Fjord cruising in New Zealand

It is now two days since we left Sydney and our fabulous two days there. The image of the ship above is not due to us missing Oriana, but is of P&O Australia's Pacific Jewel leaving her berth at Darling harbour shortly before we made our own departure from Circular Quay. I would challenge anybody to find full board hotel room accomodation with entertainment, at that location in Sydney for 150GBP a night, but that is exactly what we did by having Oriana available to us for our overnight stay.

At 8am this morning, in the cool misty air of dawn, we collected our pilot for our day cruising the fjords of New Zealand's South Island. First, we entered Milford sound, with its sheer mountain faces dropping into the sea within feet of either side of the ship. There are frequent water falls cascading down the steep slopes up the 9km we travelled to the head, before pausing and turning to backtrack towards the coast again, where we made for Thompson and Doubtful Sounds. Today's lunch is to be BBQ, so that we can make the most of the day, and spend it out on the open decks admiring this amazing scenery. This part of our cruise cetainly has the 'wow' factor.

From here we head to Wellington, Napier, and Auckland, before heading off to visit the Polynesian Islands of the South Pacific.