Our first stop in Auckland, New Zealand airport to change planes, after a 12+ hour flight. 1958 is a bar at the airport in Auckland. Don't know why the date, but Bills brother was born in 1958, so it's a good celebratory picture to text to the bro and start our memory pictures.

Our first destination is Melbourne, Australia. We have a great view of downtown Melbourne from our hotel room. The Australian tennis open is actually in the direction of this picture, on the other side of the skyscrapers and the Yarra river, that runs through the city.

We enjoy a cocktail on the top floor lounge in our hotel in Melbourne, Australia. Wonderful view. Summer weather in Australia and so the temperature was great.

We visited the Melbourne Tennis Open on our first day and looked around the outside. It was late in the day to buy day tickets on our first day. But we did get a nice picture with the big AO (Australian Open) sign. We had to stand in line for our chance to get the area to ourselves for the picture.

Note that the sign is made of up tennis balls. Surprise!

Bill and Adelina picture on one of the many bridges that cross the Yarra river in Melbourne, Australia.

Our hotel is on the other side of the high rises on the left. The tennis venue is behind the camera and is on the other side of the Yarra river from the skyscrapers.

The Australian Open Tennis venue was about a 20 minute walk from our hotel. Not bad and gave us plenty of opportunity to get excercise and see the city as we walked.

Here is a fun picture. We woke up one morning, around 7-8AM, to get touring and see tennis, and out our hotel window we saw a number of hot air baloons making their way across the urban landscape. Was fun to watch them and I'm sure it was great to be in one of those balloons!

As we walk around the city, and especially the different ways we walked to the Australian Open, we came across this city mural of Melbourne. The artist either didn't know how Australia spells Melbourne, or decided to spell it based on the way the word sounds. In either case, it was a fun, colorful, place to take a picture.

This mural was underneath one of the many walkways that crossed the Melbourne Yarra river. Some of these walkways also support vehicles, and some are just for pedestrians.

Here we are in the main center of town. The town square, if you will. Tourists are all over this area, and it's a main point for a major subway stop, and various bus, and hop-and-ride pick up points.

Behind Adelina is a beautiful Anglican church. The Anglican church is very popular in Australia, since Australia hails from England in the past, and the main church in England is Anglican (The Church of England).

In the Melbourne town square we found an area for the sale of various tourist things, that is celebrating the Melbourne Tennis Open, which is a BIG deal in these parts during this time.

Here Adelina enjoys a picture with a picture of Rafael Nadal going for a tennis ball.

Here is an interesting sight on a marina in Melbourne, along the Yarra river. This structure is a pedestrian walkway across the water. It looks like it's under construction by the way it looks, but it's a done deal.

Inside the Australian Tennis Open. Boy was it crowded. Looks like all of Australia must be there (and LOTS of outside toursts). Adelina poses in from the famous Rod Laver stadium. This is summer in Australia, and it's plenty warm.

A poster in the area showing tennis stars all pumped up. Adelina is checking out Rafael Nadal.

We had a chance to take in some good tennis. Here we see Steve Johnson, a U.S. player, issuing a serve.

We were center court, only a few seats back from the front. And in the shade. Wonderful!

Here we are seeing tennis at the Hisense Arena. We saw Thomas Birdich play Australian John Millman. Birdich is about 10 seeded in tennis ranking. Since he was plahing an Australian player, the arena was very crowded, even though it was early in the Australian Open's two week run.

As a result, we couldn't get seats together. Adelina is only a few seats back from the court, close to center. Bill is taking the picture, about 10 rows back from the court.

In any case, the seats were great and the tennis was great. The crowds.. well.. could have been less people.

Thomas Birdich (on the left) is getting his picture taken with his Australian opponent, John Millman, and the kid that was selected to do the coin toss for who will serve first.

U.S. Thomas Birdich getting ready to serve at the Australian Open, Hisense arena, playing Aussie John Millman.

