At Sea and Darwin

At Sea

On Wednesday, 3 December, Jesse awoke at 6:15 AM and downloaded the e-mail; then returned to bed and awoke again at 9:15 AM.  Very tired from the elephant ride and dancing the previous night, Sally slept until 10:15 and then dressed for our 10:45 appointment with Australian immigration.  Although we stood in a long line, the process went quickly, so that already by 11:15, we were sharing our breakfast table with Paul and Mary.  They had eaten breakfast earlier and only had tea.  Afterwards we returned to our cabin.  For the remainder of the afternoon, we wrote postcards and relaxed, even skipping lunch.

At dinner, we conversed with Robert and Cheryl from Auckland, on their fourth cruise.  A little later, we were joined at the table on the other side by Sue and Sharon from Sydney, but we mostly chatted with Robert and Cheryl.  Because dinner was a little slow, we didn’t join Paul and Mary in the Wheelhouse Bar until 9:00 PM.  After the Soul Wave went on break at 9:30 PM, we went to the Neptune Pool on Deck 14 for the scheduled Ultimate Deck Party; however, due to rain, it had been moved to Club Fusion.  Anyway, we decided to just return to our cabin, where we set our clocks forward one-half hour before retiring for the night.

2nd Day At Sea

On Thursday, 4 December, Jesse awoke early and downloaded the e-mail, then slept until 9:15 AM.  After breakfast, we returned to our cabin where we finished addressing postcards, and then went for a swim.  In the pool, we conversed with a man from Australia who spends five months of every year in the USA, traveling around the country in an RV that he stores in Black Hills area of South Dakota.  Next summer, he plans to spend time in Iowa and Missouri.

Although we were not really hungry (we seldom have been!), we enjoyed a light lunch at 2:30 PM.  Several passengers had seen dolphins and flying fish from their balconies.  Although we looked, we find that neither of us can stare at the ocean longer than about 45 seconds at a time; therefore, we haven’t seen anything but an endless sea of water.

At dinner, we sat first next to a couple from Southampton, England (a seaport close to London), where the Princess ships dock.  Since they were finishing dinner when we arrived, we didn’t get their names.  Then, a couple from Adelaide sat on the other side of us.  It turned out that they are also dancers and had seen us on the dance floor.  Although we thought they looked familiar, we’ve met so many people that the names and faces are blending together.  Their names are Bevin and Beverly, or Bev and Bev, or “B & B” as they are known by friends in Adelaide.

After dinner, we went to the Wheelhouse Bar for dancing.  Paul was there for a little while, but Mary had developed a cold and decided to stay in their cabin.  Paul was only there for a few minutes; then Peggy and Dick, whom we had met previously, joined us and we talked with them for a little while after the Soul Wave stopped playing.  They have children, but no grandkids and are celebrating their 44th anniversary on this cruise.  Since Peggy looks so young and is so energetic, we were amazed that she is in her sixties!

We returned to our cabin about 10:30 PM and did a little preparation for Friday’s excursion before retiring for the night.

Darwin

On Friday, 5 December, we awoke to our alarm clock at 6:30 AM, went to breakfast, and met in the Wheelhouse Bar for our excursion at 8:50 AM.  While waiting for our turn to disembark, we conversed with a woman named Connie.  She is a retired Northwest Airlines flight attendant who lived in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area for many years, but now winters near Sedona, Arizona, and spends summers in her cabin in northern Minnesota.  Although she started the cruise with a friend, her friend’s husband (still in the USA) became very ill; therefore, her friend cut her cruise short in Perth and returned to the USA.  (Her friend later called her to say that her husband had passed away.)

During our 1.5 hour ride, our tour guide, Trish, gave us a brief history of the area while riding through the city of Darwin and south on the Arnhem highway to the vast wetlands near the mouth of the Adelaide River.  Darwin, closer to Indonesia than to any other Australian city, was bombed during World War II by the Japanese.  There were fortifications and an airfield here, with the remains of a runway running parallel to the road we were traveling.  The city was rebuilt, only to be leveled again in a terrible cyclone in the 1970’s.  During the cyclone, Trish hung tightly onto the toilet, the sturdiest part of the house.  Although people had been ordered to evacuate to the south, she and her family did not; they didn’t want to be dependent on strangers. 

