A few facts about this amazing journey.

Days Away:   45 days

When we came to Australia we crossed over the International Dateline,  we lost a day, we left DIA on a Saturday, and arrived in Sydney on a Monday, which jumped us ahead a day and a half...Now we are leaving Australia and we're gaining back that day. So...we are leaving Sydney this morning Tuesday March 29 at 10:45 am and arriving at DIA Tuesday March 29th at 11:57 am,(an hour and 12 minutes after we left Sydney, its really a 20 hour process of flying, a 2 hr layover in Los Angeles, then flight to Denver. 

We may be a little tired for a day or two, or a week. It'll be interesting.

Miles Flown:  From Denver to San Francisco, CA to Sydney Australia to Cairns Australia, back to Sydney, Sydney to LA, back to Denver=19,198 miles

Cruising Miles: 9488 Nautical miles = 10,918 miles
                           average speed: 17 knots = 20 mph

Miles walked:  (according to my fitbit!) = 171.18 miles
                           We couldn't believe we actually walked that far, although sometimes it felt like we walked a whole lot farther.
                            
Stairs: Our cabin was on the 8th deck mid ship. Each level had 18 stairs. The Dining room was 3 floors below us on the 5th deck (54 stairs). The Windjammer café was on deck 11, 3 floors above us (54 stairs). In addition to coming and going to meals, there were other activities, and entertainment in the theatre, on different decks. Yes there were elevators, but they were usually crowded, and we did need the exercise. (and fitbit steps)

Ship: Royal Caribbean Radiance of the Seas
Passengers: 2500
Crew of 900 from over 40 different countries.
It was the first cruise ship to feature pool tables that are stabilized by a computer-controlled gyroscope. They adjust with the motion of the ship to keep the table-top level with the horizon. Interesting to watch...the table stays level even when the boat is not. The ship is 15 years old. It has a rock-climbing wall, mini-golf course, pools, and a water slide. The majority of the people on our ship were from England, New Zealand, Australia,  Canada and United States. We enjoyed meeting and visiting with them and learning where they were from.

Oceans and Seas we traveled in:  Oceans:(3 of the 5 oceans) Pacific Ocean, Southern Ocean, Indian Ocean. Seas: Tasman Sea, Timor Sea, Arafura Sea, Coral Sea.

Water Depth:  The water depth ranged from 70 ft to 16,000 ft deep.


Time changes:  We changed our clocks 10 different times forward or backwards according to which time zones and the direction we were going.

Deadliest snakes:  Australia has 10 of the 12 most deadliest snakes in the world. We only saw them in zoos.

vegemite:  A spread popular in Australia for spreading on toast, crackers, sandwiches, and a lot of other things. Its a dark brown paste made from yeast. It is very salty, and tastes more like bouillon. We tried it but it must be something you have to acquire a taste for, because we thought it tastes TERRIBLE! (ever hear of a vegemite sandwich?

This is the end of our BLOG. It was an amazing journey. We saw some spectacular things, and visited some terrific places. Hope you all enjoyed following along with us.

So long....   Bev and Gene

Brisbane Australia

 

Brisbane Australia
Brisbane: Our final port of our 32 day back to back cruises. Brisbane is the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland.  Population of Brisbane 2.25 million. Their Rugby team is known as the Brisbane Broncos, their colors maroon and gold, and their emblem is a horse head similar (sorta) to our Denver Broncos.
Today the temperatures were very pleasant, I think around 77 degrees, which is so nice, since its been so, so hot and humid since we returned to Australia from New Zealand, a MONTH ago. New Zealand was wet and cool, for most of our days there, but once we reached Melbourne to start our circle around Australia it started warming up, and its been mighty warm all the way around, until we got here in Brisbane. The weather is wonderful.

Today we visited the Australia Zoo, which is actually the zoo built and owned by Steve Irwin and his wife.  He was known as the ’Crocodile Hunter’. He actually was better known in the United States for being the TV star of that show, than he was right here in Australia. Not anymore of course.  It was about an hour plus ride to and from the ship to the zoo, so our time at the zoo itself was limited. We found ourselves rushing to see the little bit we did see. We wanted to make sure we were able to see the Wildlife Warriors Show, and we did!!!!! I’ll get to that a little later… Scattered throughout the park were employees each handling an animal, a reptile, or a bird.

