Steve and Cathy's Blog

This is going to be a long day no matter what.  It is our only day in the largest city in Australia, capital of New South Wales and voted (according to Oceania Cruise Line) on one of the ten best cities in the world to live in.  That we will spend so little time here is the major shortcoming of this ATW cruise.  We call it a “Bump-and-Run Day” and the only consolation is that it

Tomorrow we dock in Sydney and we already anticipate a very busy day.  So today is catch-up day.  But first Steve has to say good-bye to Shobraj Bachar, or Sho, who has been his personal trainer for the past four months.  Sho must return to his home in Mumbai, India to get some kind of medical recertification that is a requirement for his job on Oceania.  This was unexpected, but unavoidable too.  So he is leaving

Well, we learn first thing that the weather did indeed slow down our ship, and we won’t arrive in Brisbane (pronounced Briz’ bin) until 9:30am.  Our excursion, Mt. Tamborine, Winery & Crafts, was to begin at 8:15, and the ship has to leave Brisbane at 5:30pm. There is no leeway on that departure time because Insignia is to sail 484 nautical miles to Sydney and is to be there, without fail, at 6:00am on May 9th. 

Well, during the night the sea began to kick up.  With the Great Barrier Reef to the east and the Australian mainland to our west, we figured on an easy ride.  But now the winds have shifted to the southeast at 30 knots and our heading is southeast at 17 knots.  So the waves are coming right at us and the ship is pitching. The sunrise is beautiful, though, and we have some interesting lectures to

After a 154-nautical-mile cruise during the night, we arrive at Townsville around 8:00am.  There is what appears to be a recently built cruise terminal whose dock must also serve as a container port, as there is an enormous crane right on the dock next to our ship.  We exit the ship right on time around 9:00am for our four-hour Townsville and Billabong Sanctuary excursion. Unfortunately, the PA system on the bus is on the fritz.  The

Now the very first thing that we learn about this city is how to properly pronounce the name. Peter Croyle said it best: “ It’s pronounced ‘Cans” as in “Cans of bee-ah.”  Given the worldwide relaxed reputation of the citizens of this great country, that is an apt explanation for sure. The reason we are in Cairns is pretty straightforward: we are here to visit the Great Barrier Reef.  Before we commence on that part of

The title for this post is misleading because, well, we never did make it into Cooktown.  We arrived on time around 11:00am and the ship was stopped outside the harbor.  This was a tender port, and the ship was to anchor out and we would take tenders into the town. We were up in Waves Grill having a quick lunch before our excursion, Historic Cooktown, which was to begin at 12:30pm.  All of a sudden, Cathy

The next two days are spent crossing the top of the continent/country of Australia.  The seas are fairly choppy, and there are even times when attending Peter Croyle’s lecture, which take place in Insignia Lounge in the bow of the ship, seems like a bad idea.  But that is always a gametime decision. And of course it is well that we do end up attending the one on May 1st as it is full of wonderful

We have crossed the Timor Sea and head into Darwin, Australia’s northernmost city of 146,000 residents, capital city of the Northern Territory, the population of which is only 244,000 people.  At 520,902 square miles, it is almost twice the size of Texas, which will give you an idea of how desolate the interior of Australia is. As we travel to the eight anticipated port calls in the immense country, we are sure to learn much more

We have now left Asia. We began this leg of the journey on March 1stin the Maldives, an island chain off of India, and we left Komodo Island, Indonesia on April 28th.  That is nearly two months where we made stops in twenty-four ports in twelve countries. What did we learn in that time?  Our answer: Where do we start?  Each of the countries and each of the cities in those countries had their own story