Trish refers to herself as a “bush girl” and shared many stories of her life in the bush and in Darwin, including being taught “outback” survival skills by her grandmother.  She has written books on this subject, such as the use of shredded bark of one tree for medical remedies. On one occasion, she flew on a plane to Adelaide, but said she would never fly again because she was terrified to be so far above the ground.  Also, she had worn a mini shirt and a loose blouse, and had nearly frozen to death.  Although when she was young, she had the idea of marrying a man from the south (partly to be sure that he wouldn’t be a relative), she later realized that she could not live in the “cold.”  She spoke of relaxing after work, drinking gin in front of her fan before sitting in a big tub of water in the yard.  Trish, part Aborigine on her mother’s side and Maltese on her father’s side, uses a unique version of English.  Some of her phrases include “flogging with a frozen catfish [or kangaroo tail];” and she described an expensive hotel that charges like a “winded bull” ($1500/week for a suite in Darwin).

When we reached the river, we boarded a riverboat for our hour-long riverboat cruise down the mighty Adelaide for the highlight of our trip – viewing the river's famous jumping crocodiles.  These fascinating cold-blooded reptiles that were believed to be facing extinction 30 years ago, now number more than 80,000 in the waterways of Northern Territory.



Jumping Crocodile Cruise

Jumping Crocodile

The boat’s crew wrapped pieces of raw meat (it looked like slabs of short ribs) with string and attached them to the ends of bamboo poles.  When a crocodile would surface near the riverboat, we watched as boat personnel dangled the meat over the heads of crocodiles, first on one side of the boat and then on the other, to coax the crocodiles to jump into the air as they attempted to snatch the meat from the bamboo poles.  Although some of them became quickly discouraged, others continued their pursuit and were eventually rewarded with a light afternoon snack.   We were told that when one crocodile surfaced, there were at least 7 or 8 others swimming beneath them in the water, unseen by the human eye; however, crocodiles have very keen eyesight and were watching us from beneath the surface.  These “crocs” are very intelligent and know the sound of our boat (where they obtain free food) as opposed to other boats.  They are especially attracted to bright colors as they scan the riverboat’s juicy “people menu.”  (Actually, a few people had met their end recently in this area, including one man who had been drinking too much alcohol and one fisherman “who should have been more careful.”)

Later during the riverboat cruise, we watched the boat’s crew toss small pieces of raw meat into the air and large birds swoop gracefully down from the sky to catch the meat in midair.  It seemed amazing that none of the birds collided in flight.  At one point, a whistling koite, the second largest bird of prey in Australia, was sitting in a tree by the river.

After the riverboat cruise, we stopped at the “Window on the Wetlands” museum and information center, with displays and sound recordings of the area’s wildlife.  On our return trip to the ship, Trish continued with her stories about life in Darwin.  We rode through an area of the most poisonous snakes in Australia.  Trish had been bitten by one many years earlier.  She called for her kids to bring a shovel, and she managed to kill the snake so it could be taken with her to the hospital so that they could identify the snake for certain.  At the hospital, she was told that if this was not the snake that had bitten her, the antidote probably would kill her.  Of course, she had survived!

It was about 2:00 PM when we re-boarded the ship.  After a light lunch and short swim, we returned to our cabin for a little rest – which turned into a two-hour nap for Sally.  When we finally made it to the Savoy Dining room for dinner, it was 7:30.  There, we joined Graham and Barbara from Adelaide.  This is their 22nd cruise, at least one of which was a world cruise.  After dinner, we went to the Wheelhouse Bar for dancing, where we met Paul.  Mary had not come, and Paul explained that she had fallen in the bathroom during the night and hit her head.  Although the ship’s doctor did not find a concussion, Mary has a big bump on her forehead.  Also, Mary is still suffering from her cold.  They left their cabin for lunch, but on their way back to their cabin, Mary had collapsed in the hallway before Paul could catch her.  The ship’s doctor put her on a restricted diet – no diuretics.  After a few dances, we returned to our cabin and set our clock and watches ahead by 30 minutes before retiring for the night.