Travel 1

 

This starts the travel section, never terribly interesting, but here goes.

Even with the blackout curtains we were up early. Dave had paid extra to get us breaky, so we went over to the restaurant and had a surprisingly tasty breakfast – avo toast with poached egg for Dave, and tasty eggs benedict with spinach for me. Walking around the hotel we noticed all sorts of Chinese touches, like statuary and the sweeping roofs with corner decorations, but there’s nothing about the Sanno Marracoonda Inn that explains why. It could be a really nice hotel with some minor upgrades, but it was just fine for our purposes.

The hotel is next to the airport and in a residential neighborhood, so we went for a short walk around the neighborhood which had a couple of schools and a lot of green space. We also saw a highlight reel of the birds we’ve come to love, including a flock of small cockatoos, a single and then a small pack of gallahs, green parrots, ibises, and finally as we were almost back to the hotel, a raven making its usual complaints as it flew by. We had a short relax in the hotel, then packed up and got on the shuttle for our usual early arrival to the airport. Check-in went smoothly with another nice chatty Qantas agent, and we settled in to wait for our flight. We did see something we’d never seen before – Qantas does a lot to make their top mileage frequent flyer and business class customers feel special, and in this case they had their own jetway to the business class section of the plane.

Our flight was uneventful, and our transfer to the international terminal was uneventful, even if it did feel as though we’ve seen all there is to see of the Sydney airport, between the bus ride to the turbo-prop that we took to Tamworth and this one which seemed to go on and on. We arrived at the international terminal with plenty of time to spare – in fact the monitor that displayed the departure times even told us to relax. It was impossible to relax, though, because this is one of those shopping mall duty fee international airports and we used up all our relaxing time window shopping! Highlights included finding small souvenirs for certain nieces and The two-story Mcdonalds with the kitchen on the top floow and a circular chain with clips to get the food downstairs.

Eventually it was time to go to our gate area, where Victor, an employee of the US government, picked us out for a little prescreen. The boarding process was a little chaotic – they boarded their special people first, and then opened the flight to general boarding. To be honest it didn’t seem like it took much longer than doing it by sections. Eventually we were all on board and here we go to Honolulu. We both slept some on the flight, and watching movies seems to make it go faster, and also lots of food and snacks. Once again it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. All during the trip our Qantas flights were delayed, and with a layover in Sydney that was just under 2 hours we’d been a little nervous, but both of our flights were on time. Speaking of time, we left Sydney on Wednesday evening 26/4 and arrived in Honolulu Wednesday morning 4/26.

From the plane you get herded onto the “wiki wiki” busses to go through immigration and baggage claim and customs. Our immigration officer was pretty relaxed and funny, making a big deal of ensuring that the koala I bought at the Perth zoo was not, in fact, a live koala. Baggage claim was a little scary because someone had pulled my bag off the carousel and put it with the business class bags, so we never saw it come through and had started looking around for the lost luggage office. But I went and checked again more carefully in the special luggage section and there it was, so it was through customs (nobody even wanted to talk to us) and then the part where you try to find the ride share pickup area which is always very far away with minimal signage. Our rider zipped us to the hotel and we tried to check in.

Our room wasn’t ready, so we left the bags and went to find some lunch. It was noon and we figured if we ate lunch at lunchtime we could eat dinner at dinnertime and start the system reset. We found a little sushi joint with table service across the street from Waikiki beach, and paid a bit of a premium for the service and location, but the sushi was very tasty and it was exactly the right place to have gone. We still hadn’t heard from the hotel, so we decided to walk to the zoo. On the way we passed a billabong store and Dave picked up a pair of shorts and a short sleeved shirt – he changed into the shorts in the store and was much more comfortable. The zoo is pretty good, lots of native plants, but one of those zoos that only has one or two of something that it should have a pack of. It did have a sloth and a large number of giant tortoises and reptiles, and we saw a rhinoceros peeing, which if you haven’t seen it you need to google it right now.

By now I was very hot and sweaty since I was still wearing jeans, and we decided to head back. We stopped at an ABC store (always a lucky feeling when you find one, she noted sarcastically – they are ubiquitous) and bought some sunscreen, and as we were walking back we got the notification that our room was ready. We checked in and got our bags and took showers and felt Much Better. We didn’t have a lot of time in our room because our uber was coming at 5 to take us to our dinner cruise, a sunset trip to Diamond Head on the Prince Kuhio.

The cruise was nice, the boat very slowly put-putted its way to Diamond Head and back while we enjoyed the sea breeze. The food was meh but it was a very nice evening out, and it didn’t even get too cold. We were thrilled to get back to the hotel and get ready for bed – it was a very long days!

Margaret River 4

Happy Anzac Day!

