Popua New Guinea and Darwin

Our only non Australian port was Port Morsby in Papua New Guinea which is ranked in the top 5 most dangerous cities in the world and all we heard before getting off the ship was to travel only in large groups, don’t bring jewellery or valuables, don’t wonder around in parks or cemeteries and be aware of your surroundings at all times! So with that send off we headed out, in a convoy of 12 buses to invade a couple of poor fishing villages’ and a small resort. As we drove along the countryside you could tell that this area was used to flooding from both inland rivers and heavy rains and from large tides as well. Here is a typical suburban house on the tidal flats (keep in mind that there are lots of 5 and 6 meter crocs in the water).

As this group of 250 strange looking white people, descended upon the village, they showed us their dance moves in their traditional native costumes. Tourism has been very light here, since 1975 when Papua New Guinea gained their independence from Australia, which, based on the amount of poverty we saw, was a big mistake.

The fishing village was littered with mounds of garbage everywhere; skinny, skinny dogs ran through the streets. Some of the kids had no clothes and many did not have shoes.

Here are the restroom facilities we were invited to use, very practical but definitely on the primitive side.

Only the kids whose parents could afford it went to primary school and learned English and the local Patois . Most of those only stayed until grade 6 and very few make it to high school never mind university. AIDS is rampant and most of the population is illiterate so it is very hard to get the message out about safe sex to the general population. Here is a class we got to see were the kids sit on a gravel floor, in a shack with tins sides, using just a blackboard and pencils and paper and these are the lucky ones!

Jude was very quiet during this excursion and I could see that it really bothered her that we really couldn’t do much for these people to help them. It really is a heartbreaking situation. All of us should be thankful for what we have and focus what really is important in life. The country just announced the start up on a new natural gas mine that is producing at a world record pace but I doubt that much of that money will get past the government officials and trickle down to these poor fishermen. Despite that, everyone smiled and waved as we drove by, the kids were laughing and playing and looked fairly healthy.

The next port was Darwin which is where much of the movie Australia, with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman, is set. It is the largest city in the Northern Territory with about 80,000 people and what seemed like 200,000 crocodiles! We hired (not rented) a car and drove out to Litchfield National Park to see a number of waterfalls and swimming pools. The area is quite flat and the roads go up to a 130 Km/hour limit on a two lane highway. Also trundling along at 130 Km/Hr were huge Truck Trains with four trailers, each a 50 footer, tagging along. One of the sites in the area is these gigantic 15 foot high Cathedral Termite Mounds.

We also took the Amazing Jumping Crocodile cruise in this area where you sit in a little tin boat and they entice 5 meter long crocs to jump out of the water to grab a hunk of raw chicken dangling from the end of a pole. It’s amazing that these guys can get so high just using their tails to propel them up out of the water.

This albino faced croc (named Michael Jackson of course) was 5 meters or about 16 feet long and although he couldn’t jump as high as some of the smaller crocs his jaws were huge and you knew if he got a hold of you he wouldn’t be letting go!

They coaxed this fellow onto the land so we could get a better look and he was only a couple of feet away from the ramp onto the front of the boat.

Since Jude got to cuddle the Koala, I volunteered to snuggle with a 6 foot Green Python snake which surprisingly was cool and smooth to touch. Like most of the inhabitants, snakes in Australia are very friendly as it seemed to like wrapping itself around me.

After a hot day in the Australian heat there is nothing like a cool pint of VB (Victoria Bitters) in a local pub to quench your thirst.

Sunsets in this part of the world are just spectacular and ideal way to end some pretty fantastic days.

Whitsunday Islands and Cairns

The second port of call on our cruise was the beautiful resort area called the Whitsunday Islands which is the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. They were formed by the tops of ancient mountains, now below sea level, resulting in a perfect area for sailing. We booked on the 60 foot Sailing Ship the Banjo Paterson, for a leisurely 2 hour tour through the islands

Some of the smaller islands have pine trees and almost make you think of the Muskokas, other than the colour of the water, which are many different shades of turquoise. The port we anchored next to is on Hamilton Island and it has a big Yacht club with many power boats and sailboats for the members to tour on.

Hamilton Island was bought for $220 million by the man that sold the wine company named Rosemount and he has added a number of exclusive resort villas frequented by guests like Bill Gates, John Travolta and Kate Hudson. Here is a picture of one the hotel pools (this is the small one, the one next to it is really huge) looking back over the bay.

The third port of call was at Yorkey’s Knob next to Cairns and we decided to head up the mountain on the “Skyrail” into the tropical rainforest town of Kuranda. You get a great view, dangling high above the treetops, back towards Yorkey’s Knob and of the town below. On the right side of this picture you can see a part of a square brown man-made lake which has wakeboard ramps and jumps. It has a big tow rope going around the outside of lake (like you would see on a bunny ski hill) with a number of handles dangling down, that the skiers grab onto. No boats required!

