Down Under 2022

 We are really liking these two day port stops on this voyage.  It gives a chance to see the area at a little bit more of a reduced pace without the pressure of making an on board time of 4:30 or 5:00pm after having only arrived at 8:00am.  Because our next destination of Kangaroo Island is just a short distance away, our onboard time was 10:30pm.  But we were onboard well before that. Our tour was with Taste the Barossa and it was a 10 hour day from pickup time at 9am until drop off at around 6:30pm.  JR was our guide and he was full of all sorts of information, trivia, humor, and life vignettes.  The 20 passenger van was comfortable with good air conditioning and an audio system that worked. In summary, our tour was a brief city of Adelaide tour, a stop at Mt. Lofty, a drop off in Hahndorf, two wine tastings in the McLaren Vale (Shingleback and Chapel Hill) and a wrap up drive along the beach communities west of Adelaide including Glenelg and Semaphore. ...

 To the relief of many, the motion to the ocean reduced and then stopped overnight as we entered the calm waters leading to the Port of Adelaide.  Since we weren't scheduled to arrive at Adelaide until 2pm, there was a full slate of morning activities.   We started with Chris' coffee chat which this morning was with himself.  It was interesting and he also entertained questions about the upcoming ports of call.  He's been narrating short port descriptions which are viewable on our stateroom televisions.  Afterwards, Dr. Woodman gave a fairly interesting presentation on cultural do's and dont's.  We caught a quick lunch and then positioned ourselves in the Crow's Nest to watch the sail in.   The sail in was interesting in that it's a pretty narrow approach with a slight left or port side turn.  The bridge team then sailed the Westerdam to the end of the harbor near some container cranes and pivoted the ship clockwise in the docking area and sa...

 It was definitely rocking and rolling overnight.  We woke up to the Seattle Seahawks football game against the LV Raiders.  The Lido was really crowded for breakfast and while I was eating an elderly gentleman fell during one of the rolling motions.  He was quickly assisted by crew and appeared to be okay.  I missed the coffee chat with Dr. Woodman, but Angela said it was good. We did attend her lecture on the differences between spoken and written language and it was pretty good, but seemed a bit elementary to me. During lunch the Captain told us that the rough seas would continue although they were projected to improve for the most part.  The Covid numbers were up today to 20 passengers and 3 crew in isolation.  It was super crowded in the Lido and help was scarce. The highlight of the afternoon was the Ask The Captain session.  This the third one for this voyage and it was every bit as good as the prior ones.  When one passenger complaine...

 It was a short night, but we were ready to be picked up at 8:15am by Virginia to be taken to her church in the Kingston area.  The church (Summerleas)  meets in a rented school gymnasium and there were several hundred in attendance and it was good to see an average age in the 30's.  After church, we went to a second sister's house (Kate) where we joined the families of Virginia and Kate in an Aussie barbecue that did not disappoint.  We had lots of great conversation and Kate's oldest daughter, age 7, instructed Angela and I in a craft project.  Mine is now hanging on our stateroom door.  She was very precise in her instruction and knew exactly how the art work was to be constructed.  It was a super cute activity.  We had a lot of sharing and conversation as these sisters along with their other two sisters and mother and dad are like family to us. We hosted another sister as an exchange student over 20 years ago and we come back to Tasmania ...

 Overnight out of Eden, the seas were flat and we arrived before 7 in the bay off of Port Arthur where we tendered ashore to relatively new dock facilities.  Port Arthur is a former penal colony from the 1800's that after closing was ravaged by vandals and fires and two bush fires in 1895 and 1897 leaving only the exterior brick walls on many of the buildings.  Attempts were made to transform the property in the early 1900's into resorts and hotels and the like, but those were unsuccessful.  They became property of the government and conservation efforts began.  They attempt to tell the story of what happened here.  It's not pretty and it's not sugar coated.  Church Spires Big Burned out church Main Penitentery Building which was gutted by fire Guard towers We visited here some 20 years ago on our first trip to Tasmania and many of the structures seem the same to me, but they've increased the conservation and curation efforts with lots of signage speci...

 Overnight the seas have been very calm.  Almost too calm.  This morning i missed the coffee chat as I got engaged with a lovely conversation over breakfast with 2 Aussie couples.  It was a good chat.  Afterwards, I watched the shore excursion presentation by Alex, the shore excursion manager.  For the leg of our journey, we are reserving port time in Hobart and Melbourne for visits with long time friends.  For Adelaide, we have a wine tasting tour and at Kangaroo Island, we'll find something at the port as it can be problematic to reach this port due to weather. After the shore excursion talk, we spent the remainder of the morning up in the Crow's Nest looking at a very flat seat ahead of us.  I also did some research about Kangaroo Island and what we might do there.  Following a quick lunch with Rick and Abby, I hosted the Cruise Critic Meet & Greet in the Billboard Onboard area.  We were joined by Chris, our Cruise & Travel Di...

 Overnight there was a bit of turbulence but nothing like the previous two nights between Auckland and Sydney.  The port of Eden is really a small fishing village currently with one dock large enough for our sized ship and a second under construction.  Across the bay is a commercial port for what looks like bulk liquid cargo of some type.  The approach into the docking position is very narrow, and the bow of the ship seems like it's about to touch the land at the end of the bay.  The actual town center is located about a mile up the hill and the port provided shuttle buses up there. As soon as we were cleared, we disembarked the ship.  Our keycards wouldn't work again, so we were instructed to replace them when we return to the ship in the afternoon.  On the way off the pier I chatted with Captain Wouter and asked him if the bridge staffing condition during the adverse weather crossing was a code "Red" or highest level of staffing including himself. ...

 Overnight the rough seas continued until around 3am.  It then calmed down.  As the ship approached the Sydney harbor it had to do a 360º turn to accommodate boarding the pilot.  We ate breakfast as we sailed into the harbor and I took some pictures from Deck 9 forward.  We were secured to the dock by around 10am.  And then the waiting started.  It was nearly 45 minutes for the independent travelers to be released to go ashore.   We had to change rooms on this segment and I worked it out with our stateroom attendant, Komang,  that we could just move our sodas and some miscellaneous items to the new stateroom just 20' away.  Angela ended up leaving her backpack and I wish I had left mine but we were specifically instructed to bring all of our luggage to the Australian Border Force checkpoint.  We had packed and set out our two large duffel bags the night before and I had all of my meds, computers, and cameras in my backpack and decid...