Cruising 2

Water traffic

DARWIN, the top end of Australia. Far from anywhere, it took us 3 sea days plus to get here. The days at sea were fairly pleasant and we settled into a routine with some power walking, reading and trivia. Darwin was an arduous stop, being extremely hot and humid  and not a very accommodating town. The shore excursions were pretty long and expensive so our main chores that day were to do some laundry, catch up on the computer and a little shopping. The town has no close and convenient laundry and after scouring all the hostels to see if we could use theirs (no, only for guest), finally took a bus to the outskirts of town to the car wash, of all places. A small garage type building had 2 washers and 2 driers in it and we finally got the laundry done. Took about 3 hours for a normally 1 hour job. By the time we got the bus back to the shopping mall, most of the stores were closing, being open only  till 2 on Saturdays. We did manage to get a little time on the computer, but the free city WIFI was a bit slow, so no blogs got published or doing anything except check mail. The library, our best WIFI standby was also closed by now. ARRGGG. So back to the ship, extremely worn out and exhausted because of the heat. I think the forecast that day was for 91 degrees and 70% humidity, and it’s going to get worse here. But we’re leaving!

Then it was off toward Bali, another 2 days to get there but the weather was great and seas or oceans we sailed through were like glass. And onboard, we have become trivia champs, several times. We’ve hooked up with some nice people and we are cleaning up on the prizes! Some of it good stuff too. The crew members who administer the trivia refer to the prizes as crap.   All fun.

Wood carving

Next stop BALI. Bali is one of the many islands of Indonesia but it is different . Of course it’s very tropical, very warm & humid and overall looks to be the same as other third world countries. It is congested with traffic, although a bit more orderly than some places but the majority of traffic are scooters. Since we haven’t been here we did take a tour to get an idea of the place, but it wasn’t nearly long enough. We spent all the time in city environments and didn’t get to see the countrysides, the lush terraced rice fields or temples. Guess we will just have to do that when we come back for a longer stay. We did visit an artist community, thousands of paintings, all styles, sizes and done by people of all ages. Next was a wood carving community. Here were intricately carved pieces, all sizes, some massive and very detailed. Last stop was a silversmith community. The fine silversmithing was all done by women with basically pliers, solder and fine wire. They made beautiful pictures, bracelets, pendants and large silver pieces. There are a lot of these stores around but these were ones of the better quality. We would’ve like to have visited a Batik factory but it wasn’t on the schedule. But we caught a glimpse of life on Bali and feel it’s worth coming back. It is very inexpensive for food, services and shopping. One friend on the ship when to Kuta town for shopping and got a manicure and polish for $4.00. Her husband had his feet nibbled (little fish in a tank eat the dead skin away) and a massage for $15.00.  And you can bargain the prices down and get some really good deals. I was able to get 3 silver pieces for basically one price by the time we were done.

Bhuddist temple

Tomorrow we dock in Port Headland which is where we hope to publish this blog and the previous one that we didn’t get to in Darwin.  No one can really understand why 

Cruising

We’re now in our 5th day of a 16 day cruise.  Last Friday when we boarded in Sydney it turned to winter.  We had been having great weather then a cold cyclone from the south came through, dropping temps and buckets of rain. It snowed in the mountains and in Adelaide, not seen for a 100 years. We had to wait in line outside the terminal for about 45 minutes in cold temps and a howling wind.  When the doors to the terminal finally opened at 11:00 am check in went fairly quick as we were on the ship by about 12:15 and in the buffet by 12:20.  Nice hot soup made it all worth while.  We left Sydney right on time but for us land lubbers it was a little choppy for the first night.  

Overnight and a full day at sea finally put us in Brisbane.  Gail is making sure that we are walking a lot as I’m eating well though to keep up my strength.  We made it to Brisbane on Sunday morning.  We didn’t plan any organized tours but in Brisbane just went into the city for a look and some shopping, found some WIFI at the  library and checked email.  We also got the Boise State score.. GO BRONCOS!!

Next stop the Great Barrier Reef and the town of Airlie Beach.  We did have another day at sea prior to arriving here in Airlie Beach. Nothing planned here but walked into town, did our laundry, and again got online.  This is the first ship/cruise we’ve been on that has no guest laundry, so we’re being careful about what we wear. Some balconies look like a close line with lots of clothes hanging out. We’re getting the hang of doing our drawers in the sink.  

Airlie Beach is a beautiful little beach town about 1/2 way between Brisbane and Cairns and is the gateway to the Whitsundays. It is a laid back beach town, some shopping and tourist services. The esplanade along the shore is a nice park and also had 3 public sand bottom pools. You can sit on the grass there, dip in the pools, relax like at a park. Several towns in the warmer climates have these and it’s kind of neat. The ship was anchored out a ways and we were tendered in. Check out our tender instead of a ship tender!

After leaving Airlie, we will be on the sea for 3 solid days as we travel up the coast and around the corner to the next stop of Darwin. It is getting warmer and more humid and it will be very warm in Darwin. The second day at sea, we followed the coast line, sometimes very close to land or islands. We’re traveling through a passage in the barrier reef, inside close to land. The water is an incredible light blue and shallow. The terrain is different, very sandy without the tropical vegetation. We’ve seen lots of smoke from fires  but no one will be putting them out. When we “turned” the corner and headed west, we passed through the Torres strait. Islands are around us and Papua/New Guinea is not too far away, to the north. This area is very remote with only about 15,000 inhabitants and the only roads are dirt tracks.

