Around the South Pacific for 57 days

Penny Fleming

At 11 p.m. on June 11, we boarded a Qantas Airways 747 jumbo jet

bound for the South Pacific.

Settled in our business-class seats that would be our homes for

the next 17 hours, we had a light gourmet meal, an over-the-counter

sleeping pill, earplugs and eye covers to make our seats comfortable.

We slept until we smelled breakfast.

We arrived in Brisbane, Australia, at 10:30 a.m. on June 13, two

days lost and hours ahead. We were ready to go the minute we landed

-- jet lag never came. We started at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in

Brisbane to see and hold Koalas and pet and feed Kangaroos.

Then we were off to see “Crocs” at Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo. He

wasn’t there, but his zoo was just what we would see on TV. The next

day, we flew to Hamilton Island in the Whitsunday Islands, then on to

the exclusive resort of Hayman Island. We had no idea what we were to

experience.

Once on Hamilton Island, we were greeted by uniformed staff

members and escorted to our yacht. It was 150 feet of pure luxury. A

small ball on the arm of his chair handled the captain’s steering.

The ride out to the island was a dream. When the yacht pulled into

Hayman, staff members were standing at attention on the dock. It gave

us chills.

Our beautiful room overlooked the beach, but the hotel was

starting to show its age. The two days we stayed here were spent in

the water. We took speedboats to the Great Barrier Reef and were

amazed at the coral and bright-colored fish. When the time came to

leave the resort, we were looking forward to the luxurious ship

returning us to Hamilton. Instead, we were greeted by Hayman staff

taking us to the dock, where we boarded a sea plane to fly us back.

Seeing the island from the air turned out to be fun.

Then we were back to Hamilton island to fly north to Cairns. When

we arrived, a driver, who took us to the Daintree Eco Lodge in the

rainforest, promptly picked us up. After a pretty, 90-minute drive

north, we arrived at our hotel. Our room was on stilts and in the

trees with a screened-in patio, complete with binoculars to view the

wildlife. Here we went out at night on the Daintree River to see the

nocturnal wildlife.

We saw birds, a white-lipped green tree frog, alligators and bats.

The mosquitoes were out of control. Between us all, we had more than

100 bites.

My 8-year-old daughter Annie and I went horseback riding on the

beach. We spent two days here and then were driven to Port Douglas, a

short distance away. We stayed at the Sheraton Mirage Port Douglas.

This hotel was known for the pools, which were huge. We took a dive

boat out to the outer Great Barrier Reef and snorkeled in beautiful

coral gardens. With the recent release of “Finding Nemo,” we were

determined to find Nemo, and we did. Hundreds of them.

The town was really nice, and one of the nights we went to a place

where the kids raced cane toads. This was a lot of fun. The kids were

given party horns to blow to make them jump.

The next stop in Australia was Sydney. We stayed at the beautiful

Four Seasons hotel at the rocks. I reserved the corner suite with a

view of the Sydney Bridge and the opera house on the executive floor.

The hotel and the view were magnificent. We toured the opera house,

rode the monorail to the aquarium, and rode the bus to Chinatown and

Kelly Tarlton’s Antarctic center to see the penguins, and boarded

ferries to take us around Sydney Harbor and Manley Beach. This city

was very noisy because they had every mode of transportation.

My 9-year-son Michael was fascinated by the pay phones. He would

check the coin return, and in eight out of 10 phones, he’d get a

handful of money. After a few days of this beautiful city, we were

ready to move on to our next county.

The next plane ride took us to Tahiti. We changed time zones and

crossed the international dateline, arriving in Tahiti at 11 p.m. We

stayed in an over-the-water bungalow at the Beachcomber

Intercontinental for two nights. Our room was right on the water and

we could hear the waves as we went to sleep. When we woke up the next

day, it was warm and sunny -- the water was a bright teal blue. We

played in the water and snorkeled right off our room. The time went

quickly here.

We took the ferry over to Moorea and stayed there two days also.

The Beachcomber Intercontinental Moorea also was beautiful. We jet

skied and snorkeled in the clearest water we have ever seen and

really enjoyed the French Polynesian people. The music, food and

culture were a real experience. We returned to Papeete on July 2 to

board the Tahitian Princess for our 10-day cruise. We had a wonderful

suite with a double balcony.

We cruised to Huahine, Riatia, Bora Bora, Moorea and Riatonga. We

swam with stingrays and fish -- too many to count. The last day

aboard came way too soon and we all said we wanted to go back. We had

one more day in Papeete to visit the public markets and dine at the

marvelous portable trailers that turn into mini gourmet restaurants

on the waterfront at night.

On our last night in Tahiti, we were awakened by a fire alarm. In

fear, my daughter ran out of the room naked. With smoke in the

hallways, we all got out and soon discovered that someone had a

mosquito coil that set off the fire alarm. Since we had a 3 a.m.

departure, we decided to stay awake and prepare to head for New

Zealand.

The first town we hit in New Zealand was Queenstown on the south

island. When we stepped off the airplane, we were hit with freezing

temperatures. Our Tahiti clothes were quickly covered up with

jackets. First stop was to purchase thick hats, gloves, long

underwear and insulated socks. The kids had to wear two pairs of

pajama bottoms under their clothes to keep warm.

Bundled up like snowmen, we were ready to explore this pristine

county. We took the TSS Earslaw to the Walter Peak sheep station,

where we saw sheep-shearing and watched the sheep dog work the sheep.

We took a bus tour to Milford Sound and Tasman Sea.

Michael wanted to see where the “Lord of the Rings” movies were

filmed. The Dart River tours took us to the forest and the river the

movie was filmed on. We experienced the thrilling ride of the jet

boats through narrow canyons. We were so cold. On the coldest morning

of 5-below, we departed Queenstown for Fox Glacier, to fly and land

on the glaciers. We saw the deep caverns of snow and learned that the

true color of snow is not white, but blue-green. We took our

Christmas card photo here.

Our next mode of transportation was a train, to cross the south

island to Christchurch, a town centered around a huge church. We went

antique hunting and did lots of shopping and sightseeing. Our time

here was short, and soon we were flying to Rotorua on the north

island. The town is on an active volcano. Steam was coming from open

vents in the streets and many of the parks had heat thermals with

bubbling mud.

We experienced a true Hangi Maori feast at the Tamaki Maori

Village and had an amazing tour of the Waitomo glow worm caves. To be

able to walk among the Whakarewarewa active thermal reserve was

really an overwhelming experience.

We went to another sheep-shearing show and again were amazed with

the sheep dogs. We also saw the nocturnal bird, the Kiwi. Our next

town was Auckland, the city of sails.

“Another city,” we all said and decided that we would cut this

part of the trip short. We were so cold that we saw little of the

town and its sights. We all agreed to leave Auckland and travel to a

warmer climate.

Arriving in Fiji late at night, we found our room and went to

sleep with the sound of the waves outside our door. We were finally

warm. The resort was very pretty, but we soon discovered that the

ocean was heavily polluted. We went out to small islands to swim and

found that this county was in need of a stronger government to police

agriculture polluters. We did enjoy the resorts that were easily

reached by the ferries that went out daily. Soon we all became very

tired of living out of a suitcase for 57 days. It was time to go home

soon.

With 175 pounds of luggage, 26 rolls of film, 16 different hotels,

14 airplanes, 95 mosquito bites and 174 meals, we were headed home.

The flight home started at night, and when we stepped off the

airplane in Los Angles, we all said, “It is good to go and good to

come home.”

* PENNY FLEMING is a resident of Newport Beach

* TRAVEL TALES runs on Thursdays. Have you, or someone you know,

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