At Brewfarm

It rained all night and was still raining when we woke up, which was too bad because we are finally caught up on sleep from the cruise (late dinner+early sunrise=not enough sleep!) and would have had time for a nice walk up the river. The good news was that we still had half our breakfasts from yesterday so we didn’t have to go out in the rain to get fed. We had a quiet morning of packing and relaxing, then checked out and hopped in the van at 10:45. Our destination was Ngilgi Cave, about a 40 minute drive up to the northwestern tip of WA. Daniel hadn’t made a reservation, and the combination of public holiday (extra 15% gratuity added to your bill) so none of the wineries could open until noon AND it was raining so there was nothing to do AND the giant surf competition was cancelled the tour was fully booked by the time we got there. The ranger said it had never been that crowded in the 16 years he’d worked there. So that was a little disappointing. No wineries were open but there are a couple of places that do honey so we headed to one of them… also closed. Desperate, we stopped at the Margaret River Dairy Company who were advertising their cheese tasting, which turned out to be 3 bits of cheese on a stick. They had a little gift shop, though, so we wandered through it a bit and I found some mugs I just loved. No room in the suitcase though. We had driven through the town of Cowaramup on the way to the cave and noticed that in addition to cow statues everywhere they also had a chocolate store, so we stopped there and got some hot chocolate (and a flat white for Daniel) which made us all happier. Sadly it was raining hard otherwise we would have walked around the town center taking pictures with all the cows.

At Vasse Felix

It was now just before noon and the day was about to get much better; we made a stop at Stormflower which is one of Daniel and Lauren’s favorites. We only had about 25 minutes there because we had an appointment at 12:30, but there were only 7 wines and we zoomed right through it. They were all really good, especially the sparkling chenin and the pet-nat, which was funky in all the right ways. Overall it was our favorite of the small wineries. Our next stop couldn’t have been more different. Cullen is one of the 3 earliest wineries (along with Mosswood and Vasse Felix) in Margaret River, and they know it. It’s very pretty (although not as pretty as Voyager) and very spendy – the reserve tasting was $70 AU, which is more than 4 times more than almost anywhere we’ve been. Their wines were priced accordingly. So we tasted through many of their high end wines (not the $650.00 one) and they were all very well made and very refined – maybe a little too refined? The winery is both organic and seriously biodynamic, leading to modifiers for the wine names like “fruit day” “flower day” and my favorite, “Moon opposite Saturn”. Our pourer was their sommelier, a nice young guy who’d completed WSET 3 and was living the dream – their winemaker (Vanya Cullen, daughter of Kevin John Cullen and Diana Madeline Cullen, the original owners) has taken a liking to him and not only has him tasting all of their wines, including library wines, but also has him tasting great wines from around the world. He was very enthusiastic, used the word incredible an incredible number of times, and knew comparatively little about the actual winemaking process. I mention all the names above because many of the wines are named for them, often with the biodynamic tags listed above.

At Windance

The day continued to get better with lunch at Brewfarm, which is the restaurant we’d been hoping that River would be. We shared a bunch of small plates and had two 4-beer tasters and enjoyed them all. Daniel took our orders and we just sat at the table next to the space heater – in addition to being rainy all day it was cold. We’ll miss being pampered! This is a good place to talk about Aussie toilets again. Everywhere seems to have three types – Female Toilets, Male Toilets, and Unisex Toilets. They may be further classified as “Ambulant”, which seem to have a grab bar. So some of the toilets at this place were labeled Female Female Ambulant, and so on. Well, I find it fascinating.

We finished lunch at about 3, and our bus wasn’t until 4:45. We were all feeling like we’d done everything that needed to be done. The bus stop is just a stop, and it was still cold and windy and rainy, so our idea of just hanging out there until it was time to go was clearly not going to work. Daniel offered to let us come to his house and just sit by the fire again until it was time to go, which sounded perfect to us. So we did just that, and Lauren was gracious about being invaded, and it was a very pleasant end to our time together.

On the beach

We got to the bus stop just after 4:30 and the bus was already there. It was just a small shuttle bus for the short hop to Busselton, which seems to be the main stop between Perth and Margaret River (aka Margs in Aussie) whether you’re going by car or bus. Our Busselton-Perth bus was a standard long haul bus with a toilet, and we had an unremarkable ride to Perth Airport, arriving right on time at 8:45. Dave called the hotel for a shuttle and we waited outside for it – not raining in Perth. The airport seemed unusually busy for 9:00 – many people going in as well as coming out. There was a bit of a wait for the shuttle and I wondered if we should have just taken a taxi, but it turns out the shuttle didn’t take too long and a taxi is $40, which seems high. We got to the hotel and got checked into our very large, very basic room with a very thin blanket. We turned up the heat and went to bed.

A note about today's photos - we didn't take any pictures, so these are some photos of us that Daniel took. The only one from today is the top one at Brewfarm

Margaret River 3

Sure enough, it rained during the night, but when we woke up it wasn’t raining. We walked over to the Margaret River bakery and had granola and yogurt again, because we know we like it. You are hearing a little regret, because there were a lot of interesting options when we got up to the case, but it’s a popular place and we didn’t want to hold up the line. We only ate half of the yogurts and we may have them tomorrow, or we might go back so I can try something else.

The weather seemed to be holding so we dropped off our leftovers and went to see if we could find the walking path that alltrails showed. There was an obvious trail behind our unit and it did indeed meet up with the official trails, so we had a nice walk through a natural area on the banks of the river from which the district gets its name (Margaret, in case you missed it). It did rain on us a bit at first, but we have our rain jackets and rain hats and we’re from Oregon after all.