At the tourist area of Melbourne's "river walk" area, there are many sights, hotels, restaurants, shops, etc. Each night, on the hour, between 9PM and 11PM, fire shoots out from posts along the walk. Very impressive display. We capture one event as we enjoy the evening activities in Melbourne.

Here is a closer view of the nighly "fire" show on the Melbourne Yarra river walk area. This is one of the towers that are shown in the picture above. They shoot fire for about 5 minutes. Interesting...

Melbourne seems to have it's share of rather unique building structures. One can only assume this area had an inventive and imaginative building architect that wandered the streets.

This building is along an average street, and is an appartment complex. If you want to have guests over, it seems to me that the place wouldn't be hard to find.

Along the river walk areas are many resturants and shops. There are a number of "floating" restaurants and bars. This one offered a nice cold Australian beer, and a big screen to watch the tennis open.

Noting that it's summer (and warm) in Melbourne at this time, both these venues are very inviting. A memorable selfie ensued.

We've made it to Syndey here, and were picked up by good friends that Adelina knows that live in the city.

They treat us to a nice summer evening drive upon our arrival. We stop at a nice picture spot along the river and make ourselves at home along with cars with couples in them, no doubt taking in the beautiful view... yea, that's it.

The view is the Sydney harbor area and the very popular Sydney Harbor bridge. This bridge is where all the fireworks are shown and viewed during New Years, Australia Day, etc.

Below the bridge, on the right side, you can see the equally famous Sydney Opera House.

We get an evening picture of the Sydney Opera House in a zoom from a vantage point across the Sydney harbor. The big picture is above.

We took a trip about a hour out of the city to an area where Australian wine is made. Beautiful picture of Bill, Adelina and our friends in Syndey, Louie and Emily. What wonderful people! We were very blessed to meet and enjoy time with them. We look forward to them visiting us in Los Angeles to return all the fabulous hospitality they showered us with.

Here, Adelina poses with the "Mango Tree". This mango tree, we're told, is the only mango tree in the area and apparently loves it in this location. Behind it is a big group of white wine grapes. The vineyard (Hunter Vally Vineyard in Australia), calls the wine "Mango Tree" wine, after this tree.

We stop by, on the way back from Syndey wine country, to a popular seaside village area of shops and restuarants.

We arrive at low tide and so have a chance to see more of the area then one would otherwise. There are many fishermen around. Apparently a popular place for the locals to catch dinner of various kinds.

Dinner arrives and so do we at the "Hogs Breath Cafe". Now you know it can't get better than this. Actually, the Hogs Breath is a popular restuarant chain and is a steak house. Food is good and prices not too bad.

We had a great time and we'd recommend Hogs Breath anytime you're near one. Smell your way there....

We go to a local shopping mall in Syndey to visit, buy some things, and for Adelina to get a manicure.

We find a local food establishment in the mall named Costi. Costi isn't a popular name, so if you know someone with that name, you can't help but take a picture and send it to them.

And so it goes with one of the Pastors of our church, Pastor Costi. We didn't know he had a restaurant chain on the side. Yea Verily...

We take a harbor boat to the main Syndey harbor, called The Circular Quay (pronoused "key"). This is the main tourist harbor area and also the entry area to the Sydney Opera House and cruise ship terminal.

As we approach from the other side of the harbor, we get a fantastic view of downtown Sydney. Note the "needle" high rise on the right. We had dinner there that evening (pictures below). Nice place. Not cheap.

Here is another building, like some we saw in Melbourne. Definetly unique in design, but visually appealing. Appears to be an apartment house along the harbor. I'll bet the rent prices are unique also!

As we approach the Circular Quay (pronounced "key") harbor, we see the Syndey Opera House on our left. Very nice closeup pic. We have closeup pics below and also pics inside, during our tour. We also purchased a very nice book of the Opera House, it's history, etc. Very nice!

Relaxing at a restaurnt at Circular Quay (pronounced "key"), which is the main tourist area harbor. Lot's of shops, restaurants, cruise ship pier and the Sydney Opera House is 5 minute walk away.

