti Coast area. My pictures of Wellington were taken from the car and it was very overcast when we left the city...

Aulanis, you took even more pics in French Polynesia than we did - hahaha and you brought back many happy memories too.

Napier looks really nice...fairly typical of New Zealand. We will be re-joining in Wellington though so see you tomorrow.

The botanical gardens...

The blow hole coast..

waterfalls..

it's a ship day for us tomorrow as we haven't been to Napier but I'm looking forward to see the pictures so safe sailing x

W called in Papeete, Tahiti, the day after Bora Bora and found the island to be much more developed and Americanised. We found an island tour once we disembarked and loved the many waterfalls and the botanical gardens.....

The weather for our boat trip was much better.....