Daniel picked us up at 9:30 and we headed to our first destination Vasse Felix, the oldest winery in Margaret River. It turned out that we didn’t need to leave so early, so we stopped at an olive oil tasting place. They weren’t open yet so we got to tour a lakeside glamping (yes, that word is down here too) spot, which was cool to see. We went back to Olio Bello but it wasn’t quite 10, so we waited there until a little after 10, at which point Daniel decided it was time for them to be open, so he went and unchained the gates (he kept quiet about whether there was a lock) and we went in, followed by at least one other car. When we got in it started raining really hard, and the people who work there were so pleased not to have had to go open the gates that they gave Daniel 10% off his coffee. They had lots of olive oil to taste (we bought a tiny bottle of the kalamata oil, because who knew kalamatas were used for oil?) but also had lots of olive things like tapenades and non-olive things like jams and sauces and also baked goods and skin care items. A very good addition to our day.

Then it was off to Vasse Felix, established in 1967, to learn their history and the history of wine in the Margaret River. They are about the same age as David Hill where we work, but are much larger. Their focus is specifically on traditional varietals (Semillon, Sauv Blanc, Chardonnay, Cab Sauv and Shiraz) made with traditional methods. We did a little walk around the vineyard and then settled in to taste 10 wines, all of which were very good to very very good. Our tour guide/pourer Stephanie was very knowledgeable; she has done WSET (Way-Set, in Aussie) level 3 so we had good common ground for our discussions. You can look up the history of Tom Cullity and the winery on the internet, but I liked the story of where it got its name, which is the unexpected survival of a drunken French deckhand named Thomas Vasse – Lucky Vasse, in Latin.

After Vasse-Felix it was lunchtime at Fishbone, a Japanese restaurant and winery. They had wine tastings as well but we’d not gotten a good vibe about their wine from Daniel so we skipped that and headed right in to lunch, which was delicious; we started with a beef tataki (lightly seared Margaret River beef) and salmon sashimi; both were really outstanding. We followed up with a rainbow roll and double salmon roll, just a half roll (4 pieces) of each. They were also delicious, although I could have done without the sweet teriyaki sauce on both. Being able to order half rolls is really nice with only two people (Daniel ate with us the first lunch, but after that he didn’t do meals or tastings with us). In between the rainbow and the double salmon we had Korean-inspired chicken arancini, which really could have gone either way and turned out to be very tasty.

After lunch we headed across the street to the Margaret River Chocolate Factory, which is much more of what you’d expect a chocolate place to be in a tourist area, including Chokka the chocolate Quokka. Dave got some ice cream and I got a piece of chocolate covered Turkish delight, which I started eating when I was in England and which I’ve not found in the US, so that was yummy. On the way to our next stop I was talking about the chocolate chunk cookies that I’d successfully resisted at Gabriel Chocolates but hadn’t stopped thinking maybe resisting was not the right thing to have done.

Next stop was Fermoy Estates, whose tasting room made you think of a French barn without really looking like one. Their wines were pretty uniformly just good. One of the wines had in its description peach kernel and green olive pits, which aren’t words I’d look for in a tasty wine. In fact to me all of the wines were bitter, and the salinity that is a hallmark of Margaret River wines was a little overwhelming. So probably my least favorite of the places we’ve visited.

Daniel always disappears while we’re tasting, and this time he’d disappeared somewhere extra special – when we got back in the van we each had a Gabriel chocolates chocolate chunk cookie sitting next to our seat. They were just as good as they’d looked, with lots of gooey chocolate and an unusual slightly crumbly, cakey (sorry, Jen) consistency that we both approved of. We nibbled on them on the way to Voyager Estate, our last stop of the day.

Voyager had the prettiest grounds of anywhere we’ve been, and a nice cellar door with options for standing or seated tastings. We opted for the standing tastings because you got more wines (5 instead of 3) and coincidentally because they were a lot cheaper - $5 and $10 vs $15 and $20 for the regular and premium tastings respectively. And that’s something I haven’t really talked about, since Daniel takes care of all of those things, but tastings here are very inexpensive – the $20 one is about $14 US and is really high end. The wines are relatively inexpensive as well. We enjoyed the wines at Voyager a lot. I’d put Leeuwin on top, then Vasse Felix slightly above Voyager. We picked up a nice sparkling Chenin Blanc and a small bottle of sparkling grape juice to bring as a host/ess gift at dinner.

We had a quick stop at the hotel to freshen up and then a delightful part of our tour; dinner with Daniel and his partner Lauren and their daughter Nala who is 3 and a half and a good cuddler and harmonica player. Dinner was spaghetti with Bolognese sauce and Margaret River Chocolate Factory chocolates for dessert and it was so nice to eat in and get to know Daniel and his family a little better. The big van is spacious and comfortable but it’s a little hard to chat from the back seat to the driver. We enjoyed our evening very much, and also were pleased to have another early evening at the hotel.

Margaret River 2

We crashed at 9 last night and I slept until 7 and felt much refreshed! We had some early morning visitors first thing. We walked into the town center (around the corner) and had a nice breakfast of granola and fruit and yogurt, then made a quick stop at the IGA for spit cups, socks, and a new razor since I seem to have left mine on the ship. I keep bringing the wrong socks - I needed crew length in Pasadena, and ankle socks here. We made a huge discovery in the IGA that “pumpkin” is Australian for “squash”, so for example you would have butternut pumpkin. They don’t have the big orange things we call pumpkins. Anyway, we got back to the hotel and it was pretty much time to meet Daniel, so we threw our sandals and sunshirts and hats into our green bag that we got at Woolies in Sydney and headed out. I'd considered putting on a pair of short leggings under my pants but didn't, which turned out to have been the wrong decision.