It's summer in Syndey and hot, so we stop for a cool one. Hahn beer. The Hahn's are good friends of ours in Irvine, and so we hoist one in celebration to our good friends with their kindship beer.

A closeup of the Syndey Opera House as we approach from Circular Quay. Lot's of tourists. You can walk all around the area. And of course, there are tours inside, for a price.

To the right of the Sydney Opera House, is a beatiful flower garden. Very nice place to walk and enjoy the day.

Adelina and one of our friends from Sydney, Emily, take in the day. The flower garden is behind the camera. The Opera House is to the back left of the picture.

This picture is in the flower garden area, in the tourist area, around the Opera house. Nice selfie that shows the three of us, Adelina, Bill, and one of our Sydney friends Emily. And of course, the host of honor, the Syndey Opera House.

Here, Adelina and Emily relax in the flower garden near the Opera House. The Opera House is in the direction of the top right corner of the picture, a little ways off.

We've moved to downtown Sydney, taking in the sights. We're near the Australian State of New South Wales Parlament building. A statue of Captain Arthur Phillip, who was the first head of the Australian Navy. Seems like a nice fellow. Doesn't talk much.

A nice fountain in a public area of downtown Sydney. This fountain was a gift to the city by a local rich person to commemorate the victory of the allies in WWI. Must be the dude that donated the fountain that is depicted on the statue.

Now that I think of it, this is a good way to get commemorated if the government won't make you a statue. Donate a fountain with your statue on it. Good plan.

Plaque on a fountain in downtown Sydney discussing the fountain, and what it's purpose was.

Here we have a picture of the New South Wales Parlament building. This is the goverment of the New South Wales "State", which is the district or province that Syndey resides in.

Directly across the street from the New South Wales Parlament building is this lovely old, Catholic cathedrial.

Along the street we come to the Il Porcellino.. the Boar. We rub the Boar's nose for luck. See picture below to read the plaque.

Plaque for the boar along the street in Syndey. See picture above, as Adelina rubs the boars nose for luck... ooo baby.....

Another statue in the downtown area of Syndey. A Major General. No doubt an important person in Australian history. At least he didn't have to pay for his own statue like the poor dude above that bought a fountain.

A beautiful older church in the main tourist square in downtown Syndey. Believe this church is Anglican.

Nice frontal view, flower arrangement, and area to visit.

A view of the Sydney Tower and restaurant. In an earlier picture, as we approached the Circular Quay harbor, we saw the tower along with the Syndey skyline (see above).

The restuarant rotates and provides a beautiful (albiet expensive) view of the entire Sydney city area.

Our wonderful friends, Louie and Emily, treated us to a wonderful dinner and view from the Sydney Tower Restaurant.

Here you can see a view looking northwest, toward the Circular Quay harbor, which you can see a portion of, to the right of the picture.

The restaurant rotates and we took in the beautiful view and wonderful food. The venue was a buffet style setup with mixed ethnic foods. The line of course, was at the dessert area.

Dinner almost over, and it's gotten dark outside. So we enjoy the city lights and wonderful company, and dessert, at the Sydney Tower rotating Restaurant.

Here is a popular older building in downtown Sydney. The Queen Victoria building. Was an administrative building in it's original day. Now has shops inside and a subway stop. The tall Syndey rotating resturant is just behind the camera.

The Queen Victoria building mentioned above, but lit up at night. Looks better at night, I think.

We arrive after dinner to Darling Harbor, a amusement harbor area, where all the young people hang out at night in Syndey. Restaurants, shops, hotels. During the day, boats and paddle boats. Lot's of mingling and young people interaction. A wonderful place. We had a great time there, taking in the sights and sounds.

Adelina poses in from of the fountain in from of the Cockle Bay Wharf, in Darling Harbor. This building his home to a number of resturants and shops. Warms the cockle's of your heart, doesn't it?

Back home, at our frineds Louie and Emily's home. In their backyard, hanging our laundry. Our trip was three weeks, so we took the time to do some laundry along the way, so as to prevent 1000 pounds of luggage to drag with us during the trip.

