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Published: February 19th 2010
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We cruised into Sydney Harbor on a beautiful Saturday morning (Feb. 6th) … oh, wait a minute … it’s pouring down rain once again. Many on board our ship claim that Sydney is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, especially by cruise ship. Two years in a row, we’ve hit the gray rainy weather so I can’t make that judgment yet. Even in the rain, you can tell it is a clean and beautiful city, but I’m still not quite sure that I like it better than Seattle, San Francisco and Vancouver, B.C. We did have a fabulous view of the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera House and a fun visit, even in the rain. The Aussie people are really friendly and tons of fun so it is a really great place to visit. We toured several glass art galleries, had an overview tour of the city, went to one of the local markets, ate lots of great seafood, shopped, walked and walked some more and then after two fun days it was time to move on. We sailed off at 10PM so had a beautiful night view of the city, complete with a break in the
rain.
After a day at sea, we arrived in the city of Brisbane on Feb 9th, the capital of the Australian state of Queensland and home of the Australia Zoo and Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter! He is still quite visible at the zoo and in fact introduces the show (via video) at the Crocoseum, complete with elephants, exotic birds, crocodiles, and EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKK … snakes. Several zoo employees walked around draped in snakes (boas and pythons) standing right in front of us. Those of you who know me well know how much I loved that (NOT)! I had to hide my head and Bruce waved them away, after taking photos of course! Stressful, but I survived.
After another two days at sea, we arrived on a beautiful sunny morning (Feb 12th) in the city of Cairns on the northern coast of Queensland, an access point to the Great Barrier Reef. We did not take the all day excursion to the reef because the forecast was for thunderstorms. In fact it turned out to be a beautiful day (although quite hot and humid) and those few who didn’t cancel their reef trip did have a fabulous day. Next time!
Instead, we rode the Sky Rail over the canopy of the rain forest to the charming village of Kuranda, a really nice tour. We just happened to get the same gondola (#64) that the Queen of England recently rode in, so I now believe that I must have royal blood, or at least that was the excuse I used for convincing Bruce I should have an opal ring! He actually fell for it!
Our plan was to leave Cairns and sail to Thursday Island off the northern shore of Australia but we encountered a problem with one of the ship engines (a generator I believe) that forced us to slow down while the engineers worked to fix it … and that they did. The Captain decided to skip Thursday Island to make up the time and on we cruised towards Darwin, so another 3 days at sea.
On Valentine’s Day the Captain was kind enough to arrange a tour for Bruce with our Chief Engineer, who gave him a grand tour of the bowels of the ship, really interesting for him! The evening turned out to be one of our most fun times on the ship. We had
a fabulous Valentine’s Day dinner with friends and then all closed down the Observation Lounge with our Captain, Chief Engineer, other crew members and more friends, and our favorite entertainer on the ship, Jerry Vasi from Italy. At the end of the night when we returned to our suite, our “very very nice” cabin attendant had created two swans out of towels, place them nose to nose kissing, and placed between them my beautiful crystal evening bag (shaped like a colorful tropical fish) that Bruce got Valentine’s Day … a really sweet gesture to end a perfect day!
As it turns out, our Chief Engineer while from Norway now lives in the Dallas area not all that far from us. For those of you from Dallas he lives on Lake Lewisville and his wife is one of the managers at Nordstrom in Frisco! He is a real character and we’ll try and get them up to Lake Texoma one day when schedules permit.
Our last stop in Australia was Darwin, the capital city of Australia’s Northern Territory and home to about 120,000 residents, the largest in NT, and well known for its spectacular lightening shows. It’s a tropical
Eeeeeek
Its A Big Snake! climate and quite hot and humid but we hit a pretty good day, hot and humid but not much rain. We went on a harbor cruise and then just looked around the town and then waved goodbye to Australia as we sailed off into the sunset towards Indonesia! Next stop …. Komodo, home of the vicious dragons!
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Carol
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Looks like you are having a fabulous trip. Thanks for sharing.