At the top of the hill you can stop for a guided tour of the rainforest to hear about the many types of hanging and climbing vines and thousands of different species of trees. Other residents include huge Goliath Butterflies, Pythons, Wild Boars and this 6 inch spider with inch long red fangs.

One interesting plant is the Strangler Fig, whose fruit is eaten by the Flying Fox bats and the seeds are deposited on the top of an unsuspecting tree. Over the next ten to fifteen years the fig encircles the tree completely, eventually killing off the host. Here is a picture of the strangler fig after the host tree has died and been eaten by bugs. Some of the trees were so big that the aboriginals would hide inside them during cyclones.

We had lunch and toured around the craft shops of Kuranda which also has a butterfly farm, Koala park and a snake zoo. For some reason Jude was happy to hold a Koala but had no interest in doing the same with a 10 foot python, I can’t imagine why. On the way back down the mountainside we travelled on the Kuranda Scenic Railway which was like going back in time a hundred years.

The railway also stopped at several scenic spots including these magnificent waterfalls.

In between ports the cruise ship is usually out to sea for a day or so which makes for a relaxing trip but I didn’t think pictures of us going to meal after meal would be very interesting, although we are enjoying it. Next we are off to Papua New Guinea, our only non Australian stop, which I’m sure will be very interesting


So we are halfway through our trip and we have now covered 23,000 Km!

Rhapsody of the Seas

So on the day we were to board the ship, we had some spare time in the morning so we decided to head back to Bondi Beach since it was a really gorgeous day. This photo gives you a flavour of what was going on between the sunbathers, surfers, boogie boarders, swimmers or people watchers.

Even though it was the middle of a week day, there were lots of people to see and most of them were worth watching!We boarded the ship without any problems although Jude was really getting worried when it took me over an hour to drop the rental car off and run back to the port (in 37 deg C weather).

With the sun just starting to set, we headed out to sea on a calm but breezy day.

The Sydney harbour has to be one of the most scenic places in the world to start a cruise.

The first port of call was Brisbane, which is the third largest city in Australia and has some quite modern looking buildings.
It is located on the long and winding Brisbane river so we felt the best way to see the city and learn about it’s history was to take a river cruise on the ferry boat Mirimar. As we were finishing breakfast, we happened to bump into Lou and George’s best friends who just happened to be on the Rhapsody of the Seas, and even more surprising, were planning to take the same ferry boat to the same park we were! What a small world!
The river trip was relaxing and we learned much of the history of the area including the story about the family that donated the university grounds, the floods of 1974 that wiped out many of the houses along the river and why there are so many bats on the island next to the golf course.


We toured the Lone Pine Koala Park and got up close to a number of different Australian animals including a few different types of Kangaroos like the white bush kangaroos shown here:

We saw dingos, kassawary’s, fox bats, Tasmanian devils, kookoobura’s, sheep dogs and wombats. This cute little lizard fellow seemed to want to follow us around looking for a handout or maybe he was after the mosquitoes that like to follow Jude around.

The main attraction here of course is the really cute Koala’s (note they are marsupials not bears so you can’t call them Koala Bears!) like this one who woke up long enough for me to get her picture.

They eat 4 hours a day and sleep 20 hours a day (as Jude said, just like the average Canadian male in winter except it’s beer not eucalyptus leaves!). Jude went into the special exhibit and even got to hold one for a few minutes.

I will try and keep the blog up to date but the Internet access on the ship is too slow for uploading pictures so I had to wait till we had a few minutes in port at an Internet cafe so the next update may take a few days so please be patient! We are having the time of our lives, meeting many interesting people from many different far away places and some from even just down on Binns Street around the corner from us! Bye for now.

Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest

We started off our adventures in Port Douglas with a trip out to the Great Barrier reef on the Calypso Snorkel and Dive Tour. Judy went snorkeling and I went diving and we all went to three different sites on the Opal Reef. Before this trip I patiently explained to Jude how divers are very rarely bitten because sharks don't consider them food. Of course just as we arrived in Sydney, a Navy diver was attacked by a Bull Shark in Sydney harbour and a surfer was attacked on Bondi beach. Despite all of that, she did get her nerve up and had a great time snorkeling (I only saw one small white tipped reef shark). I spent some time looking for Nemo and I found him, or at least one of his cousins.

Even friendlier than Nemo was Marvin the Marvelous Purple Wrasse who would let you pet his nose and followed us around looking for handouts. This gentle fish was about five feet long and had lots of personality. Jude was petting Marvin until she saw a four foot long barracuda with huge teeth and then decided she would keep a bit of distance between herself and extremely large fish.

