Greetings from Christchurch, New Zealand. Since our last post we visited American Samoa and Fiji. Both are interesting. American Samoa reminded us of Guam, which isn't all that surprising since both places are U.S. territories in the far Pacific. Samoa is a relatively typical volcanic island, whereas Fiji has lots of entirely arable land as well as dramatic mountains. I guess what surprised me most about Fiji is how big the main island is. Imagine, on Fiji it is a 3-4 hour drive from the international airport to the capital/port of Suva. This is NOT because the roads are poor, we made a good rate of speed. It is simply a big island.
More recently we visited Auckland, on the north island of New Zealand, or EnZed as locals sometimes call it. I didn't get ashore as I was fighting a cold that has been making its way around the ship. Eileen went ashore and took some neat pix. As we get further south, it keeps getting colder and we have to keep reminding ourselves that we've sailed into early spring here.-
This has been a remarkable cruise, great group of passengers, fantastic itinerary, nice ship - the whole enchilada.
