2019 – Crossing the Pacific and Australia

When asked by people why you are doing a trip it feels a little strange to say, “because my cat passed away.” But to some degree it is accurate. If our last cat, Maggie, hadn’t died in February we’d have never dreamed of going on a 26-day cruise across the Pacific Ocean and spending another 2-weeks touring Australia. Realizing that inevitably we were going to fill the void left by Maggie, we decided we should squeeze in any extended foreign travel trips that had been percolating in our minds before the next “fur baby” became part of our family.

On our regular summer cruises to Alaska aboard Alpenglow, we see cruise ships all the time. They, like us, are migratory. In summers they go back and forth from Vancouver or Seattle to SE Alaska, just like us. But we weren’t sure where they went once the short days, rains and winds of autumn returned. This was our opportunity to find out.

In addition, this checked our box of crossing the Pacific Ocean by water. While many of our boating friends with vessels built in the same boatyard as Alpenglow have crossed the Pacific on their own bottom, that wasn’t anything we were interested in doing. I’ve heard sailors joke that “nothing goes to windward better than a 747” to explain why they had no interest in sailing across the Pacific to Hawaii or further. A cruise ship can’t compete with a jet plane for speed when crossing an ocean but it’s a heck of a lot more comfortable.

With our giant rolling duffel in tow (which we named “the pig”) we footsied to the ferry, then walked to the King Street Station in Seattle and then took the train from Seattle to Vancouver on Saturday, October 12. The next day we boarded the Holland America Line (HAL) cruise ship Noordam and departed at 5pm. The vessel would arrive 26 days later in Sydney, Australia on November 9. Along the way we made 10 ports of call, three in Hawaii, one at American Samoa, three in Fiji and three in New Caledonia.

Once in Sydney, we spent three nights before flying to Adelaide for one night. From Adelaide we joined a 7-day, 6-night overland excursion to Alice Springs in the center of Australia. Marcia and her family lived in Alice Springs for a short-time 50 years previously, so the journey was an opportunity to revisit some of the sights and experiences she had in her youth. We spent 3-nights in Alice Springs before heading back to Sydney for one night before our return flight to Seattle on November 23.

The Cruise

It had been over twelve years since our three previous Holland America Line cruises (2005, 2006 and 2007). Those had all been organized by Garrison Keillor and the Prairie Home Companion radio show, so they had a theme that structured them. This cruise was merely a seasonal positioning cruise to get a very expensive capital asset, the Noordam, from the wintery North Pacific where no money could be made, to the summery South Pacific where money could be made. We didn’t quite know what to expect on the cruise.

Given the cruise’s 26-day length, we were concerned we’d be bored out of our minds. We came well-fortified with audio media on our phones which helped pass the time. Fortunately, HAL had organized talks and activities throughout the day. The Noordam underwent a 2-week refit in Victoria immediately before our cruise and had refreshed its fitness center with all new treadmills and elliptical trainers. The staterooms had new carpet and entertainment systems (50” LED TV’s) with a small selection of both sport, new and entertainment satellite channels.

As soon we boarded the vessel, it was clear we were the target audience, retired seniors with the time and money for a nearly 4-week (or 6-week, since the ship continued lazily to Auckland, NZ) cruise. Most were experienced cruise ship voyagers having trips around the world. The average age had to have been in the late 60’s or early 70’s. There were folks with walkers or mobility carts and a few with oxygen concentrators. We had two medical disembarkations that required changes in the ship’s itineraries. Passengers were from around the world but, anecdotally, the largest group were Canadians followed by Americans.

As always on cruises, there was more food readily available than one ought to eat. That, of course, didn’t stop us or most other passengers. Fortunately, the default portion served on board was not large. I could always ask for more but after about a week, I realized they were doing me a favor.

We booked four shore excursions through the ship at some of the ports-of-call. One was a nature walk at a Fijian National Park, another was a zip-line course through the forest canopy and two were guided snorkeling trips. All were geared toward the reasonably fit cruise ship passenger and not strenuous. We enjoyed them and got to see things we could not have otherwise.

Our cruise ended at Sydney, the ship’s first Australian port-of-call. We entered Sydney Harbor during the first glimmer of morning light. Both the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbor Bridge were only silhouettes as we went by. We disembarked and took a bus into The Rocks district of the city with our hotel being a 10-minute walk away.

Australia

While we did some Australia touring in 2008, we never passed through Sydney. Nor had Marcia visited Sydney in 1969 when her family moved to Alice Springs for a short time. We spent three days in Sydney after disembarking and one more day at the end of the trip before we flew back to Seattle. Turns out (and no surprise), Sydney is a lovely, world-class city.

Sydney’s population is over 5 million and spans nearly 4,800 square miles. Although the state capital of New South Wales, it is almost a state in its own right, as it has 658 suburbs, 40 local government areas and 15 contiguous regions (according to Wikipedia). With three days to work with, we hardly left The Rocks and surrounding area. Fortunately, we were within easy walking of Sydney Harbor, the Sydney Opera House and the Royal Botanic Garden. The one place we wanted to visit outside that area was the Taronga Zoo which was a 15-minute ferry ride from the docks at the Circular Quay.

Before leaving Seattle, Marcia had booked our Sydney Bridge climb. The tour company stressed the need for fitness to do the bridge climb and we were concerned that the soft life on board the Noordam would make the climb a challenge. Fortunately, the pace on the climb was leisurely and we had no problem.

After our three days in Sydney, we flew to Adelaide. We had spent several days touring around Adelaide in 2008 and elected to stay only one night. The next day, we joined a 7-day/6-night overland tour via bus to Alice Springs. There were 14 clients and one guide on the trip. We were the oldest couple on it, although there was New Zealand couple who were only a few years younger than we were. The guide and the other ten clients were all twenty-something “kids” from around the world.

Surprisingly, the arid terrain in the Australia interior through which we traveled reminded me of the desert SW of the United States. While the geology is different (Australia has some of the oldest rock in the world), the climate is similar. The vegetation is different (e.g., no cacti) but has evolved to the fit the same ecological niches using similar but subtly different methods. Even the very barren area around Coober Pedy (a center of opal mining) is reminiscent of Death Valley or the Borax mining areas of California.

While we had a couple days of long drives, most days included a morning hike (to beat the heat), a few hours of driving, followed by an afternoon activity. In terms of scenery, Uluru (formerly know as Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta (formerly known as the Olgas) and Kings Canyon standout. The underground accommodations (to handle the summer heat) in Coober Pedy were the most unusual.

Marcia had lived in Alice Springs with her family for about nine months in 1969-70 after her high school graduation while her father was working there. The trip to Alice Springs was a “homecoming” to see how things had changed. The short answer is “a lot”. Alice Springs has become the gateway through which international tourists visit Uluru and Kata Tjuta (the park that encompasses them is a World Heritage site). In addition, many Australians visit in the winter when the daytime high temperatures are in the low 70’s versus the summer high temperatures of mid 90’s. We rented a car (little left, big right!) for a couple of days from a company that specializes in renting 4WD vehicles and full camping gear to folks flying in for a few days of going “out bush”.

After our three days in Alice Springs, we flew back to Sydney for one more night before flying back to Seattle connecting through Honolulu. Our flight arrived late at night, so we elected to spend our first night back in the USA at a motel near the airport. The next morning, Sunday, November 24, we completed our journey returning, with “the pig” in tow, to Alpenglow.