The Dixon Family

I have been working really hard on getting all my pictures ready to show you all! There are way too many to post here so visit my Facebook Album to see all of them. But here you get to hear all the details and see a few extra pics!

I already wrote about Taipei, Taiwan so I will start in Sydney, Australia!

When we got to Sydney mid morning, we took a train to get to central station and walked to our hotel from there (just a few blocks). We were really tired from the over night flight so we just hopped on a tour bus that took us all around the city. It was really nice because the tickets were good for 24 hours and it was a hop on, hop off bus so we could get off wonder around and then get back on the next bus.

The next day, we got back on the bus to see the second part of the tour, hopped off a few stops early at the Royal Botanic Gardens and walked to a lookout to take pictures of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbor Bridge. I thought it was pretty cool that our cruise ship photo-bombed us (you can see it right behind the Opera House and to the left).

Back on a bus to our Hotel we then got our stuff and took a free bus up to the docks. You can see how close the ship was to the Opera House in the pic of Logan on the deck. Later that evening pictures can't show how beautiful it was when we left Sydney.

Day one took us to Melbourne. It was a lot cooler outside then we thought it would be for the summer. This became a theme we noticed for most of the trip. We saw Federation Square and Cook's Cottage. Captain James Cook was a British explorer that discovered Australia and New Zealand and we heard about him a lot in most of the places we stopped.

We left Melbourne and were at sea in the Bass Straight for a day before we got to Hobart, Tasmania. That evening the Caption announced that there was a storm coming and it would make the ship pretty rocky. It sure did! The first picture above is what the ocean usually looks like, and the the second with Logan is how crazy it was that night! Because neither of us got sea sick (thank you drugs!) we found it to be very exciting! I do remember waking up in the middle of the night after the ship rocked really hard one of the nights.

Our excursion in Hobart, Tasmania took us to the Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary where we got to see lots of native Australian animals and feed some friendly Kangaroos! I even got a hand shake! We saw several Tasmanian Devils but they mostly were just sleeping. After that, the next two days we spent at sea again as we sailed to New Zealand where we got to cruise the Fiordland National Park of the south island.

When we left for the cruise, I wasn't particularly excited about that part but it turned out to be one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. We woke up early that morning because we thought it would be pretty to see the sunrise but instead there were too many clouds. Still pretty but what was really cool was seeing the peaks of the mountains above the clouds. We learned that these are the highest mountains to rise straight out of the water in the world.

It was amazing how steep the cliffs were and yet they were still covered in trees and greenery. There were also some beautiful waterfalls. I wish it hadn't been so cloudy so we could have seen the tops of the peaks once we were in the fjord. Some are almost a mile high!

Throughout the day, we went through 3 of the fjords, each time a guy from the park would narrate over the ships speakers what we were seeing and tell us different facts. This was Logan's favorite part of our trip and it is his dream to come back someday to hike the area. In the top right pic we passed another smaller ship but it helps you see just how big and steep the cliffs are.

In the morning when we came into Milford Sound, they said it was normal to see seals, penguins, dolphins and even whales in the area. We saw seals a few times and birds in the sound. Later that afternoon though, we were back out in the ocean going to the next fjord entry. We were eating lunch when Logan thought he saw a rock outside the window and right as I looked out we saw it shot water up into the air, surface for a moment and then once we realized it was a WHALE (and tried to snap a pictures real fast!) it had already dove down and we never saw it again (in the above right pick you can just see where it dove). So lucky Logan was looking right at the right spot at the right time and I think it was still super cool we got to see it - I don't think anyone else did!

The next day we stopped in Port Chalmers and Dunedin, NZ. It pretty much felt like we had just stopped in Scotland for the day and in fact it has a strong Scottish heritage. It looked just like it, they had little Scottish shops and just before we left the locals preformed on the bagpipes and drums on the dock. We were actually in our room after getting back on board from being in town shopping when we heard the bagpipes. Logan jumped off the bed and said "my people are calling!" and ran out the door to find them. It was so funny!

As we were leaving the little harbor, we passed the Otago Peninsula Royal Albatross Colony, the only mainland colony where the birds nest. It just looked like a brown patch of cliff and not that exciting but as we went by the tip of the peninsula I think I got one of my favorite pictures of a light house on the cliffs and then just as we left, a light rainbow came out! You can see it if you look really hard right where the cliff drops down.

The next morning we got to see the most beautiful sunrise from our room's window and then went back to sleep until we were docked in the Akaroa Harbor, in a remnant crater from a volcano now flooded by the ocean. For the first time, I felt sea sick because we had dropped anchor in the middle of the harbor - the ship was too big to get any closer to the shore. It was kinda a stormy morning and the water was really choppy. You know the life boats on the side of the ship, well they actually work and they dropped four of them down and used them as tenders to get us to shore.

We walked around the little town. It didn't take very long; only 700 people live there. We decided to go on a wildlife boat tour. They told us that if you get sea sick at all this probably wouldn't be a good day for it and it was pretty rainy/overcast so not great conditions but I told Logan I wanted to go anyway so we signed up for a afternoon tour and went back to the boat to get some more motion sickness drugs. When we were in line and got on the boat the sun had just barely started to come out but by the time we really got into the harbor it was a bright and sunny day and the water turned the most amazing teal color! We lucked out and were so glad that we gambled right! It was amazing getting to see seals, blue penguins and of course the amazing Hector Dolphins. They are the smallest dolphins in the world and only get to be just over a meter. Our tour guide said they are as rare as Bengal Tigers, Siverback Gorillas or Giant Pandas - and we got to see them in the wild! So cool! This was probably my favorite thing we got to see! (make sure you check out the pics on FB! Here is another link to that in case you missed it the first time).

