On February 13th we began another cruise on the Norwegian Jewel.  Our son, Chris, was able to join us on this cruise.  It is a 19 day cruise that does several stops in Australia and Indonesia before ending in Singapore.  This blog will discuss the ports in Australia we visited during this cruise.
 
In Newcastle we took an excursion to Hunter Valley to see the area’s wine country.  We learned a lot about Newcastle along the way which was the second settlement created after Sydney in Australia.  It also got its start as a prison settlement but it has grown into a major exporter of coal.  Massive amounts of coal are shipped daily out of this port and they are continuing to increase their production levels.  We also were shown one of the oldest cemeteries in Australia where they actually brought in the people by train who were to be buried.  The Hunter Valley wine region got started when a store owner received a large lot of property in the area as a debt owed and decided to grow grapes on the property.  The region has turned into one of Australia’s biggest wine producing areas with many different growers and wine producers in the area.  During our visit there we had two wine tastings and one cheese tasting.  The tastings were all enjoyable and each was very different from each other.  It was an enjoyable morning excursion.
 
When we got back we decided to take the shuttle into Newcastle to see what was there.  Initially we walked along the harbor walkway and park area.  There appeared to be a trail that ran along the shore for some time.  Instead of taking the trail we headed into town where we saw a few hang gliders.  As we walked up a tall hill we got to a park which was the takeoff and landing area for about 10 hang gliders.  The park was on a cliff that overlooked the ocean.  The air thermals were very strong and must make this an ideal area for hang gliding.  It was amazing how much control these pilots had with these gliders.  They actually carry the gliders in a large backpack which turns into the seat they sit in while flying in these hang gliders.  It was quite interesting to watch them and we viewed them for about an hour before heading over to a large church we had seen.  The church turned out to be Christ Church Cathedral.  It was built back in the early 1800’s and had gone through many renovations over the years.  It is a very large and impressive looking church built out of red brick.  It is certainly worth walking inside and taking a few pictures if you get in the area.  From there we headed back to the shuttle and our ship.
 
In Brisbane we took an excursion to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary which included a short city tour of Brisbane.  The Koala Sanctuary was similar to the other wildlife sanctuaries and reserves we had previously visited on this trip but obviously had many more koala bears there.  We went there primarily because Chris, who joined us on this cruise, had not seen any of this native Australian wildlife up close.  One thing offered at this sanctuary was the ability to hold a koala bear and have your picture taken with it.  Unfortunately they only allow the koala bears to be held for a short period of time and by the time we got there, they were not allowing anyone to hold the bears any more.  We were able to take pictures next to one of the koala bears with a sanctuary person holding the bear.  There were many koala bears at Lone Pine and we took many pictures of them and watched them for a long time.  They are really adorable little animals!
 
Besides the Koala Bears we also spent a long time in the kangaroo area so that Chris could pet them and take as many pictures as he wanted.  Although they had 50 or 60 kangaroos, most of them were in an area that people could not go into to touch or feed them.  There were several out roaming around and we were able to get close to them.   Wallabies were also mixed in with the kangaroos.  Even though we have seen kangaroos at many of our stops in Australia, they still are very fun to watch and we never seem to get tired of taking a few more pictures.  Besides koala bears and kangaroos, we also saw some Tasmanian devils, a dingo, a platypus, a wombat, several types of snakes and many species of birds including a few emus walking around.
 
On our way back to the ship we were driven around Brisbane which is the third largest city in Australia.   We made a stop along the river/ocean inlet where you had a great view of Brisbane which looks to be a very modern city with many tall skyscrapers.  We were shown many of the 100 year old houses that have been updated and now cost over a million dollars to buy.  We visited the South Bank which had many shops and some nice places to walk.  When we were taken downtown we were shown some of the watermarks from some of the many floods they have had in the city.  We were also told that Brisbane has some great beaches along the ocean.  Next time we come we will explore the city or perhaps make it a beach day.
 
We arrived at Airlie Beach which is at the south end of the Great Barrier Reef.  This was one of the items on our bucket list we did not want to miss.  We are also going to Cairns for an overnight stop next and that is another place to go see the reef.  Unfortunately the ships arrival and departure times made it almost impossible to arrange a 3rd party excursion outside of the ship to the reef at either of these ports.  During the hour and a half boat ride out to the reef we were provided a lot of information about the reef and were told how we would be snorkeling there.  We did rent an underwater GoPro camera that was available in order to capture the great pictures we were expecting. 
 