First stop, Hamelin Bay to see the stingrays. Normally the bay is very calm and you can wade in the shallows and pet the stingrays. But there's a storm that's supposed to come in late tonight and apparently the wind from it is already stirring things up, so it was kind of wave-y. All three of us had rolled our pants up above our knees, and all three of us got wet up to mid-thigh. The rays were hard to see and certainly not pettable, but it was still cool.

Our next stop was supposed to be Flowstone Winery but they weren't open, so we went to Hamelin Bay winery instead. It was a very pretty view with undistinguished wines. We stayed there for a while admiring the view, then headed for our lunch and tour at Glenarty Road, which is both a farm and a winery. We started with a tasty sandwich outside the cellar door (cellar door is aussie for tasting room) and tasted our first three wines Our tour guide Bill, who seems to be sort of the right-hand man to the owners Ben and Sasha, told us how the history of the farm and how Ben and Sasha met, and then we walked around and saw the pigs and some of the vineyard, and then we stopped at the top of a hill and had veggies and something like labneh and three more wines and learned more about how they are farming sustainably and using their cover crops to feed the sheep and we also admired their macadamia trees. There was a family of 4 plus two kids – one maybe 6 or so, and an infant – with us on the tour and that was it. Sharla, the little girl, loved the macadamia nuts and kept trying to find ones that had dried enough to be edible. There were many interesting bits of information presented. One that I found really interesting is that after the berries have set but while they’re still hard and green and don’t taste good, they let the sheep into the vineyard and they eat all the leaves they can reach, which allows better air and sun circulation for the grapes, which the sheep won’t eat because they don’t taste good. They used to do it by hand but it was very time consuming – the sheep can do it in a day. It makes the vines look very neatly manicured, as they’re all trimmed to the same convenient-for-sheep-to-eat height.

We continued on around to see the sheep, who are a heritage breed that naturally shed their coats so they don’t need to be sheared – another example of the way they are keeping things less labor-intensive. Past the sheep we stopped at the platform where Ben and Sasha got married, and had some delicious house made charcuterie (from their own pigs) and local cheese and also some perfect and three more wines. On the walk back we got talking about huntsman spiders, the third deadliest spider in Australia. They are about the size of a man’s hand and completely non-venomous. In fact they are quite friendly and if one is on a table, say, you can wave your pointer and index finger at it and it will pick up two of its legs and wave back at you. So why so deadly, you might ask? It seems they have a habit of climbing into cars and hanging out on the back of the sun visor, so when the sun is in your eyes you reach up to put down your visor and a giant, hand sized spider falls in your lap, and then you crash into something and die. Daniel our guide says it’s true. The wines at Glenarty Road were all interesting and tasty, especially the pet nat, the fiano, and the semillon. One thing that was funny is that they have three levels of wine – the standards, the unusual, and the entry level – exactly the way we have at David Hill. Their entry level wines are called Farmhouse White and Farmhouse Red, just like home. Back to our table outside the cellar door for one last wine, a fortified mildly sweet Sauv Blanc. We tried it plain, then added a squeeze of lemon, then added some tonic water. I liked the final mix a lot. We got the recipe for the focaccia and then hopped in the van to our last winery of the day, Leeuwin Estates.

We’d had a Leeuwin wine before; when Dave was teaching his Chardonnays of the world class one of them was a Leeuwin, and I thought I remembered not liking it very much. But it turned out these were the best wines we’ve tasted so far and I liked the Chard very much, and we both especially liked the artist series Cabernet Sauvignon. Our pourer was busy but very good, and when Dave told him about the Chard he got very excited and poured us a few extra things. A new group came in next to us and it turned out they were from Bend, which was very small-worldy.

At this point we were wined out so we went back to the beach, this time Daniel’s favorite beach, Redgate. It had lots of interesting rocks as well as good swimming and surfing beaches, and we had a nice time walking along. It had very fine firm sand, quite different from the beach we went to yesterday. We stopped back at our room to grab jackets, and then Daniel dropped us off at The River, a nice pub-like place. We ordered too much food but very much enjoyed the roast eggplant and the spicy lentil cakes. We also had fish tacos, where the taco part wasn’t much but the fried fish inside was maybe the best deep fried fish I’ve ever had. We walked back to the hotel, and then had a quiet evening. The weather was beautiful all day, but it’s supposed to start raining tonight and rain for the remainder of our visit, so it’s nice we had a lot of outdoor time today.

Macadamia Nuts

Fiano (left) and Vermentino Grapes. 

This is a sparkling wine which is aged for a year in the ocean. The bottles get rolled around by the current, constantly stirring the lees and aging it more quickly. They scrape the corals and barnacles off. We didn't get to try any.

