Month: December 2023

Sailing around Australia part two

After leaving Darwin we experienced a Kimberley Coastal cruise as we made our way to Kuri Bay.

A coastline mile after mile (kilometre after kilometre doesn’t have the same ring) of un-spoilt and untouched coastline.

I doubt that there is much change since William Dampier visited the area in 1688.

Just above the K in Kimberley you can see Kuri Bay where we anchored for some hours.
This bay is only accessible by ship or seaplane, it is the location of Australia’s first south sea pearl farm, which began in 1956 after the West Australian Government repealed the Pearling Act that prohibited the production, sale and possession of cultured pearls.
The nearest town is Derby, which is 223 km (139 miles) south west, not that the distance matters as there isn’t a road or track.

As for going ashore this was only allowed if you were part of a shore excursion.
Going ashore was by tender shuttle and you were warned that this area is one of the hottest areas in Australia.
If you had booked to go ashore you were expected to be fit enough to walk for an hour and a half and be able to climb an unmade pathway. In addition, you had to take your own water and you were warned that there weren’t any toilet facilities.
If you didn’t have the energy to visit the pearl farm yo could take a seaplane trip in one of the pearl farm company’s Mallard aircraft built in 1947.

  The aircraft held a maximum of ten passengers and two pilots – the aircraft was busy all day, and landing was never dull for the plane spotters on the ship.
The pearl farm is owned by a company called Paspaley Pearl which has a string of pearl farms across the north of Australia, the head office is in Broome.

I found it a lot easier to climb a bar stool than pearl farm hill.

I might not have captured a sunrise but as we sailed from Kuri Bay, I took this sunset from our cabin.

and a little later.

Princess often has specialist speakers, and most are very good and interesting. Maureen and I listened to one speaker chatting about Kuri Bay, – he was interesting and had plenty of slides to illustrate his talk. He did warn people who had booked to visit the pearl farm to be very careful during the walk to & from the pearl farm because most accidents happened as people walked down the hill not up the hill.
Plus don’t leave the path due to snakes and unfriendly insects. As I listened the speaker confirmed my choice not to go ashore . . .

The staff who work at the pearl farm are flown in and out I think every three months.
The technical staff who deal with the oysters and implant the seed are highly trained Japanese. The pearl is the only gem made by a living creature.

As the afternoon drew to a close, I couldn’t stop clicking the camera.
The whole area was wild and untamed – civilization was our next stop – Broome.

A Happy and safe 2024 to all who follow and read my blog – thank you.

31st October

Coral Princess being owned by an American company, the staff followed American culture particularly for the 31st of October.
It must be me, but I find it a little odd to celebrate the dead. I know it is usually a ‘fun time’ but I still think it odd.

Various areas of the ship were decorated to celebrate the dead and the staff embraced the idea.

The above bar was the Crooners Bar – a favourite of ours for pre-dinner drinks.

At least the spider wasn’t a red back

which is a highly venomous spider that originated in S. Australia.  Whenever I see a red back, it is DEAD in a very short time!

It didn’t matter which bar we visited it was horror night. The above is the Wheelhouse Bar for a night cap after the show.

Crooner’s Bar with little green skeleton man.

The idea of celebrating the dead has been imported to Australia and appears to be a sweet begging process for children.
When I was young I was not encouraged to knock on the door of strangers. That was considered very impolite.

The 31st October during my childhood was Duck Apple Night.

Duck apple

The origin of the game has a number of answers some say it is to do with finding a mate for life, depending on how successful you are with the apples.

I’ve also read that it is to celebrate the end of gathering the harvest and the start of winter.
Whatever the reason, it was always good fun – I suppose health and safety today would ban such unhealthy games of various faces using the same water and attempting to bite in to a common apple.  c’est la vie . . .

To be fair to the American readers the British have a celebration connected with death, but on the 5th November, not the 31st October.
This is when British children create a large bonfire and place the effigy of a man at the top and set fire to the bonfire. The children stand around and watch fire consume the effigy.

Guy Fawkes – the one on the left.

Once again all to do with history, when in 1605 an attempt was made to blow up the Houses of Parliament when the King (James the 1st of England who was also James the 6th of Scotland), and his ministers were inside the building.
The plot failed and the main conspirator, Guy Fawkes, was captured on the 5th November and interrogated until he gave the names of the other plotters.

Later in January 1606 a Bill went through Parliament requiring church ministers to hold a special service of thanksgiving for the failure of the plot annually on 5 November.  This bill remained on the Statute books until 1859.

In 1790 it was reported that children were begging money for the ‘Guy Faux’, and when I was a child it was common for children to ask for a penny for the guy – they would have a dummy that they had created which was destined for the top of a bonfire and the money would buy fireworks – the fireworks represented the gunpowder below the Houses of Parliament.