The next day was our last at sea day and our last formal night. They had Lobster for dinner (my fav!) and I asked for a extra one so I got two on my plate! I love cruises! Plus after dinner we got our usual 3 desserts - 2 new things and a Crème brûlée, you know, just in case we didn't like the first two. hahaha. And that's why I gained 7 pounds when I got off the ship.

Our second to last stop was in Tauranga, NZ where we took a bus out to Hobbiton the movie set. Usually you see something on TV and it looks great but in real life it is not as cool. This was not the case. It was GORGEOUS! Everything was green and beautiful! We had a cute little New Zealander boy who showed our tour group around. He showed us the spot where Bilbo jumps over a fence and then says "I'm going on an adventure!" and said someone could reenact it but Logan chickened out and wouldn't do it. In the pics above we are in front of Bag End and Logan is at Sam's house after he is married to Rosie.

If you like The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, here are some fun facts we learned. Only Bilbo's house is build to scale- all the others are about 3/4 to scale (except Bilbo's house they all just have enough room to open the door). All the wood is new but everything is distressed to make it look old. Because it is all built out of top quality materials, they expect it to last for another 50 years. There are several full time gardeners, and all they do is work to make it beautiful. One person was paid to put up and take down the laundry everyday starting 10 days before filming so the grass would look regularly "walked on". Each of the hobbit holes shows the occupation of the hobbit that was supposed to live there. All the plants and vegetables are real (except the tree above Bilbo's house). The crew that built it didn't know how to make a thatched roof so they googled it and used a YouTube video to show them how.

Our last stop and where we got off the ship was in Auckland, NZ. That day we had fun walking around the downtown center, talking to some missionaries at a park and going up into the Sky Tower, the tallest freestanding building in the southern hemisphere. It just so happened that our hotel is right next to the tower and it's entrance! The viewing platform is about 60 stories high. In comparison, it is about 30 ft shorter than the Stratosphere in Las Vegas and about 470 feet taller then the Space Needle in Seattle.

So vacation was over but we still had another day and a half of travel including another overnight flight. Yuck. It didn't end up being that bad and I decided that Air New Zealand was my favorite when we had to watch their pre flight safety video. Check it out here.

Other things of note:
-I loved that almost every night on the ship we would go to dinner and then catch a musical/dance performance, comedian or "game show" for our nights entertainment. It sure beat sitting on the couch watching TV!
-In Hobart they called a drug store a chemists. I thought that was funny.
-A few days into the trip they told us that there was a unusually high amount to people that had gotten sick with the Norovirus (stomach flu). It even made the news (here). In response they changed the buffet from self serve to where you had to get served by the staff, antibacterial gel at every door and "how to wash your hands" commercials on the TVs along with the whole ship being meticulously cleaned the whole time. We were very lucky to not get sick at all.
-I learned that Logan and me like nature/wildlife tours the best. We like to see the city but it seems like we usually end up in a park, aquarium or zoo rather than a museum.
-We saw the smallest penguins and the smallest dolphins in the world on this trip.
-The same company that did the harbor tour also did a swim with the dolphins tour but the catch was that you had to find the dolphins first so it wasn't a guarantee that you would get to even see them. Our boat actually found them first so they called the other boat with the swimmers over so they could actually get to swim with them.
-The New Zealanders were some of the nicest people we have ever met!
-We both left wanting to see New Zealand again! Logan says it is his favorite country (of course he said that before we went but it is definitely his fav now)!
-Every time we came to a port or the Fiordlands, a local boat captain got on the ship to "drive". They do this by taking a boat out to our ship that they get really close and then the guy has to jump on board. The night before we got to Hobart when the waves were huge, we saw it happen right outside the window where we were dining.
-I got super addicted to the little fruit tarts they had everyday and probably ate over 30 of them during the trip! So yummy!
-Every time we got to a port Logan would ask, "do you think you would want to live here?", "I want to live here someday".
-I didn't post any pictures but we did see lots of sheep.
-We both LOVED this vacation! This was the first time Logan didn't want to go home early mid way through and actually said it wasn't long enough.

This morning after a very long plane ride we finally got here! We rode on China Airlines. It was nice but kinda weird how they served "dinner" at 12:30(midnight) and then breakfast was stir-fry chicken and noodles. It was like warming up a SmartOne for breakfast. haha. (I wasn't a fan but Logan and me decided it was really about the experience). The worst part of the flight by far is how bloated you get from sitting so long.

It was a long overnight flight and so we were pretty tired when we got to Sydney. We took the train to our hotel so we could shower and then get some lunch! I'm always super impressed with Logan's ability to navigate large cities public transportation systems (just one nice benefit of him serving his mission in Madrid).

It seems like you can either stay at a luxury hotel or a hostel here. Logan found this great one though that is a little further from the bay but right next to the central train station so getting around is so easy and there are tons of dinning options on the streets below.

One of my favorite things about traveling is the food! And one thing the US will never get are pastries and kebabs (AKA doner kebabs as they are known as in Europe). So when we saw a Kebab place when walking to our hotel, we knew that is where we would go for lunch. So glad we did! I love them!

Feeling better but still tired. Luckily, the only thing on the schedule today was to hop on a tour bus and see the city! It is a beautiful city! If It wasn't taking so long for pictures to load I would show you but I will have to post them another tine (slow hotel internet and we don't have a plug in adapter for the laptop).

Tomorrow: a little more sightseeing and then we get on the ship!