Margaret River 1

Our alarms were set for 6, but I woke up at 5:40 when they turned on some sort of engine that sounded like it was trying to shake the ship apart. We got dressed and went up to the pantry for breakfast and were ready to get off the ship by 7:20. We had VIP debarkation, so we went down to the Blue Room and they immediately escorted us to the exit – except that the bags weren’t going to be out yet, so we went back to the blue room for maybe 5 minutes, at which point they called our group (orange 2) and we headed towards the door. Mike and Judi were coming in right then, so they left with us and we went and picked up our bags together, then walked out of the terminal to find Daniel waiting in his giant black Mercedes van.

It's about a 3 hour drive from Freemantle to Margaret River, and I slept for a lot of it. We stopped at the Busselton Jetty and Dave and I walked out almost all the way to the end, narrowly avoiding being run over by the Busselton Jetty Train (not really, it moves very slowly and can be seen and heard a long way off). Daniel waited in the van. Lunch was at A La Carte restaurant at Aravina Winery in Yallingup. It’s a beautiful location and the weather was absolutely perfect; we sat outside on the deck and the food was both beautiful and delicious. The wines were good but not outstanding, but my miso roasted pumpkin main absolutely was. I word about courses: in Australia the entrée is exactly what it means in French; the beginning or starter, and the main is the main. It makes much more sense.

Next stop was Skigh (pronounced Sky) winery where we had someone who I think was the assistant winemaker come over and tell us everything and pour us everything, including a Verdejo (white Spanish varietal) that he used a wine thief to draw out of the amphora where it was undergoing whole cluster fermentation. It was a wonderful stop, even if the wines were more interesting than tasty.

Our next stop was at Windance Estate wines, a small biodynamic producer. The pourer was less engaging but the wines were definitely better, especially a Sauv Blac-Semillon blend and a botrytized Semillon dessert wine that was very light and delicious.

Our next stop was supposed to be a winery and a chocolatier, but we only had time for one of them so you can probably guess which one we picked. And when they found out it was our first visit to Gabriel Chocolate they did a tasting for us, starting with the 45% sweet milk and ending with the 80%. They are all single-origin chocolates and we ended up coming home with two 72% bars. I was unable to resist the orange-chocolate ice cream which was superb, as I’m sure the chocolate chunk cookies would have been if we’d gotten one.  Dave helped with the ice cream.

Then we drove to the beach for the sunset. There’s a huge surfing competition going on this week and Monday is Anzac day so thing are a little crowded. But Daniel knew where to take us, so we got to walk along the beach for about an hour. The sand is less firm than Oregon, more firm than Cape Cod. There is almost no tidal variation – less than half a meter today, sometimes as much as 2 meters in the winter (compare that to the 12 foot variation we get in Oregon). There are lots of interesting rock formations, some looking volcanic, others sandstone-y, and still others like remnants of coral reefs. The water temperature was perfect for wading with our pants rolled up. We walked along the beach to where the Margaret River almost makes it to the beach – during the winter it makes it all the way, but we’re at the end of the dry season. 

We came back to where Daniel was waiting and he set us up in super comfy butterfly camping chairs to watch the sun set while he went and got us fish and chips – in this case, the fish was just lightly fried, not even battered. It was perfect. We stayed for a while and watched it get dark, looking at Venus and a very thin crescent moon. Then we walked back to the van and he brought us to our hotel, the Margarets In Town Apartments (there are no apostrophes, although it feels like there should be), which are similar to the Matthew Flinders and will do just fine for the three nights we’re here, even if they have no shelves or drawers for unpacking. It’s clean, the bed is comfortable, and the internet is only slightly flaky. We’ll take it! 

Last (4th) Ship Day

Our last day on the ship and I’m finally hitting my stride. Dave took the morning sunrise shot, but there wasn’t quite enough time to get to abs class, so I got ready and got to stretch class in time to get a mat. The instructor, Abishad from India, seemed a little more engaged, and at one point we were doing a familiar stretch (on our backs, soles of the feet together, knees out to the side) and I glanced over at him and his knees were all the way down to the floor. I have never seen a man with hips flexible enough to do that, so I decided to stay for yoga, a 45 minute extra fee class, and for a change on a ship he actually did a real yoga flow, with a nice balance of challenge and stretch. It was really good. I stayed behind after to run through my mat pilates exercises, then headed back to the cabin to change but they were cleaning it, so I grabbed my sun shirt and went to breakfast. I asked to be seated at a shared table and then asked again when they seated my by myself, and ended up at a 4-top with another woman whose first words were “I don’t understand why I can’t sit alone when there are all these empty tables.” Not an auspicious beginning, but we ended up having a deep conversation about happiness and choices and the ability to be empathetic and it was lovely.

By now it was almost time for HotRhythms dance class, so I boogied over to the Explorer Hotel bar where there was absolutely nobody except me and the instructor. We decided to start class anyway, and the first dance was one we’d done the night before so that was fun. And of course as soon as we started dancing other folks came. We ended up learning two of the dances the cast had led us in last night with 10 or so people, and it was great fun as always although this cast member was not quite as good as explaining as the others I’ve had (Did I mention yesterday that I had to miss Hip Hop with Jesus because it was right during first contact? I feel like it was a once in a lifetime chance).

Afterwards I went back to the cabin and decided to use one of our cups of laundry detergent because I’m having laundry withdrawal and also it means I get to wear my favorite clothes instead of my second favorites for the rest of the trip. The timing messed us up a little for a sit down lunch, because I needed to get the stuff out of the dryer at 12:25 and Dave had a gin tasting at 1, so we ate in the Pantry which was fine.  It’s a nice selection but it is missing two major items: crisps (what we call potato chips) and cheese. Dave had moules frites and I had a small roll up. I had to go back later for some chicken.

