A new day - a new sea - a new life

Well I love my Michael bouble songs. And today is a new day for me! Tim on the other hand had too much fun (2:15am) for me! 

It's Sunday 3rd January 2016 and I've had a great idea about doing something new each day. Today after breakfast (granola French toast and a small crossont) I attended the art class again and have been amazed at how relaxing water painting can be. We looked at pigmentation and used water brushes to make a sea horse!

I then attended the shore excursion presentation on Fiji and Vila that proved to be informative yet unfortunately unnecessary due to cyclone Ula traveling in an easterly direction. This meant that after lunch (a windjammer buffet where I had a yummy chicken giros) our captain however had to make a difficult decision and seek a protective alternative port to dock in. We were informed that the ports of Lautoka and Suva we're going to be replaced with tender boats to champagne bay. Even though we'll miss the cultural haven that we are led to believe Lautoka is we can now enjoy a new tropical port that I was planning to include on a future cruise! Win win - and I'm sure given more time the regrowth of the past cyclone will enhance future trips. I did learn that Lautoka was predominantly an old sugar town and is now heavily influenced by India. We will miss Tivua Island and our guided snorkeling tour but can do so much more when we go back. In actual fact a week here on the future would ensure we see the orchid gardens, sabeto the Fijian village, the sabeto mountains and even know that we can taste kava, kakoda ceviche and the oily milky Fijian curry another time. 

I did get to play with Jamberry nails. Our room attendant, Ana, has been a cabin hostess for 17 years. She commented on my nails and I was able to do her nails in her break. I felt honored to help another lady feel loved and beautiful. I even found her looking at the catalogue later in the day. 

Spent a great afternoon by the pool and overcame my fear of the crashing waves in the pool - it has been a bit rocky due to the cyclone. 

Then off to dinner (prawns for entree and chicken for main - Tim had cheese sticks and lamb).  Tonight we were both tired - early night and a welcome sleep! 

Noumea - a touch of France in the South Pacific

Today we awoke to land and it was great to know we were in New Caledonia, home to the second largest coral reef. After my lecture on all things dangerous today was the day - snorkeling was to be tried. After our buffet breakfast we were ready to organize towels and day bags to explore Anse Vats Beach and Baie de Citrones. To our surprise we docked at container bay and took a shuttle to the cruise terminal where we were able to easily organize tickets to Duck Island. 

Once tickets were purchased the queueing began and I'm sure OHS would not have liked the situation we found ourselves in when waiting for the sea ferry today! But we smiled and enjoyed the scenery, blue skies and sandy beaches while waiting again. 

This is s picture of us finally leaving for Duck Island - no safety checks or life boat instructions. But very pristine indeed. Once we arrived we were surprised to see so many different types of fish in the reef just swimming along side us. There were colourful coral trout, parrot fish, clown fish and so many other different species all in one place. 

We had lunch near the water and enjoyed a huge feed of muscles with fresh breads. Something so huge and yummy that we were blown away!

Returning to the boat in time for our spectacular departure meant we could watch the sunset from our room.  Amazing day filled with amazing underwater experiences. 

Dinner at Romeo and Juliette's for a prawn cocktail and followed up with a delightful  lamb and beef tagliatelle that turned out to be an awesome choice great dinner guests Included an 88 year old couple and 23 year olds (Cassandra and Terry) from crambourne lots to chat about. Not to mention another new couple to the left! Great to feel that humanity is psi tube warm and caring.

Watched the musicians on show )fabulous entertainment) and then made our way to the Viking Crown Lounge on deck 11 to meet up with the fabulously entertaining Scottish and English group we've been adopted by. 

A midnight finish for me means later for Tim! Loving the bed towel art! Thanks Ana!

We are sailing...

Day three at sea and we are still sailing. It has been pretty rough but I seem to be managing quite fine! Slept like a baby being rocked gently by the ocean. With the weather being so tropical dressing is easy - skirts and tops! 

Breakfast is always interesting as you are placed an tables with other passengers. Today was a quite table and quite an empty restaurant. Either many are suffering from alcohol exposure or sea sickness, or possibly a combination of both. Eggs Benedict was my flavor of choice today. Cooked beautifully. 

Then I decided to join the art class with watercolorist Karen Cooke. I leant how to use negative space to draw daisies which was a bit of fun. This also gave us some space which was good. 

