November 24, 2025
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We played a game "how well do you know me?" (that my girlfriend Sherrie brought me last visit) to pass the time. When we arrived in Port Vila we had to clear customs in Vanuatu and the 5 of us totally confused the officials there! We got passed from agent to agent but finally explained the whole Ship concept, as our residence, to the chief agent and he processed our entry paperwork. We then hunted down a taxi to take us to the Hotel in Port Vila. Below are shots at our Hotel MG COCOMO right on the Emten Lagoon.
Final leg back to ship - flight in the afternoon - Port Vila to Luganville Vanuatu.
Sailing into Sydney Harbor is one of those iconic moments that will stand out in my memories for this adventure! Sydney is one of a few natural harbors, worldwide, like San Francisco , known for its sparkling waters, landmark sights, spectacular events and hundreds of miles of shoreline.
We got up at 6:45am to get to National Park Forts Walk trail in the hope of seeing koalas . Prior walkers mark trails with tree branches pointing in the direction of their sighting and we were luck enough to see 3 markers in our first hour of hiking. It is so stinking hot and humid the success we had made it bearable. The koala population on the island started with 20 brought over in 1930, to escape fur hunters. Today, the island boast 800 to 1000, and they are so cute and drowsy. They need 20 hours of sleep a day! The early morning is when they are the most active.
Just off the coast of Townsville, Australia is a special little island (that used to be part of mainland, hundreds of thousands years ago). The island was formed by molten granite that was pushed to the earth's surface with volcanic force.Over time the volcanic overlay weathered away leaving an extraordinary landscape of rounded domes and boulders, many as big as a house and spectcularly perched. Over Seventy Percent of the center of the Island is a National Park. There is lots of wildlife here too - koalas, rock wallabies, snakes & birds.