Here is house husband Bill hanging out the cloths to dry.

Our friends Louie and Emily's home in the suburb's of Syndey. Beatiful place. THANK YOU Louie and Emily for letting us stay with you and enjoying your home and your company!!

We take a drive about an hour north west of Syndey to a very popular rural local, with a small town. The area here is known and the "blue mountains", which you can see in the distance.

In the forground are three rock formations. Very popular. Known as the three sisters. The middle sister seems to have put on a little weight.

Having our picture taken along with the three sisters rock formation.

These three sisters even have names; Meehni, Wimlah, and Gunnedoo. Names are Aborigines names.

Another landscape picture of the blue mountains area, showing the blue mountains in the background, and this wonderful area to view it.

This picture is a view of the main observation area, and is where the blue mountain picture above was taken. As you can see, this is a very popular destination for the locals and the tourists.

Love the cloud pattern that was there when this picture was snapped. Very nice!

On our last night in Sydney, our friends Louie and Emily arranged a hotel along the harbor, high up, with an udderly fantastic view! The Sydney Harbor bridge is to the right, and just out of view, under the bridge to the right side, is the Opera House.

It was an absolutely beautiful day, beautiful place, beautiful view, beautiful people. What a blessing!

Another view out the window of our hotel in Sydney. This picture is to the left of the one above, with these two pictures showing the full panorama view of this wonderful hotel room.

In our last day at Syndey, we visit a small zoo in the Darling Harbor area. Here we have a local indigenous frog checking us out. He doesn't appear to be impressed.

Can't go to Australia without seeing a kangaroo. There were plenty. Here is one showing off his stuff. We liked him. And it looks like he liked himself too.

One of our traveling companions, Isabella, is feeding the kangaroo. Our tour guide is in the background. She had an intersting story. She is a U.S. citizen with a degree in animal biology. She traveled to Australia because of all the unique animals. Has been a major mover and shaker in this zoo for many years now.

She's also involved in animal rescue and working to ensure local animals on endangered lists are looked after.

Can't recall the name of this varment. A marsupial of some kind. Australia loves their marsupials. Kangaroo's are marsupials, don't you know...

Nice enough sort. They must see people all the time and don't seem to phased by people walking around. To be completly candid, I'm not sure the feeling was the same in reverse.

Ah.. do we all love the Koala Bears. These guys have claws that could rip you up.. if they could just get up the energy to do it. But maybe later...

Koala Bears (which aren't bears actually.. they are... you guessed it.. marsupials!) sleep about 23 hours a day. Except during mating season. I guess sleeping together is not in their handbook.

Adelina snags a pic with one of our local zoo Koala Bears. We're still waiting for his permission to take the picture. He'll get around to giving it to us eventually, after he rests a little.

Back at the Circular Quay (pronounced Key, as I say) harbor marina, we see a nice looking tall ship. I'm sure for tourist trips. But a nice memory to the sailing days of yester-year. Would be fun to take one of these out for a spin (with a qualified crew, of course). Maybe next year(s)...

We take a tour of the INSIDE of the Sydney Opera House. We're told there are stages and seating for 15 concurrent shows in the entire facility. Wow!

Here is a picture inside looking out, toward the steps that we approached the Opera House from, that was in an earlier picture above. Lots of glass and unique architecture. A truly beatiful and unique place.

Inside the Sydney Opera House, we assend the stairs to the second level. The entire Opera House is accented with wood that is unique to the Australian area, and can no longer be used, due to dwindling forests.

If you have a chance to visit and go inside the Opera House, don't miss the opportunity. You will be rewarded!

A view from the back of the Sydney Opera House, looking out over the Sydney harbor. Beautiful view and beautiful day to enjoy the view!

Just peeking out in middle of the picture, through the window, is the famous Sydney Harbor bridge.

We are on the balcony of one of the the Sydney Opera House show rooms. This view is to the right side. The Sydney Harbor bridge is behind us.