After lunch I dealt with the laundry and Dave went off to his gin tasting which turned out to be very fun. Rather than just taste gin, they got 4 mini cocktails, and Dave sat next to a crusty old sea captain who was fun to talk to (old sea captain = a guy with a boat that he hires out when he feels like it, and who also repairs things at the yacht club on a similar basis). I did more ship touring – just seeing if I can get the layout in my head – and relaxing in the cabin. Dave did some sitting on the promenade deck and went to another lecture. He also shared a discovery with me that was quite shocking: there is no free ice cream on the ship, aside from desserts in the dining room. They have an ice cream place but it is yet another of the extra fee items. This is so wrong, it seems like it ought to be a violation of maritime law. How can you call yourself a family vacation destination and charge for the ice cream?

At 4 was the last dance class, a line dance class where we learned two songs. Unlike this morning it was very well attended, and the teacher was good too. One of the songs was Danza Kuduro which is a favorite, and it was a quick learning crowd. Afterwards a woman I’ve danced near several times commented that I seem to catch on quick, which was a big compliment for me. I’d thought about going to exercise class at 5 – it’s an interval class – but I decided I’d rather save my energy for dancing in the explorer hotel at 6. So I went back to the cabin and relaxed some more. We’re heading northeast, and the sun has been shining on our balcony all day, but it’s finally moved (or we’ve turned, not sure) so that it’s comfortable to sit out at our little table, one of my favorite places to blog. I also did a little pre-packing. Even though this cabin is the hugest we’ve ever had, access to the dressing room and drawers is tricky for two people.

A note about lanyards; we had special name badges on lanyards with clips that held our room keys. I’ve always made fun in my head about people who wear them. They are wonderful. I apologize to all the people I have made fun of.

Sadly the music at 6 was a sing-a-long, not dancing, so I went back to the room and showered and we had a nice dinner with Stuart exchanging stories. It didn’t take long to get packed up, and then there’s the sad moment of putting the suitcases outside. We’ve not been giant fans of this ship or P&O, but being at sea is always wonderful, and we’ve had an amazing time.

Next stop: Margaret River!

Eclipse!!!

We woke up at our usual time; we had already entered Exmouth Gulf and in the calm water our ship left a beautiful wake. Dave went to get sunrise pix (he missed by about 3 minutes) and for the first time I made it up to the gym for abs and stretch classes. They’re not very good, but they’re still good, if you get my meaning. Then I headed down to breaky in the dining room, where I sat with two nice Aussie cousins, one of whom had seen one eclipse(Susan)  and one who hadn’t seen any (Sharon). Susan is a former school principal from out near Coonabarabran, and we had an interesting talk about schools. She’s a very articulate, educated woman, but then we started talking about her first eclipse, and when she tried to describe it she was struggling. “It was.. well, I felt…I seemed like…”  I think there are two kinds of people, one like her (and me and Dave) where it’s more than just motions in the sky, and others that think it’s nice.

By 9:30 the ship was anchored in Exmouth Gulf and we were out on deck 11 aft, which they’ve cordoned off for our eclipse group. We’re facing south, so the sun will be over the ship. As Elise said, it’s a place to watch the eclipse, not necessarily the best. After first contact (when the moon’s shadow first touches the sun) I went for a walk around the ship, and it seemed like everybody was up and outside. On our deck they handed out ritz crackers for pinhole viewing, which Dave made sure I got attribution for in one of his conversations. With about 90 minutes between 1^st and 2^nd contact (2^nd contact also known as totality), I decided to go get my computer and see if I could get some blogging done. With everybody out on deck looking up the internet was the fastest I’d ever seen on a ship, and I was able to get some pictures into the 1^st cruise day blog and get the 2^nd cruise day blog written and posted – with pictures, although not very carefully placed. I was racing the moon to get the link to the last blog posted, and it went up about 12 minutes before totality.

That was good timing, because that’s about when things start to get noticeably weird in an eclipse. Through our viewers we could see that the moon had covered most of the sun, leaving a “new sun” crescent peeking out. The color of the light got grayer, and it got noticeably cooler – I’d started the eclipse feeling uncomfortably warm in my lightweight sunshirt, and by this time I’d started to wonder if I should have brought a warmer thing up with me. Mike (of Mike and Judi) had turned Dave on to an app that talks your through the eclipse, telling you how many minutes are left and what to look for, and Kelly was up on the bridge counting off the time and announcing the stages. It all starts happening really fast as the moon completely covers the sun – the sun’s corona becomes visible, the bright spots that are the sun peeking through the mountains on the moon, the growing darkness. Sometimes you can see the moon’s shadow approach; we saw it clearly in Wyoming but not so much here. And then it’s totality, and you can stop using the filter, and there’s a black hole in the sky and the ambient light is lower and there’s sunset all around and everybody is yelling and looking. This eclipse was so short – about a minute – that there was almost no time between the start of totality (2^nd contact) and the moment when the edge of the moon starts to move off the sun (3^rd contact). Way, way too soon Kelly was saying “filters on” and it was over. Then we all had to cheer and look at each other and say too short! Do it again! We were standing next to a first timer and he just had the biggest smile. There’s another eclipse coming up in Australia in 2028 and I think that all the Aussies on the boat are ready!

