Aussies

Sydney sun rising behind the iconic Opera House.

The HAL Noordam docked right between the Opera House and the Harbor Bridge

 Sailing out past the Opera House on our way west toward Melbourne.

 Healesville wildlife sanctuary, Melbourne, where we saw the classic unique Australian species: koala, wombat, platypus, kangaroo, etc.  The number of marsupials surviving in Australia today is said to be a result of sea levels rising after ancient wildlife had crossed down the land bridge from Asia, with the higher and higher levels of the ocean effectively preventing predators from following and wiping out the marsupials.  At higher latitudes marsupials ceased to exist in the long thousands of years following the inundation of the land bridge.

                                           And the fierce little Tasmanian Devil

Melbourne has some very interesting architecture

And this scary looking entrance to an amusement park.  Hard to imagine dragging a child through that entry.

Hobart.  Just kidding, of course.  We have quite enough snow and ice at home in Colorado without going to extremes.

Hobart, capitol of the Australian island state of Tasmania.  The iron work on this fence is of a style commonly seen decorating old Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart, and that cast iron has a curious history: when ships carrying convicts sailed around the world eight months from Britain to the new penal colonies, the ships required ballast; so-called pig iron made excellent ballast but the weight was unneeded when sailing back home with holds filled with cargo, so creative uses were found for all that iron.  The balcony railings of many old houses here are reminiscent of the French Quarter in New Orleans.  Perhaps that US iron work has a similar history to this.

The Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens have a nice Japanese garden section with numerous stone lanterns.

I like stone lanterns.

I really do.

Life in Hobart in the early days of the colony was rough, brutish and short.  This stone is set among many in a wall of memorials that winds along one side of St David’s Park.  Very few honored people we would call elderly.  This George Kearly was the first white child born in Hobart, 9th of July 1804, and died one week later.  His brother Joseph was born and died the year after.  They shared one gravestone.

Dinner at an Italian restaurant in Salamanca Square near the Hobart docks was followed by cappuccino and a glass of Strega.  The glass is actually much smaller than it appears to be.  Honest!

South Pacific

Off to the South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand.

 Hilo, Hawaii has a nice waterfront park.

 Tadpoles in Lautoka, Fiji the municipal botanical park.

They grow up to be frogs that apparently like to smell the flowers.

 Anchored off the village of Tadine on the island of Mare´, in New Caledonia.

 Yejele Beach, Mare´.

 Yejele Beach, Mare´.

 Lautoka waterfront walk.

Off to San Diego today.  Boarding the HAL ship Noordam tomorrow.

Wales, Cornwall, and Home

Final entry on our trip to the UK

Modern architecture in downtown Cardiff, Wales

The Roman baths at Bath

Wild Ponies on the Plains of Dartmoor

Farewell Dinner in Torquay (Photo by Bev and Bruce Pearson)

"The Sticky-Uppy Things"

The Globe Theatre, reconstructed on the banks of the Thames

We spent much of our last two days in London at the British Museum, the top tourist draw in all of the UK, and for good reason.

These colors are thousands of years old

Here's looking at you

Ireland!

On the 27th of May we crossed the Irish Sea from Cairnryan, Scotland to Belfast, Northern Ireland, a smooth two hour voyage.  No icebergs.  We then visited the Titanic Museum, located right by the shipyards where the Titanic was built.

I'm King of the World!

On to Dublin, the Irish capital and pilgrimage center for beer lovers all the world over.  The Guinness Storehouse is like Disney for Beer.

Among the many statues along O'Connell Street , the main drag of downtown Dublin, is this one honoring Father Mathews the Temperance Priest.

A close look reveals that the fingers of Fr Mathew's upraised right hand have been broken off -- by boozy vandals, so the story goes, who over the years repeatedly attempted to stuff a flagon of drink into the statue's hand.  Cheers!

The River Liffey

A colorful hostel along the river

This one is called Callagh Man, found in 1821

Shannon and I had a full day to explore Dublin.  We visited the National Gallery, Trinity University, and the Irish National Museum, where among other amazing sights we saw four of the specimens called bog bodies .

Then it was off again, sightseeing along the Cliffs of Moher.

Windy

Lean in and hold on to your hat

My darling Shannon crossing the Shannon River, near the town of Shannon, before dinner at Shannon Castle, the Bunratty.  And our hotel in Killarney was on Shannon Street.

The Dingle Peninsula, a popular route to circumnavigate

A curiosity spotted on a rainy Ring of Kerry

And then next day the sun came out for us to visit the Blarney Castle.

My photogenic sweet ginger

We stopped in Waterford to see the famous crystal being made

And then we crossed the Irish Sea again, a four hour trip this time, from Wexton to Fishguard, Wales.