Cruisin' the Pacific

In March we managed a long awaited holiday - a total of 11 days.  The longest we had been on holiday, and for me since my trip to Peru in 2003.  The longest my parents had had to baby-sit, the longest we had been away from Alice and the longest we had been away from the farm. 

We were lucky finding a farm-sitter that enabled us to make the break and can be a hard thing to overcome without family and friends.  Knowing the farm was in good hands, we headed to Sydney for a night.  My last visit was approximately 22 years ago and Mal's was about 10 years ago.  The first day was spent unwinding before we boarded the Pacific Pearl (http://www.pocruises.co.nz/OurShips/Pages/PacificPearl.aspx) and headed out to New Calendonia.  This was the first time either of us had been cruising.  To see what P&O have to offer visit their website http://www.pocruises.co.nz/Pages/default.aspx

Pacific Pearl off Lifou with the tender boats in the water

We left Sydney on a sunny, warm afternoon, cruisin' the pacific for the first 2 days.  Luckily neither of us suffered from seasickness and were able to spend time finding our way around the boat.

Going under the Sydney Harbour Bridge as passengers enjoy the departure party.

Every one dancing at the 'Departure Party'

 First port of call was Lifou.  Every shore day there were options of doing P&O Shore Tours, doing your own tour with a local or doing your own thing.

Beach where we docked at Lifou - beautiful and clear and blue.

Natural aquarium at Lifou - excellent snorkelling with great coral (colour and different ones), plus a huge array of fish.

We were on Deck 5, with an outside room and a descent size porthole, able to have good views.  With Mal's interest in engineering he was able to watch the tender boats go up and down on shore days as they did so outside our room. 

Our room with the yellow circle around it!

During the night the boat cruised to our next destination ... Noumea.  New Calendonia is high in minerals and one of those is nickle.  Below is the refinery at Noumea.  We didn't hit great weather there and did the Noumea Explorer where there were 7 stops around the city in the morning. 

Nickle refinery at Noumea

After we returned to the boat for lunch we headed out on a tour into the mountains.  Because of the high mineral content the bush was fairly small except for in locations with lower minerals.  The soil was very red and sticky and you could see the yellow nickle stripes and deposits in the soil.  The guide said we were the 4th group to go on this tour and he was a little rustic in his delivery and information but was jovial and entertaining, with jokes all the way back to town and got us back to the ship on time!

Yellow circle top left is a wind farm (there was also another off to the right not in photo).  The yellow circle middle was a low nickle area of bush.

The boat cruised overnight to just off Mystery Island.  This place is sort of where you would expect Robinson Crusoe to be.  It takes you 30 mins to walk round and is surrounded by a coral reef.  Whilst no one lives on the islands, the locals from Vanawatu come across to sell their wares.

This blog is a work in progress so will add the rest soon ...