The shopping on board is a big part of the day but glad to say my will power is still strong on this front. So avoiding the centrum shops I decided to attend a lecture on dangerous marine creatures of Australia and the South Pacific led by a secondary QLD teacher named Lauren Coleman. Not sure this was a wise decision as I left feeling more traumatized about this. But learnt a lot about how to manage encounters with sting rays, Sharks, cone shells, stone rush and blue tinged octopus. Just stay away and don't touch anything. Now I plan to observe from a distance but feel super scared about snorkeling tomorrow. 

Group lunch at Romeo and Julie's was a yummy salad made on the spot, fish wraps and cherry crepes. I could get to like this. Convinced I'm developing s love for food and wine I headed to the walking track and did 5 laps. Must try to do this each day!

Then it was time for the solarium pool! Time to wear my new sea folly bathers and read, swim, sun and repeat. This was perfect and a must do again on the next sailing day I have. Tim found some grinds at the bar while Kerry Greenwood and I reacquainted ourselves with Corinne in her book!

So dinner was again a wonderful three course meal with a view to die for. I started with the Scollop soup, tempura prawns and seafood followed by a bananna creme brûlée- more walking required. 

This evening we were adopted by Tim's new friends who turn out to be Englishman who are very funny, and enjoyed the show "Boys in the Band" who I thought were fabulous - a take off of back street boys, the jersey boys who did covers from the Beatles, Jackson 5 and the bee gees. This was backed up with the comedy show - a late night adults only session with Mike Bennet. It was very good and touched on coping with depression too. A touching story embedded with hilarity and fun. 

An awesome day! Love sailing!

My NYE - I own the rights

Well I've had my first night at sea and can say that I've survived the swells that the Pacific Ocean brings with it. The NYE day 2 at sea started with a bang...breakfast in the Romeo and Juliet dining room where we enjoyed breakfast as a group. One lady was not well and we were able to advise her to take the free sea sickness tablets so I hope that helped her. Breakfast for me was not a classic big breaky like someone had but rather the fast fresh bacon and scrambled eggs which I forgot was still a huge breakfast!

Today has been quite windy with a SSW 23m/hr gusts closing the pool and deck 10 for part of the day. We enjoyed the shopping and took part in the winter wonderland sales in the centrum where we finally bought lanyards for our sea passes! Something we swore we would not do. 

During the shopping talk we learnt all snout duty free shopping and had the chance to see an amazing color changing stone called zaltanite. The ring on display was only $28,000.

After all that the dinning room was closed  so we went up to the buffet. Lunch  consisted of a selection of Asian dishes and noodles for me. After lunch we tried to get to know the ship a bit better and found ourselves exploring the top decks where the view was amazing. 

New Year's Eve Tge NYE night was spent on sea with a fantastic special menu where I enjoyed lobster and Tim had steak. Then we went to the evening entertainment called "Invitation to Dance " starring the dancers who were fabulous. Even met a lovely couple also traveling (Kelly and Steve) who helped us see the night through!

Proud to say we did make it to midnight and we enjoyed champagne all evening long. 

Sail away...sail away... Sail away

So can you hear Enya singing that song? I can and we have just endured the boarding process and are waiting to go on the Liberty of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean ship departing from Brisbane to Fiji. 

We are so fortunate to have Australian passports and have good health to be able to travel. Further more this trip is a bonus as our last cruise took us back home. If you don't know this story ask me later! 

Big thanks to Dad for driving us here and must thank google maps for ensuring we went to the right place. It is always interesting to navigate unknown roads from the back seat and this was indeed an interesting drive. 

I look forward to journaling my trip away and know limits to wifi may mean posts are done in bulk as I access the Internet!

For those of you wondering I am so far the only person wearing Jamberry nails 

Book Review - "I love you more"

While away I started reading this book by Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott. It was full of great quotes and strategies that help you manage relationships in life! 

http://www.lesandleslie.com/

Quotes I like

All beginnings are lovely. French proverb

We have been poisoned by fairy tales. Anais Nin

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens and 90% how I react to it - we are in charge of our attitudes. Chuck Swindoll

People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be. Abraham Lincoln

Our greatest fear is not that we will discover that we are inadequate, but that we will discover that we are powerful beyond measure. Nelson Mandela

Many of life's failures are people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up. Thomas Edison

New skills

XYZ formula - in situation X, when you do Y, I feel Z

Common subtle saboteurs today - busyness, irritation, boredom, drift, debt and pain

Tools to battle bad things - ownership, hope, empathy, forgiveness, commitment

I like making improvements in my world and I hope you like some of these too!

