Cruising

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Thanks to Be @ Home for featuring me in one of their Best of the Web posts!

As mentioned in a couple of previous posts, I was on a boat! Bro and I spent 10 nights on a cruise to New Caledonia with mum and dad – ooh first family holiday in… 10? 15 years? (Yes, Alastair stayed home – wah wah wah.) It was a very relaxing holiday, and it was also dad’s birthday while we were on board. Good times! Here’re some photos…

We left from Sydney, and it was an absolutely beautiful day. The sun started to set as we made our way out of the harbour andI’m sure that almost everyone headed up to the top deck for departure.

We passed under the Bridge, and by Luna Park.

Not too long afterwards, we were on our way.

After two days at sea, we arrived at our first stop – Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia.

We weren’t particularly entranced by Noumea – it’s a bit grotty and it was a public holiday weekend so it was incredibly, incredibly quiet. Still, the location is gorgeous.

The next stop was an island called Lifou. We didn’t get to spend much time on Lifou. To get ashore, passengers were ferried by tender (that little orange boat) and we got up late-ish and ended up having to wait for over 1.5 hours to get on a tender. Doh. By the time we got ashore, we had to join our prearranged forest tour and by the time it was over, it was almost time to return to the ship. We did manage to do a little walk along the beach before heading back.

The next stop was Mystery Island, a small uninhabited island located at the southern part of Vanuatu.  It’s only about a kilometer long and 200 metres wide, and as you can see – it’s beautiful!

Having learnt from our experience of getting ashore to Lifou, we got up early and arrived on Mystery Island in the morning. We waded into the crystal clear water, laid on the beach and soaked up some sunshine, and then mum saw someone walking past holding a lobster… We were immediately on the hunt.

Mystery Island is uninhabited because locals believe that it’s taboo. But they come over from a neighbouring island to sell goods whenever a cruise ship is there. And one of the goods they sell is freshly cooked lobsters. They’re very popular and went quickly – we were lucky to get one! This is the beast that we bought. It was the largest of all the lobsters and cost us $60.

It was so large! To be honest, it was so big that the flesh in the tail was a bit tough, but it was still yum. The four of us stood there and ate the whole thing with our fingers. Mhmmmmm lobster.

Our last stop was Isle of Pines

See how clear the water was?

Ah, it was so pretty. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t that great – there were sunny patches but also patches of rain. Gaah! So we didn’t get much beach time.

Now I’ve shown you some pretty pictures – I’m sure you’re wondering what the food on board the ship was like. Some of it was good, and some of it was terrible! Will show some food in my next cruise post.