Snake



 

Kookabura



Wedge-tailed Eagle

You could have your picture taken with them……. it’s a beautifully arranged zoo, everything neat, clean, manicured and very organized. Crocodiles, crocodiles….many many of them, big small, in between…. You had to watch where you walked because there are a lot of different variety of lizards roaming around, some very LARGE ones too.


ALL kinds of these things though out the park.

Every pen and pond were large, almost too large. The zoo itself is on 100 acres of land, the Irwins own another 900 acres in addition to that. So much Australian wildlife, like the Cassowary...they have a bright colorful head.

 There are so many kangaroos,

and the area that they roam has lots of trees and grass and shade.  There are risers around several of the ponds so zoo visitors can watch each animal be fed throughout the day.


Crocodiles....many different ponds and areas for the many croc's on the property.

This place is huge. It is landscaped so beautifully.

These are called 'Staghorn' Ferns. They are native to Australia. These line most of the walkways though out the park.
 

AND...of course, lots and lots of Koalas!

 

 

They are just so DARN cute!!!

Now about the show.  The most amazing show EVER!!  It is Easter weekend, and ALL the Irwin family was participating at the show yesterday, today, and will be tomorrow. The first show was at 11:30 and it was ‘Bindi, and the Jungle Girls’…..(a girl band created when she was younger),

they sang and danced on stage prior to the Wildlife Warriors show. There is a Jumbotron at one end of the stadium, so you could actually ‘see’ her. It was in the ‘Crocoseum’ Stadium. She’s good, the group performed about 5 songs. One of the songs was about her 'Dad', and a video showed lots of pictures of a young Bindi and her Dad. A lot of young girls from the audience danced to the music on the ground below the stage, and Bindi commented many times how good they all were.  Those little girls were excited to say the least.
The Wildlife Warrior show started off with birds, beautiful parrots, a condor,

a wedge tailed eagle, pink cockatoos, that were released and flew around the stadium, a black parrot that flew from the arm of the trainer to a girl sitting in the row behind us.

The girl folded up a $5.00 Australian bill, held it in her hand and the parrot flew right to her arm, put the money in its mouth, and flew back to the trainer. Then the bird returned the $ to the gal. Then the Crocodile show began. The Irwin family came out and spoke to the crowd. Its amazing when Terri talks to her children how natural they seem, not as actors, just as a regular kids. Terri is so good, she was the one who informed the audience what she and the kids, or the helping handlers was going to be doing, and the kids just seem to do what they naturally do and have done all their lives around the crocs.  The boy, Robert, was first to ‘handle’ a croc. It was a cute one

 but as Robert slapped and kicked the water, …it was aggressive and it took the meat quickly. He did find a way to actually pick up the small croc.

He did a good job, then it was time to bring out the big croc. His name is Murray. Robert did NOT handle Murray. It is certainly dangerous, but Robert was right out there trying to get the croc to go after the meat. Now its Terri's turn to get 'Murray' out of the water....

 There was some filming going on, and they were actually going to do 2 croc shows, but our time was limited, so we only saw the one.

And this is Bindi, feeding this croc.

 Terri (Steve’s wife) was doing most of the speaking and conversing with her children.

Discussing some of the dance moves she did on Dancing with the Stars.

They of course showed video on the Jumbotron of Bindi on ‘Dancing with the Stars’, her brother had very kind words about his sister, and her dancing. They are proud of her that she won the Mirror Ball trophy. Bindi had a lot of very kind words about her brother.
An amazing family. There are wooden message boards scattered about the zoo, of things Steve said, and just the way it is worded, sounds just like how he would say it!  His most word he liked to use is: "crikey", it means Gee Whiz.

This is mentioned on the Zoo's website:
"In July 2006 Steve had set out his 'ten year business plan' for his beloved zoo. He couldn't know he would be gone just two months later, but he believed his conservation work would go on. His two beautiful children and his wife Terri will make sure it does. "

Very sure they have done an amazing job of continuing his work.

 

     Next port: Sydney Australia, where these 2 back to back cruises began 32 days ago on Radiance of the Sea. Then our long flight back to the U.S. and HOME!

 

Willis Island (an external territory of Australia)

Willis Island (an external territory of Australia)

After leaving Cairns our ship sailed 280 miles east of Cairns in International Waters to pass by Willis Island , a total of 4 people make that island their home. These scientists study and report weather conditions, in particular, cyclones. Our ship did not stop there, but the captain, slowly rotated the ship 180 degrees so everyone on board could see this beautiful spot of land so far away from Australia.