A beautiful picture of us inside the main Opera venue in the Sydney Opera House.

Now in the spirit of full disclosure, we WERE in this area, but we are not allowed to take pictures. What they do is take a picture on a blue screen outside and superimpose it on a picture of the inside.

I can live with that. This picture is probably better than what I would have taken anyway. A beautiful place!

Completing the Sydney Opera House tour, we're setting our faces (God knows you can see them here), to board the fine Norwegian Jewel cruise ship. Here we have a selfie with us and our traveling buddies Jennifer and Isabella.

Foreign lands and exciting adventures beckon us... This selfie launches us on our way!

First stop off of our good ship Norwegian Jewel is the city of Geelong, in Australia. Here we have a nice city guide post for directions.

Geelong is a nice seaside city, about 70KM south of Melbourne.

These wooden figures are called Bollards. There are over 100 of them in the Geelong area. They are relatively recent, created by a local resident, Jan Mitchel, starting in 1999.

Here, Adelina stands tall with the Ballards along a walkway and park near the beach.

Beautiful view of the Geelong harbor area, from a walkway hill, above the marina.

More fun with Geelong Bollards, along the waterfront.

Can you tell where Bill and Adelina are in the picture?

Geelong is a large city, not a little seaside village. Housing, businesses, shopping centers and little shops, restuarants. Even a large and popular flower garden.
As mentioned above, Geelong is home to a fabulous flower and flora collection. Here we walk through the flower garden, enjoying the beautful colors and varieties of flowers.

A wonderful place. We found artists along the way with their canvases out, painting various scenes.

We are touring a very nice, open to the public, flower garden area in the city of Geelong. We had a wonderful time strolling through the gardens.

A picture from the pier from our cruise ship the next day out from Geelong. Here we are welcome'ed to Burnie. Burnie is a cruise ship stop in Tasmania island, south of the Australian mainland.

The locals call Tasmania, "Tasi". Welcome to Tasi!

In Tasmania (port stop Burnie), we chose to visit a small zoo to see the animals indiginous to this area. Of course, we'd be less than honest if we were doing this to see the in[famous] Tasmanian Devel!

Here we arrive at the zoo area and see Australian geese wandering the parking lot. They don't seem to be too concerned over people. We weren't too concerned about them either.

Not quite sure what animal this is, but he seems pretty content to be hanging out with the staff at the zoo. No doubt they were born with human contact, or they wouldn't be so dossel.

Whatever this animal is, it's got to be marsupial, you know.

Another - no doubt marsupial - checking out the activity as us humans walk by for a look.

Ahh.. now we're getting to the meat of the deal in Tasmainia (Tasi). What is this? Why, you all know. You've seen this beast since you were 2 years old on bugs bunny cartoons. Why.. it's the Tasmanian Devil!

Here are three REAL Tasi Devils enjoying lunch. The zoo keeper delivered them some dead animal and the Devils proceeded to tear it apart. These guys are a little bigger than a U.S. squirl or Racoon. They are, of course, marsuplials. They are scavengers and only eat meat. I guess they don't concern themseves with ruffage.

Closeup of a Tasmanian Devil. The people at the zoo tell us that the jaw power of Tasmanian Devils are the most powerful in the world, with more crunch power than any other animal.

We heard them crunch through bone without a pause. Oh, those Devils...

Here is another Tasi Devil, checking us out, following lunch. He looks kind of cute and friendly. And only he knows what he thinks of us.

Now here we have an interesting picture. Is this Tasi Devil giving us a screetching call of the wild? A blood curtiling yell to threaten us and make us cower?

Actaually, no.. It's a BIG yawn. Poor guy.. all tired from lunch.. time for a nap-eee.

Here is Bill posing with a couple of Australian goats. There is someone else just off camera to the left getting a picture with them. These goats appear to be very photogenic and apparently enjoy the spotlight.

A picture snapped in the store and restaurant area of the zoo. A little look into how the humans in the area live. Lot's of tour busses stop here and the lines to buy various tourist stuff or for food, can get long.