When we got to the reef the water was beautiful and the day was sunny.  What a great day to see one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World!  Our boat docked at a pontoon platform that was outfitted with all of our snorkeling equipment and nice semi submerged platforms to put on your fins and get into the water.
What a disappointment!  They should call it the Great Reef Scam.  All we saw was dead or dying coral and a few fish swimming around.  We have seen better snorkeling in the Bahamas and certainly all over the Caribbean.  We were shown all these colorful pictures of the reef and coral prior to the excursion but as we quickly learned the reef has drastically changed over the last several years.  We heard various reasons on what caused these changes but the biggest problem seems to be several cyclones that have come through the area causing drastic damage, the abundance of ship traffic as well as the global heating.   We finished snorkeling the whole area in about 45 minutes and came out of the water disappointed.
 
After a little buffet lunch on the boat we jumped into a glass bottom boat/submarine they had.  The viewing from the glass wasn’t much different than what we saw while snorkeling.  We did see a large resident grouper that made the underside of the pontoon platform its home.  That was the most exciting thing we saw all day.  If we had to do again, we probably would have taken the helicopter ride over the Great Barrier Reef as the water colors were beautiful and you could view the tops of the reef from the water that goes on for over 1,200 miles.
 
We arrived at Cairns the next day and decided not to do any further snorkeling since we heard the reef wasn’t any better up north from where we had snorkeled yesterday.  Instead Chris had found a fishing excursion that we decided to try out.  This was inland fishing and not out in the ocean.  We caught several small fish and a couple of bigger catfish.  It would have been a more enjoyable afternoon if we hadn’t been hit by a sudden storm that had rain flying at us horizontally with the strong winds. 
 
After our fishing trip we spent a few hours walking through town and checking out the shops and restaurants.  We then took a taxi to get back to our ship.  Our ship was actually moored at Yorky Knob where tenders took the passengers on to shore.  Cairns is about 10 miles from Yorky Knob which makes it a little inconvenient to moor there as we understand a new Cairns cruise docking area will be available soon for the incoming cruise ships.
On our second day in Cairns we took another fishing trip but this time it was to fish on the Great Barrier Reef.  Chris had found a boat that took us out on a full day charter for a very reasonable price.  It turned out to be a private charter as the boat was unable to get any more people for the day.  After about an hour going out to the reef in 3 to 5 foot waves, we dropped our fishing lines out at the reef.  Almost instantly Chris caught a fish and shortly after Sharon caught a fish.  Chris then caught a good sized Chinaman Fish which gave him a pretty good fight.  It was certainly the prettiest fish we caught that day.  After catching a few more fish here we moved on to the next location.  This turned out to be Greg’s favorite spot where he caught 6 straight fish on 6 casts.  One of the fish turned out to be a nice sized Cobia King Fish.  We stopped at a few more spots and caught many more fish throughout the day.  Most of these fish were species we had never caught or seen before.  We did catch a lot of snapper that the crew fileted for their dinner later that night.  The two biggest fish never made it into the boat.  Sharon hooked a massive shark and fought it for about 10 minutes before turning her rod over to the captain who fought it for another couple of minutes when it finally broke the line.  Chris caught something of similar  size (assuming a shark) while they were fighting that fish and his line broke too.    Greg had a knack to catch small Remora Fish which had suction cups below their heads that allowed them to attach themselves to other fish.  You will sometimes see them attached to sharks.  Everyone caught some great fish and we all had a fun time.  It certainly was our best time on the Great Barrier Reef.
 
After a sea day we arrived in Darwin, our last port stop in Australia.  We had no excursions planned and we were staying overnight at this port.  We thought we would just walk around the first day and organize something for the second day.  Unfortunately there was a medical emergency on the ship that caused us to turn back to Cairns on our way to Darwin which delayed our arrival by several hours.  We didn’t get to Darwin until around 5PM and by then there wasn’t anything open to arrange a tour for the following day. 
 
On the next morning we got up to see what we could do but all the tours to the Wilderness Parks were not available.  Chris wanted to see some crocodiles so we went to a place called Crocosaurus Cove.  Crocosaurus Cove was basically a crocodile zoo or aquarium where you could view many crocodiles and other fish and turtles from the area.  If you wanted to spend some extra money you could even go into a plexiglass cage in the water with the 15 foot crocodiles.  We saw a few people who did this and although you certainly get some good close up pictures of the crocs, it really didn’t look that exciting.  We also watched the crocodile feeding of chickens to these large monsters.  Their jaws are really powerful when they clamped down but in general most of these animals seemed a little lazy.  It was interesting though to learn about the crocodiles and Chris even had the opportunity to feed some of the smaller crocodiles.  Darwin is known as the crocodile capital of the world.  There are more crocodiles in the Northern Territory of Australia, where Darwin is located, than any place else in the world!

Next stop Indonesia – Komodo Dragons and Bali!

