Australia's Tropical Regions- Darwin and Carins

Sunrise over a calm sea

From Bali we headed back to Australia cruising easily through the Arafura Sea. A little excitement at sea occurred when one of the passengers had to be air lifted by helicopter (the second such occurrence on this voyage) to Port Hedland and the apparent nearest land medical facility.

Helicopter coming for our passenger

We have been struck by the age and physical disability demographics of the passengers of this cruise and have jokingly referred to a Royal Caribbean "BOGO Wheelchair Deal" that many
passengers snapped up! But the excitement of the evacuation was short lived, and two sea days later, during which we find the time to pass much more slowly, we moored in Darwin City. Named after the English naturalist Charles Darwin, this settlement was founded at the tip of a peninsula in the already isolated region of the Northern Territory.

Note the high and low water marks

People slowly migrated to Darwin over time and it became an important base for the Allies in WWII. A major bombing of Darwin on February 19, 1942 destroyed the city as did Cyclone Tracy in 1974. Its people’s resilience to rebuild the city after every setback has today turned it into a bustling metropolis and Australia’s fastest growing city. Its harbor and proximity to several national parks makes Darwin a gateway for many of Australia’s best outdoor activities.

Like so many other ports we elected to do Darwin on our own. As we disembarked, we were struck by the extreme low water level indicative of an ebb tide and later learned that Darwin's tidal range can be up to 25 feet, a range which invariably produces extremely strong tidal currents.

Swimming lagoon and park

A short 15-minute walk put us in the heart of Darwin’s business, government, and historic districts.

Christ Church Cathedral

We viewed the unique architecture of Christ Church Cathedral which was originally built in 1902 and destroyed by Cyclone Tracey. Incorporating part of the ruins of the original structure, the church was rebuilt in 1975 with a modern award-winning design. Next we saw the Old Town Hall which was built in 1883 and also destroyed by Cyclone Tracey and today serves as an outdoor theater.

Old Town Hall

Leaving the historic district we came to Darwin’s street mall festively decorated for Christmas.

Darwin's skyline

There were lots of souvenir shops so Jane unleashed her shopping prowess and hit them all, some twice. After we finished shopping we headed to the post office we had spotted on the map to mail some post cards back to the states.

Darwin's open air mall

But at $2.75 per card, only a handful was sent with the rest being mailed from within the states when we return. We returned to the mall and happened upon an aboriginal dance demonstration that we watched for a while.

Aboriginal dance demonstration

We walked back towards the waterfront and cruise terminal and happened upon an oyster bar. We dropped in to have a couple of pints and noticed that the bar had the coolest beer cooler we had ever seen.

"Need new plan for iStick"

Several kinds of bottled beer were stacked on a pyramidal stainless steel structure and crushed ice dropped from the ceiling onto the peak of the pyramid and falling to the bottles below.

Cooling off in Darwin mall

We decided that if we were going to build a house, we would build it around such a cooler! Returning to the ship, we were hot, sweaty, and tired and took a nap after refreshing ourselves.

Mother of all beer coolers!

Our ship left Darwin and headed east for our next Aussie stop- Cairns (pronounced CANS- yeah, we know!) and the Great Barrier Reef.

Once again we had two sea days from Darwin to Cairns and little to view until we came to the Queensland Islands that marked the perimeter of the Great Barrier Reef in the Coral Sea.

Now THAT'S a fender!

 Australia’s maritime waters are peppered with over 8,000 islands ranging in size from Tasmania, the largest, down to small, uninhabitable knobs, and many of the larger islands are home to resort communities that are popular island escapes.

One of the Queensland Islands

Many of the most popular holiday islands are located in Australia’s tropical northern, and northeastern regions, the area that we were currently cruising. We attended a lecture on the Great Barrier Reef only to leave halfway through when the lecturer, a licensed ship’s pilot that guided ships through the reef, started talking more about piloting and ship navigation than the marine biology of the reef.

A reef among the islands

Back in our starboard balcony cabin we had excellent views of the northern Queensland Islands that came into view after the ship rounded the Cape York Peninsula and started a southeasterly course.

Big and little tenders, but really SLOW!

It was Thanksgiving in Australia, even though it was still only Wednesday back in America, and we celebrated that evening with a turkey dinner with all the trimmings and finished off with pumpkin pie.

The next morning we arrived in Cairns. Located in tropical northern Queensland, Cairns is a popular portal for holiday resort seekers. We had hoped to visit the Great Barrier Reef at this stop, but the only available reef shore excursion involved snorkeling or diving the reef only and no glass-bottom boats. Prudence guided us to a visit to the city instead. For us, getting into Cairns involved a 25-30 minute tender ride to Yorkey’s Knob, followed by a 25 minute bus ride to the city of Cairns.

Our ship at Yorkey's Knob

There were a large number of passengers disembarking to go to Cairns, and for some reason the tendering process became bogged down.

The lagoon at the park in Carins

We experienced a 2-hour wait just to board the tender. Our late arrival in Cairns and the ship’s early port departure limited the amount of time we had in the city. We were dropped off in Fogarty Park which is adjacent to tourist and beach set shopping and features a lagoon for swimmers that is connected to the ocean. In many respects the area reminded us of Key West.

Christmas in the park

As usual, we encountered an open air market with vendors selling a variety of handicrafts and snake oil. Jane took charge to maximize shopping efficiency in the limited time we had, but after a while Capt. Larry started to question her purchase of souvenirs to back up the souvenirs she had already purchased.

Back at the boating club

We walked around a few more blocks and realized that considering the transit time, our time ashore was just about expended, if we wanted to avoid the last minute rush back to the ship. We boarded a bus that took us back to Yorkey’s Knob. Our Aussie friends, Keith and Sheila, had told us not to miss having a drink at the Yorkey’s Knob Boating Club, so we stopped in before tendering back to the ship.

Enjoying brews at the yacht club

We had to sign the register and Jane put us down a visiting members of the Killian Yacht Club which had worked well for us before.

View of the marina

There’s always something special about afternoon drinks at a marina bar, and we enjoyed the drinks, live music, and watching the boats in the marina before heading back to the ship.

We spent the next two sea days viewing more of the Queensland Islands, working on the blog, and relaxing by the pool.

More Aussie islands

Brisbane would be our last port of call before landing in Sydney for our journey back to the states.