We bought a baseball cap.. ask us about it when you get a chance.

There is a whole area of the zoo where the kangaroo's hang out. They are very gentle and are VERY use to people. Here, one of our company, Isabella, scratches this kangeroo. Doesn't seem to be a problem for either.

Here is a mama Australian kangaroo hanging out, relaxing. Notice that she has a baby in her pouch!

This baby like's hanging in mom's pouch and didn't express any interest to come out and see us.

Another picture of an Australlian goat. These guys are "hams" and love the spotlight. This guy showed up and virtually demanded we take his picture. I asked him to smile. Did he?

Back on board our ship, we had a very wonderful dinner at a restaurant at the back of the ship. We can see the wash from the propellers below, as we enjoy wine and a very nice meal.

We had the opportunity to get a "behind the scenes" tour of the ship, and definetly took the tour.

Here is one picture of one of the main kitchens on the ship. We're told they always look like this, and that it was not cleaned up especially for the tour.

Of course, there are lots of side kitchens making things that feed into this kitchen and the meals.

On our behind the scenes tour of the ship, we were shown many storage areas, just packed with food, drink, and cooking items (oils, spices...).

Very impressive. A hugh operation that choreographs every 10 days on this ship, and must go off like clockwork every time.

Here is the behind the scenes tour of the laundry area. They have huge machines down here that can automatically dry and fold dinner room napkins and bed linens.

They also do passenger laundry that is sent to them. In the foreground is a worker doing passenger laundry.

Look to the right of the the foreground worker... The first while "roll" on the table next to his hand... It happened to be OUR LAUNDRY we put out the night before. Wow! What a coincidence.

Here we have a view of the right side of the ship's bridge! Wow! Now this wasn't exactly behind the scenes. The Norweign Jewel has a viewing area that is open during the day, so you can come by at any time.

Very nice and very impressive.

Here is a view of the right side of the bridge. Left side picture above.

Here, we are pulling into the harbor of Wellington, New Zealand. Wellington is the nations captial. Cloudy, but it is summer in the area as this picture was taken, and the temperature was warm.

Nice picture of Bill and Adelina in the main ocean area of locals and tourists near the parlament building.

As you can imagine, lot's of ships, restuarants, and museums. Very nice area. We hired a walking tour guide that showed us around and taught us all about Wellington and New Zealand. We had a terrific time!

Another area at the Wellington harbor tourist area. This is artwork that is certainly unique to the area, and is intended to express the artistic side of New Zealand. You can see more of the main harbor area to the middle left of picture.

Here we snap a picture of a street in the city, so you can see what the city generally looks like. Basically, like any other big city. Note that cars drive on left side of road in New Zealand (and Australia).

Interesting and fun picture. This apparently portion of a column of a building didn't collapse. It was built this way to remind New Zealanders of the fact that the country exists in an earthquake fault area and that some of their country has been hit pretty hard with earthquakes in the past; like ChristChurch in southern New Zealand a few years ago.

Here is a picture of an older building that was originally the home of the Regent that is nominated by the Queen of England. The Queen is still the head of state here, and New Zealand has a Parlament, like England. But instead of the Queen of England providing the role of President of other Parlamentry countries (like Inda and Israel), in New Zealand, the queen nominates a Regent for the duty.

The Regent has since moved to other digs and this building is now a school, if I recall the tour guide telling us.

Here is a picture of the New Zealand Parlament building. New Zealand laws are made here.

We've arrived in Napier New Zealand. A nice little sign on the street about some of the city's history in this pic. Nice place. A big seaport city. Not as big, of course, as Wellington.

As we walk and enjoy Napier, we come upon a very lovely city park, decorated with wonderful colorful flowers and plants. They take great care for their city areas it seems, and it was a pleasure visiting them.

We discover that Napier is home of the first prison in New Zealand, and that the prison is now a museum. Sounds like something unique to see. It's actually in walking distance of the main port area, so we go and check it out.

