The following six posts cover an autumn 2019 journey of 23,578 kilometres or 14,651 miles, not including flights from Toronto to Vancouver and return flight from Sydney, Australia, to Toronto.
The pictures are clickable, allowing you to swiftly spool through, thus avoiding whatever, after considerable procrastination, I’ve managed to write.
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And so … slightly spooky Canada Place - pier to myself and whoever’s looking down at me - the morning my ship arrives in Vancouver.
The ship is the Noordam. Not particularly special but certainly comfortable. There’s loads in previous posts about Holland America cruises so I’ll leave it at that.
Between Vancouver and Hawaii a crewman at work, while I sit below consuming a disgustingly large breakfast. I prefer this in monochrome.
Rounding Diamond Head, where my dear friends Kathy and Michael live, on arrival in Honolulu.
Here are Kathy and Michael.
They settle into their cabin while I wander off on a serendipity architecture tour. This is the quite wonderful mid-century Marks Garage in downtown Honolulu.
Another 1950s building. This, too, I like better in monochrome.
The next day, having satisfactorily patronized the secondhand bookstore in Lahaina, Maui, I do a brief picture patrol …
… spotting what appears to be a surfing class …
… but eventually a deck chair on the ship offers the benefits of an excellent view and tropical nap.
Our last Hawaiian stop is Kona. What’s down there? Rock pools attract even the oldest of us.
For the photographic record, Noordam off Kona.
Six days at sea to Pago Pago, American Samoa, this service station …
… an unusual house …
... rush hour ...
… and some street photography.
Next stop, Suva, Fiji, where I indulge a fondness for signs …
… window displays …
… and revisit the exuberant, freshly painted, 1930s Regal Theatre.
I join the locals for pineapple pie and back to the ship.
Kathy and Michael return with a kind gift, the world’s only seven dollar banknote. Marking Fiji’s rugby gold medal in the 2016 Olympics, it’s fetching four or more times its value on ebay. I sleazily checked.
On Dravuni Island, population less than two hundred ...
... an outhouse decorated with shells.
... an outhouse decorated with shells.
I climb to the island’s highest point, where a young German couple (who get there a lot faster than I do) kindly take my picture.
Lautoka, Fiji, is known as ‘Sugar City’ because of its refinery. I suppose I’m including this for the juxtaposition of ‘sugar’ and ‘health’. Possibly a good town for selling toothpaste.
Outside the town’s mall two old dears chat …
… and in the park aquarium fish are for sale.
A Seventh Day Adventist minister preaches to no-one except, briefly, me. And I can’t understand Fijian.
New Caledonia’s Isle des Pins provides a quintessentially tropical scene.
Picturesque - for lack of a better word - local in the capital, Noumea.
Next stop Australia.