Penny for the Guy ?
Those who were caught with Guy Fawkes were sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered so parts of their bodies could be sent to different areas of the land as a warning.

Guy Fawkes avoided the hangman by jumping off the hangman’s scaffold which cause him to break his neck- but his body was still drawn & quartered.

Children in 1954, they have a guy and need help with the bonfire.

When I was a child the street in which I lived was nowhere near any open space, so we built our bonfire in the street – we knew where to build it because the scar from last year was still visible.
We could rely on the adults to help because creating the bonfire helped them get rid of old broken furniture and anything else that would burn.

Children at the time couldn’t understand why Bonfire Night was not a holiday . .

“Remember, remember the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and plot; for there is a reason why gunpowder and treason should ne’er be forgot.”

A look around Darwin

Unlike Brisbane, Darwin City paid for the coaches from the ship to the tourist office in the city centre. The transport ran all day to and from the ship.

Maureen and I asked in the tourist office how to get to the Cyclone Tracy Museum. We were told that we could go by bus and the bus terminal was around the corner and it would leave in thirty minutes. Perfect for us as we wanted to buy a few things from the local shops.

The shopping area was quiet, but pleasant.

We soon found our way to the bus depot and looked around for a seat near the bus stop that we wanted – number 6. The stop that we wanted was not in the shelters shown above but in an unsheltered area, and it was hot.
As we looked around an elderly Aboriginal lady called to Maureen to sit next to her on a park bench seat that was shaded a little by bushes. So, we took the lady’s advice and joined her.
Maureen and the lady chatted about our visits to Darwin and Maureen confirmed that we were from Sydney and she asked if the lady managed to visit Sydney occasionally.
The lady answered -‘Yes Dear, I managed a visit at least once a year when I exhibit my work.’
It turned out that this lady was a famous artist.
As the bus pulled in the lady said to Maureen just wave your pension card and it’ll be free.
We asked if the ride was free even for none locals – follow me said the lady, so we did and as our artist friend boarded and waved her card at the driver we followed suite, as did a group of passengers off the Coral Princess cruise ship who had overheard our conversation with our artistic friend.

     Darwin Museum & Art Gallery 

Free to go in and visit – fully air-conditioned, with a cafe and a small shop. It is located about a ten-minute bus ride from the city centre and the bus stopped right outside the main door of the museum.

Termite mounds – the termites live off dry grass and the food is stored within the mounds where they have created storage area, living areas and tunnels. As the termite numbers grow so they expand the mound and have been known to be over seven meters tall (twenty-three feet).
I took the photograph and it towered over me.

Giant sponge

Found at a depth of 40 mtrs (130 feet) in the 1990’s and is considered to be about a hundred years old.

The museum is full of interesting sea and plant life, but I have to mention

A large male crocodile called Sweetheart.

I think this picture gives a better idea of how big the crocodile was when it was capture in 1979, but during the capturing procedure the crocodile drowned.
It was renowned for attacking fishing boats and the authorities were concerned that someone would be killed or seriously injured during an attack.
It is thought that the sound of the motor boat may have sounded like another male crocodile.
Sweetheart is 5.1 mtrs long (17 feet) and weighed 780 kgs (1720 pounds) and he lived in Sweet’s Lagoon, which is a long the Finneiss River and was known locally as Sweetheart.
It is thought that at the time of death Sweetheart was about fifty years old.

Below is an unusual pierce of art.

The above is the front of a ‘straw’ car/vehicle – it also had a straw driver.

The rear of the ‘car’

It looked like it had been made of straw/ vegetation, I tried to find more derails on-line but failed. I should have photographed the information details that were in front of the ‘car’.

After we had finished our time in the museum I asked at receptionist for the time of the next bus to the city centre.
It was fifty minutes which was too long to wait, plus we would have to wait at the tourist office for the shuttle bus to the ship.
I asked if she could arrange a taxi to the ship – it’ll be here in a minute I was told, which I took as a perhaps ten-minute wait. I thanked the receptionist and indicated to Maureen to take a seat, at which point a taxi arrived and honked. I do love good service.

During the trip back to the ship we chatted with the driver – at first, I thought he was Aboriginal until he spoke, and I asked where about in India did, he call home. He was from Bombay (Mumbai today).
He and his family had been in Darwin for some years, and he loved the place and earned enough to take his family back to India for holidays and he had also taken them to the UK.

His English was excellent, and he didn’t have any desire to leave Australia unless it was for a holiday.
He dropped us off close to the gangway of our cruise ship for the grand sum of $20 – overall a perfect day out.