Ship life routine consist of meals (of course), reading, trivia, more reading, laps around the deck. We’ve won a couple of good prizes playing trivia and I think we latched onto some good players. The food isn’t too bad either!

Someone left the gate open

This may be the last blog for a little while. While on the cruise of 16 days, we don’t know what our internet access will be, other than expensive on the ship. So we leave Sydney on Fri 12th, cruise for 16 days around the top end of Australia and end up in Perth on the western side. From there we have a motorhome rented for a month, to drive the west coast north of Perth and the southern peninsula. Where all we go will depend on the weather, as we are heading into the “wet” season. And the temperatures may become too much for us the farther north we go. Guess we will just see.

So continuing after Lightning Ridge, we drove and drove on the edge of the outback, through Dubbo and down to Katoomba. There are several mountain towns in the Blue mountains, west of Sydney. But it’s not like being in US mountains, these “forest” are mainly gum or eucalyptus trees. But the cliff views are sensational. We met up with some friends we made in the Cook Islands (5 years ago we crashed their wedding at the Rarotonga bungalows). They now live in Katoomba and have a new family. It was great just catching up with them. We also took a couple of hikes in the area, the best being the National Pass. This trail was built in 1908, chiseled out of the cliffs, steps made of natural stones, down, over, through numerous waterfalls and cut across the cliffs, halfway up from the floor. It was magnificent, sometimes scary with the edges and heights. And a workout climbing all the stairs back up.

After 5 days in Katoomba, we decided to make a road trip to Adelaide, South Australia. Pretty much drive drive drive, pass a road train, drive drive drive. Lots of agriculture, mostly bright, yellow canola growing, sheep, rolling hills. Then all of the sudden nothing. We hit the outback. As we were driving, I noticed there seemed to be a fence running all along the edge and I started thinking silly thoughts. Like maybe this is the gate to the outback. Sure enough, we came across a gate labeled Hells gate, could be the same thing. Then an actual sign to the outback! We couldn’t resist.  

Driving the back roads provides some amusing pictures and signs. In a small town along the Murray river we saw the Chookman and his indescribable house boat. And the road signs are interesting, even if we don’t know what they are talking about. Town names and street names are funny too. At one point, Bill got bored so he decided to see how fast the car could really go. He hit 154k, =96mph. Luckily, no kangaroos jumped out. Zoom, Zoom, little Hyundai.

Adelaide was the farthest west we drove and it seemed to be a large, pretty mellow town. Did some shopping in the city, drove along the coastal towns and beaches. At one beach, we stopped for a minute and happened to watch some boaters load their boats on the trailers. The tide was out and they had driven the car and trailer to the water, now they’re loading back up but no boat ramp. One guy lost his trailer on the beach, walked it down, winched the boat  up onto the trailer and guess what? The trailer front end goes up and it’s getting tougher to load the boat. It was pretty hilarious watching him. He did succeed, threw a rope around the hitch and drove off. I thought he was going to tow the trailer like that but he finally did hitch it up properly. Too funny.

Lightning Ridge

We’ve made it to the Blue Mountains west of Sydney in a roundabout way.  A few days ago we left Newcastle and had a little time to kill so we decided to make a little detour.  We spent 2 nights in Lightning Ridge.  This is one of the few spots in  Australia where they mine for Black Opals.  So we thought “why not?” and off we went.  

Once we got outside of Newcastle it didn’t take long for us to get into the bush. We went  through hot spots like Quirindi, Gunnedah, Narrabi and Wee Waa! Not quite to the outback but we were definitely in the bush! Our travels took us through a lot more farming areas.  In fact, we went right past the Australia Cotton Research Center.  It seems that cotton is grown a lot more here than I ever would have expected.  In addition to huge farm fields, we saw lots of Eucalyptus trees, Koala signs but, no real koalas.  We also saw quite a few emus and kangaroos.

Folo the colored doors

Lightning ridge is quite a quirky little town.  It’s built around a ridge that is mined for Black Opals.  Most opal have a bluishness to them, black opal have red flecks in them and are pretty rare. We took a tour of a worked out mine that was actually quite interesting.  At the deepest we were only about 30 feet below the surface.  Of course the gift shop at the end really got our (Gails) attention.  The owner did give us a volume discount. 

Most of the mining in the area is small privately owned and financed by rugged individuals.  They are a hearty lot. :)  They start by digging a shaft down about 30’ to where the soil and conditions are right for the formations of the opals then find a seam of potential ore and then they commence to digging tunnels along the seam.  Most of the digging is done with picks, shovels and a small jack hammer.  The digging is mostly through sandstone and clay so no real layers of hard rock.  Then they use a wheelbarrow to haul the ore back to the shaft where it’s dumped into a bucket on a rail that will take it to the surface and dump it into an old cement truck mixing tank where they will wash out the silt and dirt and hopefully left at the bottom is the rock with opal.  Nothin’ to it. Quite a lot of discarded cement mixers around too. Surprisingly there are only a few open pit mines. Lots of “tailings”, piles of whitish rock, are pretty much everywhere, mostly clay remains. You can go fossicking (digging around) on these piles in hopes you will find your own opal.

Hoist

This area is also on the border of Queensland and probably has a lot of wet weather come summer time. Farther north, it’s called the wet and so much rain falls that many roads are impassable. Most of the vehicles are high clearance, SUVs or a sort of a pickup with a small bed and in pretty rough shape. Most of the miners we saw looked like a typical miner, long beard, mish mash of clothes or overalls, dusty desert rat. Camps (or their homes) were the same cobbled together whatever could make a wall. Pretty funny actually.

Miners camp