Picton was my favorite cruise stop. We had 2 excursions planned that day; the first was a private flight over Marlborough Sounds.

On February 11th my husband and I and our friend Dave set sail on a 14 night cruise from Sydney, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand.

Our first full day in Sydney was actually spent outside of Sydney on a day tour to see kangaroos and wombats. But our second day was spent in the city itself.

While we mingled with the kangaroos our host fired up the barbie!

I was lying on the couch and from there I could see a big koala in the tree in our backyard.

After a quick photo stop at Cape Patton Lookout (the highest point on the Great Ocean Road), our tour guide drove us to a place where koalas had been seen recently. And thankfully two of them were still there.

One of our day trips from Melbourne was to the Grampians – a mountain range about 3 hours from the city.

Our first activity in the city was a 3 hour guided walking tour of Melbourne with “I’m Free Walking Tours“.