Travel Maven blog

Cruising to mating penguins, a disappearing gun, a castle in New Zealand

2012-01-26T21:43:30-05:00

Mating grounds for the Northern Royal Albatross are reason enough to visit New Zealand’s Otago Peninsula, but these grand birds are not the only attraction on a shore excursion from the cruise ship port of Dunedin. Above a wide beach with rolling ocean surf, our tour group watched a single...

Cruising New Zealand, spotting the mating Northern Royal Albatross

2012-01-25T12:33:15-05:00

Preparing to meet a colony of Northern Royal Albatrosses -- or are they albatri -- I remembered an image from high school when my English class was studying Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” A sailor wore a dead albatross around his neck as penance. The poem is...

Cruising farther south than I’ve ever been

2012-01-13T17:51:49-05:00

Antarctica remains elusive for me as a travel destination, but I’m getting closer. On my Celebrity Century cruise in Australia and New Zealand – from Sydney to Auckland with stops on the way – the ship rounded the bottom of New Zealand, East Southeast of Stewart Island. Our southern-most point...

Cruising New Zealand, slipping through Milford Sound

2012-01-10T10:22:45-05:00

After two days and three nights at sea from Tasmania on the southern tip of Australia, Celebrity Century plunged into Milford Sound at sunrise. You would not want to sleep-in on the day that your cruise ship slips through the three sounds on New Zealand’s southwest coast, not if you...

Cruising Australia, Prisoners of Mother England laugh like the devil in Tasmania

2012-01-05T21:23:41-05:00

On the island of Tasmania, between the mainland of Australia and the ice of Antarctica, I did not encounter a single snarling Tasmanian Devil. But I did crash into the Tassie sense of humor. Humor is a useful attribute for residents of an island best known for its feisty, carnivorous...