​Greg and Sharon

​Part of our cruise included a day of scenic cruising where we entered Milford Sound and cruised down a fjord.  Unfortunately the weather wasn’t too cooperative and it was very overcast with sporadic rain throughout the day.  Because it had been raining so much over the last few days, we saw some beautiful waterfalls coming down these steep fjords.  The cruising was narrated by one of the ship’s experts and we learned how Captain Cook had first navigated these Sounds over 200 years ago.  Cook had been looking for Antarctica at the time but never found it.  His ships and crews used New Zealand as a place to make boat repairs during their several attempts to cruise far enough south to find the unknown continent.

Doubtful Sound was another area we entered and viewed more fjords.  During this scenic cruising we had many dolphins join us and put on a show.  Many of them fully breached out of the water and it looked like they were having a great time.

After being at sea for several days it was nice to get to another port.  We stopped at Port Chalmers which is a very small port town about 10 miles from Dunedin, the largest city in the area.  Although this was a nice little town, there really wasn’t anything to do there.  We took a few pictures of the train station, the cathedral and a very nice church, but that was about it.  We had arrived on New Zealand Day which was somewhat ironic since our first day in Australia happened to be Australia Day.  

Port Chalmers turned out to be more enjoyable even though it was smaller.  It had several walking trails that we took to see some nice views of the surrounding countryside.  We also walked through some of the neighborhoods that had very small homes in the hilly part of town.  There was a very nice church there where we spent a little time and then we found a trail in the back of it that led to a spectacular lookout tower.  The town had done a great job in putting a picture story together to tell the history of the port.  You could find these pictures with a brief caption all around the town and the trails. In town we stopped at several shops that happened to be open.  We did end up walking at least 9 miles before we got back on the ship and felt we had seen about everything these two towns had to offer.
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We were tendered in at Akaroa and had arranged an excursion at this port with a 3rd party outfit to go sea kayaking and view the penguins and seals in a reserve.  We were taken by a 4 wheel drive van to the Pohatu Marine Reserve.  Along the way we had some great viewing of the surrounding landscape from the mountain tops as we crossed over to the other side of the peninsula.  We learned that the whole area is basically one huge caldera from a huge volcano that had not erupted in thousands of years.  We saw cattle and sheep as we headed to the reserve which was located on private land requiring special permission to access the area.  Several hikers on the road were told about this private property as we drove along.

When we got to the reserve we were formally greeted by many sheep that came right over to us to say hello.   We went through our kayaking orientation and headed off in our two person kayaks.  We immediately saw a few penguins on the nearby shore tucked into some crevices.  As we progressed further we saw some more both on the shore and in the water.  The ones in the water actually looked like ducks.  We were kayaking in an inlet and were supposed to go out into the ocean but the swells were too high.  Instead we went along the other side of the inlet and viewed the many seals that were lounging around in the rocks.  We saw a few seals swimming but most were just having a good time sunning themselves on the rocks.  We headed back to shore after a nice 1 ½ hour kayak ride and then drove back into town.

We spent about an hour walking around town and checking out the many small shops and restaurants.  It was a very quaint town that was nice to walk through.  It was also a great place to buy the Merino wool products.  The next time we go back, we will most likely try out some of the many hiking trails in the area.

Greg and Sharon

Q​This was our first cruise port stop where we decided to walk around and explore this small town of around 4,000 people.  Just to the left of the port is a small hill with a little park that has an observation deck.  From there you could see the other side of the harbor where there was a tower used for whale hunting, 60 years ago.  A spotter on the tower would spot a puff of spray in the harbor and yell out to the waiting boat crews below who would rush out to kill the whale.  This town was formed due to its location and the large number of whales who came to the area and were hunted down.  There is a local whale museum in town that we did not visit on this trip.  After walking along the cliffs and admiring the scenic landscape we walked into town.  On the way into town Greg was stopped and asked if he went to Ga Tech since he was wearing a GT shirt.  The guy who asked turned out to be Bobby Cremins, the most famous basketball coach ever to coach at Ga Tech. It turns out he is on our ship.
 
 In town we stopped at the Fisherman’s Club where we had a glass of beer and ale.  After leaving refreshed we headed down to Asling’s Beach where we walked alongside the water to a rock pool at the end of the beach.  After walking down the Maritime Heritage Walkway that borders the beach we went over to Lake Curalo where they had built a nice wooden walkway all around the lake.  We did see a few small sheep farms that backed up to the lake and took a few pictures of the sheep.  We met a few folks from our ship that suggested we walk over to the local golf course where they had seen some kangaroos.  This turned out to be the highlight of the day.  When we got to the golf course we took a beer/wine break while we watched some men playing lawn bowling.  In the distance we noticed a few kangaroos and we went out to see them more closely.  We first ran across a small family (mother with two young ones) around a tree.  We took several pictures before heading over to another area that had over 20 kangaroos.  They were just sitting and watching us closely.  When you got within about 20-30 feet, they would just hop away.  It was hilarious to watch golfers hit up onto a green where kangaroos were hopping across the green.  When the golf carts came up the kangaroos would scamper away.  We took many pictures and videos of these kangaroos on the golf course.  After that we walked back to the port where we took the tender back to our ship.
 
