Goodbye, Australia!

After leaving Adelaide, we had three sea days crossing what is known as the Australian Bight.  Don’t know why it’s spelled the way it is, as it refers to what looks to be a “bite” taken out of the southwestern coastline.  It is infamous for having rough seas, and it lived up to its reputation in fine form.  It was AWFUL!  Burr handled it OK, but I was a mess.  SeaBands on the wrists, Dramamine as often as allowed, and a full day in bed in the dark.  Not a fan of the Bight at all.  The next day, we inquired about a cabin relocation.  Our original cabin was very near the front, thereby getting the brunt of the ships’ motion.  We moved more midship and it has made all the difference in the world!  

We really enjoy sea days.  Sleeping in, reading, relaxing in the sunshine, and - of course - playing trivia!  We made a team with Anne and Andrew, a Scottish couple who now live in New Zealand and a northern Californian couple.  Our name is “The Winners” and it was not prophetic as we are holding down the middle, but we’re having a great time.  

Life aboard this ship is very different than that on a very large cruise ship as we are used to.  For instance, there is a casino that I have yet to see a person in, although it is always open while we’re moving.  The cruise director - David - and his two assistants - Heather and Sophie - are also entertainers.  The staff to passenger ratio is almost 1-1, so the level of service is amazing.  One thing that has really impressed us is that all the staff learned everyone’s names within the first couple of days!  All drinks are included, and they serve a wonderful wine selection - both blessing and curse as you can imagine.  They can’t stand the idea of any of us being without a glass of wine!  The only thing we have found disappointing is the attitude of some of the guests.  There are some real jerks onboard with us.  Very arrogant and demanding and entitled.  Maybe they are always there, we just don’t notice them as much with 2500 people as opposed to 380. There is certainly nothing anyone needs to be complaining about - this is marvelous!

The best thing that has happened to us, is that the first night at dinner we were seated with Andrew Cook and Anne Jewett!  Such great friends we’ve become.  They’re within a few months of our age, live in Toronto, relatively recently retired accountants, two grown sons, and well traveled!  We’ve been having dinner and going to the shows with them every evening and spending some time together ashore, also.  The very best part of cruising is the new friends!!

We've been laughing like old friends since the first night!

So - once we made our way across the dreaded Bight, we “turned the corner” and headed up the western coastline.  The weather changed almost immediately, getting VERY hot, and the seas calmed down to almost nothing.

Our first stop - on February 22 - was Bunbury, where we took a river boat cruise and had a picnic lunch.  It was lovely!  Not too many people, a fun and hilarious captain talking to us along the way, perfect sunshiny day and a yummy picnic.

A Sea Eagle's nest

And the Sea Eagle returning home

After the boat adventure, we hiked up to a lookout point for a great view.

Bunbury as we sailed away

From Bunbury, we sailed to Fremantle where we spent two days.  That is another thing we like about this trip - at the major ports of call, we spend a night anchored there so we can really explore the area.  Perth is the major city near the port of Fremantle, and it turns out Andrew had lived and worked there for part of a year some 25 years ago.  They had rented a car to go explore down his memory lane and invited us to tag along.  What a wonderful day we had!

King’s Park is right in the middle of the city and it enormous!  

War Memorial near the park entrance

With Anne and Andrew overlooking Perth

Elevated walkway through the park

Next stop - Yanchep National Park, just about an hour’s drive north from Perth, with pretty views all along the way.

And Koalas in the trees!

It's the dry season and this boat dock is a long way from any water in this lake.

And Anne found a geocache!

We stopped on the way back to put our toes in the Indian Ocean - it was quite warm! 

Anne and I had a great walk down the beach

 The next day we wandered around Fremantle and - at Shirley's recommendation - had lunch at Joe's Fish Shack.  It was great!

Fremantle as we sailed away

The 25th was spent in Geraldton.  A small town whose unfortunate claim to fame is that it is the site of the worst naval disaster in Australia’s history.  HMAS Sydney was sunk off the coast near Geraldton by the Germans and all 645 men were lost.  They have a wonderful memorial up on a hill that was beautifully and movingly done.  There were volunteer guides on hand who take you around individually and tell you the story.  It was excellent.

Our guide, Terry

645 Seagulls

Symbolizing the bow of the ship and "the waiting woman"

Check out the flowers in this front yard!

Except for the man who joined our group - uninvited - noticed we were Americans and felt compelled to tell us he was in New York City recently and went to the 9-11 memorial and thought it was “just too morbid”.  That’s really how you want to introduce yourself to a couple of Americans - by dissing our memorial to our most recent tragedy!  Of course it’s “morbid”, you idiot - it wasn’t exactly a real cheery time!!

Anyway - back to our story.

Wednesday, the 26th, was a sea day.

This is our waitress, Nina, who has been taking extremely good care of us.

The 27th was our last stop in Australia was along the Ningaloo coast at Exmouth.  This is a tiny town of less than 2000 that is a winter getaway for people in Perth.  So while we’re here in summer (remember we’re on the other side of the world here) the place was deserted.  We took a bus to the other side of the little peninsula to Turquoise Bay for some snorkeling. It was fun and refreshing to be in the water seeing as it was over 100 degrees all day, but there wasn’t a lot to see other than pretty coral.  The water was amazingly warm - felt like Rhonda’s pool.

Two days at sea now, as we head to Bali!  Happy Birthday to Stephanie on the 23rd, Darren on the 28th and Carl Burris on March 1!