Dalhousie Springs to Coober Pedy - opal capital of the world...

Tuesday finds us on the road at 8:55am. We are already travelling 20km faster than we were last night at 7:30pm and at least in daylight we can see the track. We are not even travelling for 4min and we come across our first bog hole whole Peter and Tim both navigated their way through - the remaining cars took a side track which was safer. Having made our way through quite a wet track we find ourselves waiting for a car that can not get through. This gives us a chance to clean the windows! Peter gets on the radio to check who gets through it all and finally all seven cars are off and running. I think Tim proved his point and we will be the whip in the the convoy to Dalhousie Springs.

The track to Dalhousie Springs in the day time to easy to read and we find the turn off and have 61km to go so at 9:11am you would imagine this to take an hour if we can do 100km/hour on this dirt track. After stopping three times to tell people about the lack of diesel fuel we arrived just after 10:30am.

What a stark difference this environment is at Dehousie Springs. It is a pond that gets heated by the Great Artesian Basin by the 80+ mound springs. The water is filled with minerals and when the water evaporates it leaves a white cover on the dirt. The water is about 34-38° and up to 14m deep with a flow rate of 160L/sec at a hot 43°. I swam beside fairy martins that were flying around me skimming the spring surface and then flying off to the trees. Tim and I also saw a long nosed dragon in the carpark. There are also goby fish in there that nibble your toes. A free natural pedicure, dosen't get better than this!

We decided to relax here for a while and had lunch here too! What a hot day and a hot swim we had - Robyn and Leah have been saying how nice it is first thing in the morning and late at night but we can always come back...infact I love my spa at home so much that I think I can tick this place off the list today.

We are on the road again and are aiming to get to Oodnadatta which is only 177km away. It is an adventure and certainly the roads are challenging and very corregated. We stopped on the way to look at the Delhousie station ruins where a young 15 year old Essington Lewis was sent by his father John Lewis to this location in order "to make a man of him." It was one of the most northern pastoral leases a very remote and isolated place. Interestingly the afgan camel traders left their mark behind too as there are date palms here. They cut many away and only keep the male plants inorder to keep them from breading. Date plams are an introduced species and take up too much water.

By 3:15pm we made it to Oodndatta where we refuelled and waited for the others to turn up. Tim raced Peter at the sandy straight and won, but that won't be general knowledge unless you have read this blog. Peter then took the remaining cars off for a sand dune drive this enabled him not to have to admit that Tim won! (And I thought I was competitive) this is where we had agreed to stop so that we could actually slow the pace down and sit back and set up during daylight having time to put everything up and see exactly what we were doing. But at Oodnadatta everyone knew we only had 195km till Coober Pedy so we were the only ones at 5pm who wanted to camp and this could be dangerous we said our goodbyes to the group. But over the 2 hours of waiting we had a loose sump on Rob's car, Kim had a shock absorber issue (lost nut and bottom shock rubbers and washers). Chris had fuel issues so in the end we drove with the group onwards to the next goal - Coober Pedy. This is actually good as we have Dave's drinks and water, Chris's fuel and Pete, Dave and Peter's jerry cans and even Pete's ladder. And Leah's maps (just remembered this onE as we parts ways sorry Leah and Peter) and will drop them back I promise. Best we come along then! 

We made it to Coober Pedy with the sun setting to our right and the low lying city lights glowing in the horizon. This area is so flat, then you are confronted with mountains of rubble of the mining. We thought we might  have two nights here but we have so much gear on the the ute that parking would be unsafe. And after much tooing and froing it makes sense to get home and start unpacking and cleaning up the ute (and getting washing, ironing, uni, assignments etc) ready for the surburban life we lead. It feels good to know we are homeward bound now and think we will begin the 17hour trip home!

I have leant a lot on this trip, everything has been new - especially the bathroom experience. Now at the end I can unload chairs off the ute, set up the table and help with the tent. This has been challenging physically (I have loads of new muscles), emotionally (learnt a bucket load about each other) and spiritually (been nice to sit and read and reflect on life) especially as we travelled at Easter time. I asked Tim what he has learnt about me on this trip and I evidently ask a lot of questions and complain a lot! I can only improve ready for the next trip, oh I mean character building adventure!