Nothing could be finer, than to take an ocean liner, with my Mo----ther!

When I tell people I am about to embark on a 6 week cruise with my mother, I am always amused at the first response I get. It's either:

6 Weeks!?!?!

or

A Cruise?!?!?!

or

With Your Mother?!?!?!

Whichever their response choice tells me more about them than about the actual event.

My Mom did tell me that when she told some of her girlfriends, their first response was:

6 WEEKS STUCK ON A BOAT WITH YOUR DAUGHTER?!??!?!?!?!?!

I did not know quite how to respond to that as I have no idea what stories my Mother has been telling about me. I will take it as a compliment that she still wants to take the trip.

I have only taken one cruise before, a family trip for a week from Vancouver to Alaska, passing nature that would be impossible to see otherwise. We all did our own thing during the day and then met for dinner to explain and boast about what we had been doing. It was an awesome time.

But my kind of travel is a backpack slung over my shoulders and taking a bus with chickens and twice as many people as capacity in a third world country. Decoratively skimming the sea in luxury was never the plan. I remember staying in a hovel in Nuku-alofa in Tonga once, me, my boyfriend, and way too many enormous spiders, and watching the sleepy town transform, with merchandise laid out that I have never seen during my month there, all because a cruise ship was coming in and spilling tourists out for an hour or two. As soon as the ship swallowed them up again and moved off, the town I knew came back, like land after a flood abates.

It was a fascinating experience to witness, and one I decided then and there that I would never experience the other way round. These poor people on boats never saw or heard or tasted any of the things that make this town unique, but took away momentos that the locals did not make themselves or that had no bearing on the country's history or culture.  Smaller boats or historic boats did not get the same treatment, but people on shiny big cruise liners were treated as if from outer space.

So here I am, about to eat my words.

In my defense, it's all my Mother's fault.

Travelling my way is just not possible for her, as her knees hurt and she is a grown-up. Long flights are hard. Sleeping on mud floors is not desirable. How else are you going to get to see Oceania in comfort?

As it is a repositioning cruise, it is less expensive than 6 weeks afloat would normally be, and we will see a lot on our way to a destination she had always wanted to get to, but felt it would not be possible anymore: Australia and New Zealand. Along the way we stop at various north and south Pacific islands. We will cross the equator, both Tropics (Cancer and Capricorn), and the date line. Constellations will change. The Moon will wax and wane and wax again. We will read, and talk. I will work and she will nap. We will have gins and tonic at the end of the day. It will be a gift of time together that will produce memories that only we will share. I am really, really looking forward to it!