That special pilot that boarded our ship and did commentary,  contacted one of the scientists living there on Willis Island as we passed, and their conversation was broadcast on all the decks and common areas on the ship. It was very interesting to hear of living and working there.
This tiny island measures just 1,600 feet long by 490 feet wide, though it is the only permanently inhabited island in the Coral Sea Islands Territory.

You won't find any neighborhoods, schools or homes here, however. The only structures on Willis Island is a weather monitoring station hosted by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, where just a handful of weather observers reside at any given time.

They get provisions delivered every 6 months. The person answering the questions said they were looking forward to getting fresh food, they are in their 5th month of food. I bet they’re looking forward to it.

Willis Island is one of several tropical islands sitting beyond the Great Barrier Reef in the Coral Sea Islands Territory, and is surrounded by thriving reefs where many creatures make their homes. Numbering into the thousands, Willis Island itself caters to many species of seabirds, including Masked, Brown and Red-footed Boobies that cry out nearly 24 hours a day. It is also an important nesting ground for turtles.

Great Barrier Reef - (Yorkey's Knob)

 Great Barrier Reef (Cairns and Port Douglas)
Yorkey’s Knob

We now have traveled through the Timor Sea and the Arafura Sea, where the Indian Ocean meets the Pacific Ocean. We are now in the Coral Sea, at the top of the Great Barrier Reef, in Queensland Australia. A special ship pilot was required to come on board to assist our ship captain in guiding the ship through the reef. He boarded our ship in Darwin. We learned a lot of interesting facts and stories of the Great Barrier Reef and also of the many shipwrecks from him.

There was a news story on CNN news just today regarding the Great Barrier Reef, that said the north end of the Great Barrier Reef is dying because of bleaching, which means the waters are too warm due to global warming and the living coral is in danger of dying. Seems as though more of the reef will someday be affected as well. Sad to hear.

The Great Barrier reef  is home to over a third of the planets colorful coral.  Most of the information on the Great Barrier Reef was covered in one of our first blogs when we spent 5 days in Cairns BEFORE our cruises began.

The weather is still pretty warm and humid, but we can tell its just a tad bit cooler, now that we’re heading further away from the equator.

Since our Bali portion of our trip was canceled, we are spending 2 days at Yorkey’s Knob, which is just where we docked. It is right in between Cairns and Port Douglas, but anchored out in the water, not docked in any town. Tender boats took us ashore to do any tours in Cairns or Port Douglas.

Our ship anchored off Yorkey's Knob

 The first day we took a bus tour that took us to Port Douglas just to look around and visit the beautiful little town. It had a resort town feel.

We had a real good lunch in Port Douglas, and took just a few pictures.

Patio furniture?...Made out of 55 gallon oil drums.

On Day 2 at Yorkey's Knob, Gene went snorkeling for the second time at the Great Barrier Reef .

 I chose to stay on the ship. He enjoyed it, and was hoping to see more fish than the first time he snorkeled a month ago, but the water was choppy and it rained for a short time.

This is hard rain hitting the ocean waters (taken by Gene-WHILE snorkeling.)

so the underwater visibility wasn’t the greatest, but he did get a few great photos.

Gene got some pretty good pictures, despite the rainy conditions.

Then the next day, Gene went snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef . I chose to stay on the ship. He enjoyed it, and was hoping to see more fish than the first time he snorkeled a month ago, but the water was choppy and it rained, so the underwater visibility wasn’t the greatest, but he did get a few photos.

Darwin Australia

Darwin Australia

We have now left the Indian Ocean and are now in Darwin, in the Timor Sea which is a branch of the Indian Ocean.

At this point we are in Darwin, we are 850 miles from the equator. The daytime and nighttime temperatures stay nearly the same. Humidity is high, and always seems hotter to us because of the humidity.

Darwin is the capital city of Northern Territory Australia. It is the largest city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory. Population about 130,000 It is said to be Australia’s ONLY tropical capital city, but the smallest Australian capital city. Darwin only has two seasons: the ‘Wet’ season, monsoonal rains and high humidity (November to April) and the ‘Dry’ season: (May to October). The average temperature in Darwin year round is 88 degrees, with varying humidity. They say they never have to check the temperature, its always the same.