We weren’t sure when we were going to be underway, so we walked up to 7 forward looking to see if we could see the anchor. We found a place where there was a hole in the floor and big links of chain going down into it, and over on the other side a similar rig with what might have been the top of an anchor visible, so we thought that might be it. By then it was lunchtime already! We ended up in the Waterfront and moments after I realized the menu is always the same there and we’d tried everything on it that we wanted to try, the waiter arrived with a brand new menu. I had the seafood stew, which was seafood in a nice white sauce covered with mashed potatoes and it was very tasty. Dave finished what I couldn’t eat. During lunch the internet was swamped and we couldn’t get on. We’d gotten a table for just the two of us by the window with the sun visible, and I took the opportunity a couple of times to watch the rest of the eclipse – I think I just missed 4^th contact, when the sun completely comes out from the shadow of the moon.

After lunch we went back to the cabin and spent a while just looking over the back of the ship, enjoying the quiet and the way the sun shone off of the water. It's usually pretty noisy out here and of course the engines churn up the water a lot, so it was an unusual sight - normally the only time you'd see the back of the ship so calm is when you're docked. Dave showered and got off all the sunscreen (I showered before lunch) and while he was showering I did the wordle (in 2!) and some duolingo and started to fall asleep. Dave went to have a beer on deck and I took a nap. I woke up when I felt the engines start to shake the couch and went onto the balcony to see if we were moving. We weren’t, but I could hear the captain’s announcement that we were about to raise the anchor. I slipped on my shoes and headed to 7-forward, moving faster and faster until I was running pretty fast. As I got close I could hear an incredible amount of noise, and when I got to the screen that closes off the front of the deck I could see the chains moving. There was a good sized crowd but there are advantages to being short, so I got to where I could see pretty well. The chain stopped moving after a while so most people figured it was done. I went up to get a closer look and happened to be standing right in front when it started up again, and I stayed there until the anchor came up into the hole and looked just like the spare. I didn’t take any pictures or video because the noise was just too loud to take my hands away from my ears.

By then it was about 2:30, so I headed to the Marquee theater to get seats for the 3:00 talk on aboriginal astronomy. I messaged my location to Dave and he joined me not long after. The talk was very interesting, especially the part that connected aboriginal stories to actual events (a super nova, a meteor striking the earth, a volcanic eruption) in a way that you could date the story back thousands or even 30,000 years. The speaker was again very engaging.

Rush rush rush from there to dance class, which was right next door. I don’t think I mentioned the Gatsby night, where everyone dressed in flapper-era clothing and you could make a Gatsby headband earlier in the day (for a small fee, of course). Tonight is Bianco night, where everyone is supposed to where white. These two nights happen on all P&O cruises, and it’s how you tell repeat cruisers from newbies, since there’s nothing in any of the pre-cruise information that talks about it. Anyway, tonight everyone is supposed to wear white, and the dance class was to learn the steps to the Bianco dance. It was taught by one of the cast members, a very enthusiastic and energetic young man who did a great job of getting us through the choreography. My ability to remember choreo has improved over the years – I could remember all 4 of the step sequences! It was a good time.

After class I went back to our cabin to do more writing and posting and Pilates homework, and I finally remembered a trick to post both my pictures and Dave’s without downloading them first, which is to make them into a google photos album. I know you don’t care about that, but I’m hoping writing it down here will stick it in my memory for next time I’m blogging in a place with spotty internet! 

Dave had an enjoyable time on deck, then came down to get me and we went to watch the sunset. There was a green flash that lasted an unusually long time; one person on deck was shouting “Green ray! Green ray! Two amazing solar events in one day!”. We stayed out while it got dark and Dave tried unsuccessfully to find Mercury –we used our hands to measure astronomical distances like we learned in the lecture, but it didn’t help. Meanwhile, the sky did something I don’t ever think I’ve seen before. A large section of it right above where the sun had set turned rose pink. It lasted a really long time, and below it the low orange-y clouds on the horizon formed a semi-circle under it, as if they were a cradle for it. I took a lot of pictures of it, but none of them really show how lovely and strange it was.

We had dinner with Stuart from our land tour and Darren and Peter from Pennsylvania; Darren was totally self-centered and should have been annoying but for some reason I got a kick out of him. The food continued to be surprisingly good and it was a two-dessert night; tiramisu and sticky date pudding, because who can choose? There wasn’t any observing since the ship has turned around so the back deck faces North, which nobody cares about. There was the Bianco party, and so I went and danced for 45 minutes or so; the cast came out and danced a number and then did the dance we’d learned in the afternoon so we could join in, and then two other line dances that were easy enough to figure out, and also Danza Kuduro which we learned on the Panama Canal cruise. That was enough, so I headed back to the cabin for a quick shower (Dave was already in bed) and bedtime. 

 This picture of a mustard station is for Ben. 

