But Wait! There's More!

Thought I was done, didn't ya? While the sun has set on the Aussie part of our adventure, I mentioned that we have boarded the Explorer of the Seas as our ride home. It's a 23 day cruise, the longest we've ever taken, but we definitely prefer cruising to a loooooong plane ride!

We've stopped at our first three ports. All French speaking which was fun for me. (Sidenote: I majored in French for 2 years in college and while I can't speak it fluently now, I can still read and get us around)

Our first stop was Noumea, New Caledonia. I had never heard of New Caledonia before booking this cruise. Our excursion was a day trip to an island. New Caledonia encompasses many islands and this one was called Amadee Island. We were told that there were snakes a plenty on the island. Wait? What! These are poisonous although they are afraid of us humans. They are water snakes, but come on land to digest their food. We went almost the whole time without seeing one..........almost. We were watching a coconut demonstration and this guy slithered among the people. Now, I should mention that I am deathly afraid of snakes. A fact that I wasn't quite aware of until we went to Big Bend many years ago. I sat on a rock during a hike and heard a rattle in the cracks of the rock. Someone in our group said snake and you probably never saw me move soooo fast. In fact, I took out a tree branch because NOTHING was going to get in my way. Not even a guy in our group, who came very close to being knocked into oblivion over the side of the cliff. Well, he WAS standing in my path. They tell me all this later because all I remember is running. So I totally wanted to freak at this particular snake, but notice that the locals aren't even paying attention to them. In fact, they just walk around as if they aren't there, even walking pretty darn close. Me, not so much, BUT I didn't run! So there's that!

We get a glass bottom boat ride which brought ALL these fish around. Yea, they feed them.

We also get a native dance and song demonstration as well as a native lunch. One which the birds seemed to like too. I really hunched over my plate this time. I was NOT going to let some bird get my lunch again!

It wasn't a very nice day. Although we'd taken our snorkel gear, we opted not to snorkel that day. However, stay tuned for my next post because it is chock full of underwater pics!