Mauritius / Thu Feb 28

Mauritius is an island in the western Indian Ocean heavily influenced by Asian customs. We're docked in Port Louis which is the capital city.

We went on a full day private tour with Karin and Joe - a couple we met on the ship. Our first stop was to a place that had a good view of the city and some of the beautiful landscapes.

From here we went to see the Hindu temple in Grand Bassin. The island is 52% Hindu and today was the start of Maha Shivaratri - a major Hindu festival. It's the largest Hindu pilgrimage outside of India. Over 250,000 devotees make the journey to the temple Ganga Talao. Some walk for 3 to 4 days to get there often pushing or carrying kanwars or chariots. Tents that provide shelter are set up along the way.

Then we arrived in the temple area. People were making offerings and there was lots of burning incense.

Next stop was to Black River Gorges National Park to see the Chamarel waterfall.

During the road trip we spotted a family of monkeys gathering food by the side of the road.

We then went to another area of the park for more views of the beautiful landscape. There were monkeys there and it was fun to watch them play and eat.

Next stop was to see the Seven Color Earths. It's a small area of sand dunes made up of seven colors - red, brown, violet, green, blue, purple and yellow. It's a unique volcanic geological phenomenon in which the colors evolved through conversion of basaltic lava to clay minerals.

Next to the 7 color earths there are 6 tortoises. The original settlers of the island over consumed the native tortoises so some were brought in from the Seychelles. They can live to be over 150 years old.

We stopped for lunch at a local restaurant.

Then one more stop to view the scenery before we ended our day.

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Hobart / Mon & Tue Feb 12 & 13

We're docked in Hobart for a day and a half. Hobart is the capitol and largest city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. It's also the second oldest capitol in Australia. Yesterday we went on a private tour with Karin and Joe - a couple from Georgia that we've gotten to know. We took a hike in beautiful Mt. Field National Park, went to Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary and saw a number of other scenic and historical sites. To get to Mount Field National Park we drove along the Derwent River. The National Park was quite scenic. We took a long walk and saw some beautiful waterfalls, huge trees and the random wallaby (small kangaroo). Russell Falls After Mount Field we had lunch at a cute local restaurant located on the river. Our waitress had an interesting story to tell us about a Zombie Run she'd taken recently in Auckland. Crazy! After lunch we spent a bit of time looking for a platypus. Our tour guide found one in the river n...

Busselton / Tue Feb 19

We tendered in Busselton, Australia today. Busselton is best known for the the Busselton Jetty which was built in 1865. It's more than a mile long and is the longest timber piled jetty in the southern hemisphere. At the end of the jetty is an underwater observatory. You can get to it by walking the length of the jetty or by taking the Jetty Train which looks like a Victorian locomotive but is powered by solar panels. We spent the day in Busselton with two other couples. We sat on the beach for a couple of hours then walked into town to explore. We met Walter who was quite the character. After that we had a snack at a local restaurant then took the train to the end of the jetty and toured the underwater observatory before walking back to the tender. Fun day!

Travel Clinic

It's Thanksgiving week and we've traveled from sunny, warm Florida to cold and snowy New England to spend the holiday with family. On Monday we flew to Connecticut & then drove to our condo in Vermont where we arrived after dark. It snowed all day Tuesday - very pretty but very cold. On Tuesday we had an appointment at the Travel Clinic at Dartmouth Medical Center. The purpose of the visit was to find out what shots and medications we'd need for our upcoming trip. We anticipated a relatively short visit but two hours later we left with our heads spinning from everything they told us about how to stay safe and not get sick. We were give a large folder full of information with promises of even more that would be mailed to us in the near future. We also expected to get some shots during the visit. Larry had 2 and I ended up with 4! You can see them all lined up in the photo below. They included Hepatitis A, Typhoid and Tdap ( a combination vaccine that protects ag...

Opals and Romeos

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