Here is the approach and front gate to the museum. When you get there, you must ring and someone comes and opens the door to let you in... is that a good thing?

A poster in the prison area where solitary confinement occurred. Solitary was for disiplinary problems, and not a normal venue at the prison. Doesn't sound good, no matter the case.

A picture of one of many cages used for the inmates when they had their hour or so of exercise. Looks like a double drag to be in one of these.

A picture of a portion of one of the cells that was in use in the 1800's. The entire cell is only about twice as big as this picture. Not much room or privacy.

The prison was closed in the 1960's. So near the time it was closed, prisoners had better bunks and a TV. But 100 years earlier, a double-ugly place.

Stocks on display. Not a lot of information on when and how they were used, but one can surmise they were another disiplinary form.

Now I can tell you from experience (in case you didn't think I had any) that these are VERY UNCOMFORTABLE. Doesn't necessary look that way, but they are. Bending down, your back will start to really hurt. And you can't collapse your legs or you'll choke yourself.

My advice.. don't do anything that necessitates getting locked into one of these. Just confess.

Jail birds Bill and Adelina.. sent up the river for evil, unmentionalable crimes...

The Napier Prison Blues...

This is the outer courtyard where the executions took place on this gallows (they hung 'em). Lot's of people over the life of this prison, saw the last minutes of their life here.

I wonder if the place in haunted?

Beautiful picture of our ship and the harbor of Tauranga, New Zealand. The place was great and the weather was fantastic. We enjoyed walking around this city. It's not too big and we saw most of the important parts during our walks.

At the beach area of Tauranga, New Zealand. A nice selfie pick of a rock outcrop area. Was beautiful.

We enjoyed a local pool area with hot springs and had a wonderful lunch. The local specialty is mussles. We ordered some. They were huge mussles and were delicious! Lot's of shopping also. Nice place!

Another stop in New Zealand. This one is called the Bay of Islands, because there are a number of little islands in the area.

We take a tour at this stop, and see our ship far off as we travel.

We take a tour of a cave with glowworms. These bugs glow in the dark on the cave roof, and it looks like stars at night when in the cave with the lights off.

Here, our group files into the cave for thrilling, seemingly nocturnal, adventures!

Here is a picture of the glow worms in the cave. Beautiful, isn't it!

Now for full disclosure, the tour didn't allow us to photograph the glowworms ourselves. They say that people alway use a flash, even if instructed not too. When that happens, the glow worms feel threatened and stop glowing.

So this pic is from the internet. But this is pretty much how it looks.

Now you might think it kind of peculiar to take a picture of some restroom urnals. The tour stopped here to say that a very famous architect retired in this area, and to give back to all the beauty in the area, agreed to design some city bathrooms for free.

The tour seems to feel they are worth hyping, and they certainly did enough that everyone went to check them out.

Candidly, it's just a pisser with strange aligned tile.. That's about it. Ladies room is the same, from what I'm told. See picture of plaque below.

Here is the plaque discussing the creation and history of the toilets, a portion of which is pictured above.

The tour company hyped it up big, so they must either think these are special, or they don't have much else to talk about... hmmm... wonder which one...

A selfie on the tour bus as we come back to the cruise ship area from the glowworm and the Mike Bowers bathrooms. Having a great time..

Another stop in the Bay of Islands area on the tour bus. An area with a big, thick, forest, and huge trees. Apparently, they think they are impressive with their big trees. We here in California, and we have BIG trees.. some have holes so cars can drive though. I guess they don't know that in New Zealand.

But you can't blame the New Zealanders for showing off their big trees. In this area, there is a big walkway around the area. The ground is water saturated and you wouln't walk it without an uplifed walkway.

Visiting New Zealand's big tree forest area. Here I show a tree that spans the length of my arm. That would be about 3-4 feet. Beefy.. The tree also.

Unfortunetly, we have completed our wonderful cruise and now disembark at Auckland harbor in New Zealand.

This wonderful, older building greets us at the dock. It was originally built as a government office for incoming goods tracking, and taxes, and other import duty activities. Still servers that purpose I believe.

