Life's a Stitch

Two sea days, finally my favourite part of a cruise vacation, total relaxation and relinquishment of control. The first day, though, was filled with spectacularly dramatic scenery in New Zealand's Milford Sound. At first it seemed similar to our British Columbia Howe Sound.

Then it turned into the sights of an Alaskan cruise.

But then, it was so imposing that it was impossible to capture it all in one picture. The onboard naturalist repeatedly told us that until this day, in the years she's been on this route, she had never seen a sunny day, a whale nor the penguins native to the area – all visible today. About those penguins, I really wanted to imagine that those swimming spots, slightly underneath the water were actually those little blue eyed beauties, but they looked like fish to me. I guess I can say I saw penguins in New Zealand.

Next port day: Tasmania, Australia's island, the gateway to Antarctic exploration. It was pretty much fogged in, but given our recent lightweight long distance hiking experiences, I did appreciate the many shops providing gear to outdoors people. Imagine an REI on one corner, MEC across the street and Decathlon next door. The prices were comparable to ours, so nothing was overly tempting.

(11-12-17)