We also toured around the area visiting the Barron falls shown below and also stopping at a local pub, filled with people and kids of all ages, that had a fundraiser BBQ for the Bushfire Victims. It was great sampling some of the local cuisine (BBQ bangers and fries), chatting with some of the locals and supporting a great cause.

For our last day in Port Douglas we went on a Rainforest Safaris that visited Cape Tribulation, Mossman Gorge, Cooper Creek and the Daintree river. One of the highlights was taking a small boat down the river in search of salt water crocodiles, the most dangerous and largest crocs around. Here you can see Jude has her eyes peeled looking for anything staring back at her from the mangrove trees lining the river.
Although they are hard to find during the summer, we luckily came across a 3 meter female sunning herself on a log. Both our guide and I tried to get Jude to stick her arms in the water to see if we could get a better shot of the croc's teeth with it's mouth open but she wouldn't go for it.

Travelling down another tributary we came across the dominant male for that whole territory and he was about 4.5 meters long! It's really hard to get the scale of this thing from the picture but that is all one crocodile! Those scales sticking out of the water on the right are his tail and most of his bulky body is under the water so you can't see it. This thing was longer than a compact car!

We've noticed that a lot of things are different in Australia than Canada, even though there are lots of similarities as well. You don't see "Caution - Watch for Deer" signs in Australia you see watch for Kangaroo or Emu Signs.

The highways, roads and bridges get flooded so often that the trucks come equipped with snorkels so they can travel through even deep water to get across.

In Canada we might see ant hills, gopher mounds or mole hills but in Australia you get huge termite mounds.

There are lots of big bugs like this Golden Orb Spider that was about 8 inches high. They are harmless but Jude wouldn't even let me put it on her so I could get a better picture, imagine that!

All the critters seem a bit bigger and we have bats at the cottage that are about the size of a sparrow, well we came across these fruit bats flying around that have a 1 meter wingspan and look like Canada Geese flying around.

So now it's back to Sydney for the start of our Circumnavigation of Australia Cruise which should gives us lot's more adventures to write about.

Welcome to Sydney

G'Day mates! Crikey, me an the Sheila happy as Larry on an Aussie walkabout! No worries, I'll just crack a tinnie, throw some yabbies in a pot and have a bonzer time!

Yes, we have now arrived in Australia. Everyone we talked to was really friendly (and no they really don't talk like that, at least not all the time) and we got lots of good advice on how to have a great time in Sydney.

The first area we checked out was the Darling Harbour and we went to the Fish Market for lunch. Speaking of Yabbies, look at the size of this one!
We also took a harbour cruise which gave us great views of the Bridge, the Opera House and a number of very expensive houses and apartment buildings. Here is a picture of the Sydney Bridge which we must have crossed 10 times in the three days we were there.

So I dropped Jude off at the the harbour to buy the tickets for the cruise while I went to find a place to park. The roads are confusing, there are tunnels everywhere, they drive on the wrong side of the road and the car controls are all backwards! As soon as I dropped her off, with only about 20 minutes until the cruise left, I managed to get caught on the expressway, headed back across the bridge, to the other side of Sydney, through the toll tunnel, with no way to turn around! Putting my rather short list of Aussie swear words to good use, I only cut off about a dozen or so drivers, got blasted by horns but I managed somehow to get back, park the car and run onto the gangway before they pulled it up. And yes Rick, I kept within the speed limit-well kindof!

In Australia they put a big "L" on the back of cars that Learners are driving. I think some of those drivers thought I should have a big "L" on the back of my car for "Looser"!

Here is a picture of Darling Harbour at night, it is beautiful and it was worth it.

One day we checked out the Sydney aquarium which had interesting displays with penguins (I had no idea there are small penguins that live around the Sydney harbour), sharks, a great barrier reef display, otters and these things called Dugongs which are like Manatees but different. For the record, these are not fish pictures, Dugongs are mammals.

The last night in Sydney, we knew that Simply Red was playing at the Opera House but tickets had been sold out for months so we trucked down to the harbour to see if we could get in.

We went to the box office and were told that nothing was available but there was a lineup of people in case tickets came up. Scalping tickets is illegal in Australia and they seem much more serious about it so there is no one out front going "Who needs tickets?" like in North America. We were about 6 or 7 people back and some of them had been there for hours already so it looked pretty doubtful but about 20 minutes before the show they asked if we wanted to buy standing room tickets so we said sure why not! It was an awesome show and what better venue to see a performance in.

It was a great show and I manged to video some of the show (by the way Amanda, Jess and Ashley, " Simply Red" is an 80's band, not a fundraiser to stop Aids in Africa).

I tried to download a video clip but it kept crashing the internet at this resort so here is a pic instead.

We have now left Sydney and headed up to the Great Barrier Reef. Australia is truly a gem of a country and we are lovin' every minute here. Until next time, 'hooroo' or otherwise-see you later!