Once we check into our hotel in Auckland, we take a hop-on-hop-off tour to see the city. Along the way, we just happen meet up with a couple of guys that we met in the ships casino that were traveling together (Matt on right and and Josh on left). They were also taking in the Auckland sights. So we traveled together and had a great time.

Here we have a selfie of a part of Auckland harbor area on the other side from the city. An island with a little city, tourist areas, resturants, etc.

As we tour a little island in the harbor area of Auckland, we find a nice little park with a flower garden.

It begged to have a picture taken and we abiged it.

After walking around, touring parts of Auckland, we stop at an outside cafe/hotel to wet our whistle. We all say hello. Jennifer on left, then Adelina, then one of our travel buddies Matt, then Isabella, then Josh.

Where is Bill.. behind the camera, of course.

Aukland has a high rise, rotating restaurant, just like Syndey did, that we visited and have pictures above. We visited the outside of this one in Auckland, but didn't go into. Not enough time (or energy) at this point.

Welcome to Fiji! We arrive at the airport and the ladies are given a beautiful flower for their hair.

And Adelina is the most beautiful woman wearing the beautiful flower!

We take a taxi from the aiport and the drivers name is Togo. Was a very nice guy. We got his mobile number and called him to take us all over Fiji. He took us to some wonderful places (see pictures below).

We asked him to take us to an authentic, local, resturant, and were not disappointed. Here we are, traveling, eating, getting fat. Fiji food is excellent!

Here is our cab driver and unoffical tour driver, Togo. If you're in Fiji, let us know and we'll see about hooking you up. Thank you Togo for everything!

We stayed in two different hotels in Fiji. Here is a beautiful rock/waterfall areas at one of the hotels.

Bill and Isabella enjoying a swim at one of our hotel pools. Had a great time. Wonderful venue.

Group selfie at an area with fire poles in the pool area, at night. Enjoying the pool and spa and entire area and venue.

We went to a beautiful tropical area that you can walk though to see trees, flower, lakes, and all kinds of wonderful nature. Weddings and other things are performed here also.

A nice picture on our nature walk in Fiji in a area where tourists can go to see all the wonderful nature that Fiji has to offer. Here we take a pic with a beautiful small lake full of water lilies.

In an area with wooden tree huggers. So, when in Rome... So I guess I'm a tree hugger now.

The ladies are tree huggers too. Hugging those same trees as the wood tree huggers. Must be some good trees!

After hugging trees, we go for a mud bath. Wow! Don't even look like us.. Maybe it's not..

These mud baths are supposed to be a fantastic exfolient. Hard to tell, but we did have fun!

Washing off from the mud bath involves several stages. Here we wash off in the mud pond. Gets most of the mud off... but there is plenty to go before you're done.

This area has natural springs, so the water is very warm.. but not harmful. There is a natural spring pond in the area that was closed because it was too hot.

Second wash stage after mud bath. We're starting to feel human again.

Interesting note that they told us. This area was actually built up by Americans in WWII that were stationed here, as they shipped in and out during the war. Ah, those Americans. They know how to have a good time!

We take in an optional massage after the hot mud bath. ooo, so good!

A view from the "back yard" of our hotel room, overlooking the ocean. We had a nice area in the back to relax and enjoy the view. And we definetly took advantage of it!

In rained really hard on our last day in Fiji. While there, we saw a few frogs. But when the rain started, wow! There were frogs everywhere. And do they love the rain.. some were sitting under building water downspouts like it was a darn shower.

Here one poses for us. I get the same impression from him I did from the frog at the zoo in Syndey... I'm somewhat impressed with him.. but he doesn't seem very impressed with me. Actually, I get the sense he dared me to cross his path.

With descression being the better part of valor.. I went in another direction.

Here is a video of "fire dancers". They danced at the hotel with fire sticks and other "traditional" fiji dances. This was free at our hotel. It was fun to watch and they did a great job. This video is one of the dances they did for us. Great!