Darwin has the highest concentration of crocodiles in Australia. Any body of water in the ‘top end’ of Australia may contain large and potentially dangerous crocodiles. Saltwater crocodiles are more than likely to be found in ‘freshwater’. They say there are 200,000 salt water crocs in Australia

This is not real, but this is how big the crocodiles can grow to be.

More than 80,000 Saltwater Crocodiles now roam the waterways of Northern Australia, yet they are rarely ever seen. The crocodile is a cold blooded animal, they bask in the sun during the cooler months of June, July, and early August. but most of the time it's warm here, Crocodiles are buried in the mud, under the trees, in the shade, so you do not normally see Crocodiles. Crocodiles average 12 to 20 feet long and have 68 fearsome teeth than can replenish if broken off. They can live up to 70 years.

Darwin is the only Australian capital city to come under a substantial attach during WWII, on Feb 19th 1942 when the Japanese made 2 major air raids on Darwin from the aircraft carrier fleet that had attacked Pearl Harbor 3 months earlier, there were a total of 64 attacks over the next year, in Darwin, the last attack being November 12, 1943. Darwin became an important base for allied action against the Japanese in the Pacific.

The city of Darwin was named after Charles Darwin the famed naturalist, by a former shipmate. (However Charles Darwin supposedly was never in Darwin.)

Along the route to the ‘Jumping Crocodiles’ tour, which we did in Darwin, we saw millions of Mango trees, orchards and orchards of them.

The tour guide said there are 4 million mango trees in Darwin. The mango season starts in November. Towards the end of mango season, the migrant workers move on or go home, so then there is nobody to pick the fruit, the remaining fruit is free to whoever wants them, the rest fall from the trees and rot on the ground.

The croc tour was on the Adelaide river, where a lot of crocs live.

Adelaide River

Some of the crocodiles know their boat, so the crocs leave their place of hiding, knowing they might be fed. The crew dangled meat from a long pole to get the crocs to jump out of the water.

They make 4 attempts to get the croc to jump out of the water, each time they get a little further out of the water, then they let them have the meat.  Some of the crocs show signs that they’ve encountered other crocodiles. Scars on some, one has a name of ’Stumpy’,  because one of his arms was bitten off by another croc.

A few of the crocs have names, because the ones  seen regularly  get a chance at that one time a day 

meal. They are the lazy ones…they don’t have to hunt for their survival.  The tour operators also throw some tiny chunks of food into the air for the birds that come close to the boat to retrieve the food in mid air.

These raptors are called 'Whistling Kites'. 

They like a free meal as well.

 A view of the valley, where we saw a lot of flocks of white birds in flight, hard to see in this picture, but a lovely sight. 

We also saw a few of the feral water buffalo. About 80 of these water buffalos were originally brought in to the northern Australian settlements from Asia in the 1800's. Once the settlements were abandoned the water buffalo remained, multiplied and now number about 150,000. These feral water buffalo live in swamps and floodplains across the wet parts of northern Australia, where they have ready access to food and water. We did see a few, but far away, I've cropped this picture so you can have a look.
They have a hunting season on them.
 Speaking again of the ’wet’ season, we can attest to that! After we returned to the ship terminal after our croc tour, the clouds in the distance were very dark, and our bus driver, a local…. Said “it’ll rain soon“. Sure enough! He knew what he was talking about. Did it ever rain! It Poured!

Trapped inside the ship terminal, can you see our cruise ship in the distance, that's where we had to run to.

At least we did get dropped off at the Darwin Ship terminal just before it started falling. We got trapped in the ship terminal with a thousand others waiting for it to stop. It was literally coming down in sheets, and very very hard. So much rain! Even though Royal Caribbean had canopies set up, the strong winds blowing the rain horizontally, and lots of lightening, forced them to stop passengers from going to the gangway back on to the ship. We eventually got to go in small groups, but had to run in the rain through several inches of standing rain water to get on the ship. They offered beach towels as we came were finally allowed on board. Some passengers were more than drenched, especially those who chose to get dropped off in town to shop instead of being dropped off at the ship port. There wasn’t a dry spot on some of them.

                        Done with Darwin, now we'll be at sea for 2 full days going to Yorkey's Knob, where we will dock, and we'll need to be 'tendered' in to visit Cairnes and Port Douglas.