It is very easy to get into the Melbourne city center from the port.  For $15 you can get an all-day transportation pass and either take the tram or the bus into town and back.  We elected to take the 45 minute walk along a walkway that followed the tram tracks all the way into the city.  It was a very pleasant walk.  Once in the city we walked into the Crown Entertainment Plaza which was a hotel, conference center, casino, theater, and shopping mall along with many restaurants and bars everywhere. The atrium in this building had a very nice display set up for the Lunar New Year 2019. This plaza is located on the Yarra River right across from the Melbourne Aquarium.
 
From there we walked to the Queen Victoria Market that everyone talked so highly of.  It was just a very large flea market with a nice farmers market attached.  Across from the main marketplace was an indoor market with various food places to eat.  We tried a sandwich and soup that were both very good.  We then decided to head to a Costco that was over in the Dockland District.  We found that an Australian Costco had many items unique to Australian’s cooking and lifestyle.  The building itself looked a little different with an underground parking lot and the outside of the building being black and red.  The Costco was located right next to the Melbourne Star Observation Wheel (large Ferris wheel).  We walked around the Dockland District looking at a few of its many shops
 
From there we headed back to the city center where we viewed the historic looking Flinder’s Street Train Station which is right next to St Paul’s Cathedral and Federation Square.  This square was quite unique with several very unusually shaped buildings containing some of the local art museums.  Behind Federation Square was a small park which bordered the Yarra River.  There were at least 50 regatta boats being placed into the river for what appeared to be training lessons.  Coaches would ride bikes along the river bank and yell out instructions to the rowers on the boats.  Around the bank of the river we could see Rod Laver's Stadium which had just held the Australian Tennis Open Finals only two days before.  We walked back along the opposite side of the river and visited Southgate which was a very nice river walk area loaded with bars and restaurants.  We stopped at a bar on the river underneath one of the pedestrian bridges for a quick beer and spritzer.  At that point we decided to walk back to the port.  By the end of the day we found we had walked 18 miles around Melbourne!
 
We had booked a tour through Viator at this port.  The tour started out with a bus ride up to Mount Wellington.  This was a summit that overlooked Hobart and the surrounding area.  It had a fairly flat plateau at the top which was over 4,200 feet above sea level.  It was cold and windy at the top and hazy skies.
 
The bus then took us to a small town called Richmond which was in the wine area of Tasmania.  The village had the oldest bridge built in Australia back in the mid-1800s.  Next to the bridge was an old church.  It was a very picturesque setting with wild flowers blooming all around and ducks floating down the river.  The town itself contained many small shops, bakeries and restaurants located in some historic buildings.  The town was originally formed around one of the first prisons built in the area.  It seems much of Australia’s history was created by the prisons built and the prisoners who served their time and became upstanding citizens.  If they didn’t become good citizens, they were hanged for even the smallest crime such as stealing. 
 
Our final stop on the tour was Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary.  This was one of the main reasons we booked this tour in order to see the famous Tasmanian Devils.  This is an endangered species due to several reasons.  Over 100 years ago man introduced dogs, cats and dingoes to the area which greatly reduced the population because starvation and attacks.  The devils are meat eating rodents and look like over-sized rats (but much cuter).  The main reason right now that the devils population has dwindled to only 50,000 is a cancer called Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD).  Tasmanian Devils contract this disease when bitten by another devil that has the disease.  If they get this disease there is an 80-90% chance they will die.  There is no known cure for the disease which has been around for over 10 years killing off 100’s of thousands of Tasmanian Devils.  This preserve had 17 devils of which we only really viewed 3.  We watched them get fed and watched them fight each other.  Although they look very cute, they have some very sharp teeth!  This sanctuary also had a very large quantity of kangaroos that just lounged around and allowed you to feed and pet them.  It was another great opportunity to have an up close encounter with one of Australia’s most famous animals.  There was also a Koala Bear that was in a small tree that we were allowed to take close-up pictures.   We also saw one wombat at this sanctuary which was very shy but liked to be held.  We were able to spend a little more time on this preserve and enjoyed getting some good pictures of these unique animals.
 
We then drove into town followed by a quick tour of the city before heading back to the ship.  After dinner, we went back to visit and walk around the town.  It was an enjoyable day in Tasmania!

Greg & Sharon