2nd Ship Day

I woke up in a much better mood, and planned to go to stretch class since it’s still fun to take class even if the instructor is meh. I managed to dink around the cabin long enough that by the time I got up there class was full, so I headed down to the dining room and had a delightful breaky with a couple from Perth (originally Queensland) and a woman from Sydney who is here with her sister who doesn’t get up until noon. They were full of information and stories about Australia and their travel adventures, and we had a very nice chat. The couple had the advice that some inside cabins are actually mini-suite sized, just no windows, which is interesting.  I had the tofu scramble (called the farmer’s market breakfast) with quinoa and veggies and potato cakes, and I think that may be my new favorite breakfast. Dave might join me tomorrow morning as he’s fed up with the bad benny’s in the pantry – the hollandaise is more like white sauce, apparently.

After breakfast our laundry appeared – did I mention they ended up doing it for free? – and I headed out for salsa dance class while Dave went to another lecture. On the way I was able to stop in the shops and found some sandals that work – I have the wrong shoes for this part of the trip, I want my tevas and my mesh sneakers. Anyway, I got to class early and waited around for half an hour after it was supposed to start, then finally gave up. I did have a nice chat to Greg and Rachel, a couple currently living in Perth but originally from Queensland. I stood in line at the internet desk for a while to find out why the messages feature on our phones wasn’t working (log out and back in and all will be well), then headed back to the cabin. On the way I passed the salsa class location and it was going, but was almost done. Maybe next time. I had time for some blogging before lunch. Meanwhile Dave went to a wine tasting, which turned out to be well done. They tasted 6 wines in 50 minutes, and the wines were good to very good and all Aussie. Dave had a good tablemate and enjoyed it very much.

I need to mention here that when we were at dinner with Kelly, the senior editor at Sky & Tel, I mentioned something about using the holes in Saltine crackers as pinhole viewers during an eclipse, and at two different lectures he’s mentioned how someone on the trip (me! me!) told him about using Ritz crackers (so he’s fancier than I am). I feel pretty proud to have taught an expert a new trick. I also want to mention that while I was in line at the internet desk I got some questions from Avery and Hannah via Ben which I answered but will include here:1. Can we see a picture of the mysterious door? I should have said that what’s mysterious that we didn’t know where the door would lead – the door itself isn’t mysterious. 2. Can we see pictures of the water slides? 3. Where does the slide dump you out? Into the ocean? Are there sharks in the slides? The slide ends in a short flat section on the ship, although the slide itself hangs out over the ocean a bit and there are no sharks.

Lunch in the dining room was fun, we sat with a couple who were originally from Scotland but now live in Perth. We had a nice chat, although there were quite a few times when the combo accent just defeated us. Then we split up for the afternoon, Dave to some lectures and me to do some Pilates studying and attempting to blog. There’s not that much to write about, it’s just nice being out here in the warm sunshine.

At 4 I went to Flashdance dance class, which was only about 15 minutes long but packed quite a punch. One of the cast members taught us some moves to the song Maniac from flashdance, and we all had a good time trying to keep up. I was looking forward to practicing my moves on the dancefloor tonight. You may remember that Dave won $100 in the Spa raffle our first night on board; he generously gave it to me and I had a wonderful 75 minute hot stone massage that smoothed me out like kneading smooths out bread dough. Last time I had a hot stone massage it was basically what you see in the pictures, the warm stones lined up down your spine. This was some heavenly massage lotion that made me feel like I was liquifying, and stones that looked like they were Himalayan pink salt heated to just below too hot that she used to work out the last bits of muscle tightness. It was heavenly.

After the massage I ran into Dave coming in from outside (what are the chances) where he’d been watching the sunset, and we both went out and watched some more as the high clouds put on a wonderful light show. We had a little time before it was time to go for dinner, so I copied some pictures from our phones to my computer (by connecting them with a USB cable, how quaint!) in the hopes of posting a blog. We were hoping to be one of the lucky 36 to get in on the 7:30 reservation at Angelo’s, the no-extra-fee Italian restaurant, and we were. They’d set aside a private area for our group, and it was only about 2/3 full – we think that most folks are just going to eat when they feel like it, free wine notwithstanding. We sat with Normandy (another nurse) and Brian (a community college math and computer science teacher) and had an enjoyable evening. The desserts have been meh so far, but tonight’s flourless chocolate cake (Dave) and Tiramisu (me) were very nice.

Brian’s alarm went off at 8:50 telling us it was time to get ready to go outside for the star viewing. We stopped at the cabin to rug up, as they say here, but it turns out we’ve gone far enough North that it’s warm outside even at 9. The lights were still on when we got out there and Greg Redfern was talking about the plan for tomorrow and answering questions. Eventually the lights went off, but it was cloudier and hazier than last night so I went in. I thought there was going to be dance music from 9-11, but it turns out I was mistaken, and there is nowhere to dance at all on this ship. So that was a little disappointing. I came back to the cabin to continue to fight with the internet – I think it’s something to do with my computer, because I can get slow internet on my phone.

I finally figured out my internet problems! I have the laptop set up so that some of the directories are uploaded to the cloud automatically. When I’m home this is great, because it means that things are available on my laptop, my phone, and my desktop without any effort on my part. One of the directories that is automatically updated is the pictures directory, where I download all the photos so I can upload them to the blog. Then my laptop was trying to upload them to the cloud, which used up all the bandwidth. I’ve made it so the photo directory won’t back up any more, so blogs should get more timely.