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!