Sail around Australia part one

Coral Princess – launched in 2002, maximum passenger number 1970, crew of 900 – maiden voyage January 2003. She and her sister ship Island Princess are the two smallest vessels in the Princess fleet. It is thought that the Coral & Island were kept by Princess because they were the only vessels small enough to pass through the Panama Canal.
Since 2016 when the new expansion of the canal was initiated the canal can now handle larger vessels.
I have heard that Coral Princess will be transferred to P & O Australia in a year or two.

Maureen & I had a balcony which we had booked a year in advance – I tried for a mini-suit but they had all been sold. The balcony cabin was fine except for the size of the shower – it worked well but I had to turn around to soap certain parts if I did not wish to turn the water off. It was challenging to keep the plastic shower curtain inside the shower base.

The view from our balcony – couldn’t complain.

Attending muster stations is no longer required – it is all on the TV – watch it on TV and then report to your muster station to be checked. The act of watching on TV I think registers on the system and on visiting the muster station your cabin key which is a Medallion     is scanned. The Medallion system worked very well. I have explained how the system works in earlier post, but will be happy to go into detail if asked.

Our cabin was on the starboard side and as we would be sailing north along the east coast of Australia, I would be able to photograph the sunrise from our balcony.

The best laid plans etc  . .

At least later in the day it was pleasant enough to sit outside.

Brisbane – the Coral Princess was one of the Company’s smallest vessels, yet it is still too large to pass under the bridge that crosses the Brisbane River. 
Brisbane’s cruise terminal is one of the most unattractive of all the cruise ports that I have experienced.
From our balcony we could see Brisbane airport and the various aircraft taking off and landing. There is a rail system from the airport into the city but there isn’t any public transport between the cruise terminal and the airport for passengers to use the rail system.
Princess arranged coaches from the cruise terminal to the city which takes about forty minutes at a cost of $40 per person round trip.
The first departure was 8.30 am and that group of people would be expected to reboard the coach for the return trip around 1.00 pm .
It was not a satisfactory arrangement, and the weather was not all that friendly with the promise of rain so Maureen and I decided to stay on board the ship.
This was our second visit to Brisbane via a cruise ship and we have yet to visit the city Centre.
The terminal cost $177 million dollars and was opened in 2020. To me it would be ideal for a fast river ‘cat’ to operate a service to/from the cruise terminal to encourage passengers to visit Brisbane city and spend money. We were not the only passengers who decided not to visit Brisbane because it was ‘all too hard’.

Our next port of call, which is stretching things a little, because it was an island, and the passengers were not allowed a shore.
We cruised off Willis Island and listened to a lecture about the island which is a weather station located 450 km (280 miles) off the coast of Australia.   I am writing this on the 16th December and a few days ago the island staff were evacuated due to tropical cyclone Jasper. Click below for the short film.

Evacuation

Finely managed to photograph the sunrise as we steamed towards Cairns.

On arrival in Cairns, we moored alongside at the passenger terminal which is only a short walk to the shopping area.
Larger vessel in the fleet would anchor off Yorkies Knob and the passengers would be tendered ashore and take buses to the city centre.

The dark building near the ship is Hemingway’s a brewery –
we couldn’t knock the welcome to Cairns. 

I took the above to record the artistical feel of the wharf, the brewery was on my left and the ship cast a shadow behind me. 

Cairns is a pleasant town with buildings that remind one of yesteryear. The last time we visited Cairns was around 1990, and not a lot had changed – wide streets, slow traffic, friendly people and the streets were clean.

As we walked around the town I clicked away with my camera but for some reason only a few registered – the above two are from the internet.

A gentle reminder to us that Cairns was a working port and we had to wait our turn to sail.

                                           Atlantic Infinity – Registered in Majuro 
Majuro is the capital and largest city of the Marshall Islands, which is a coral atoll of sixty-four islands in the Pacific Ocean, one of them being Bikini Atoll of atomic bomb fame.
We sailed soon after for Darwin.
The morning that we arrived I took the above photo – thick fog perhaps – but it was condensation on the lens of my camera as I stood on our balcony for less than thirty seconds.

A dry cloth and we were back to normal.

Our plan for Darwin was to visit the Cyclone Tracy Museum where they had a soundproof room to experience the recorded sound as Cyclone Tracy ‘attacked’ Darwin.

The aftermath of Darwin after the cyclone – picture from National Museum of Australia.

The cyclone wiped out 80% of Darwin, with winds as high as 217 km/hour (135 mph), seventy-one people were killed during the 24th to 26th December 1974, a Christmas never to be forgotten. 

The howl of the wind in the blacked out soundproof room was frightening, what it must have been like for the locals in 1974 I cannot imagine.  

Twisted powerlines during the cyclone – picture from Territorial Generation

Part of the wind damaged power equipment in the museum – I took the above photograph in 2018.