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Adelaide, South Australia

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January 13, 2019 We covered the shortest travel leg of the trip last night, sailing just 57 nautical miles from Kangaroo Island to Adelaide. At the dock, when we arrived, were hundreds of imported cars, mostly Toyotas. Our guide said at one time Australia had 4 car plants, including Ford and GM, but the last one closed 2 years ago. They also do not manufacture major appliances like refrigerators. Global trade is critical to them. She also said they hear more about Trump than their own Prime Minister. The day, Sunday, was sunny, breezy with low humidity, temp about 80. Adelaide is the capitol of South Australia. We drove through the city to Mt. Lofty, and like Perth, it was another well maintained urban area. Lots of parks with very few people in them. Some roads were blocked off, as the Tour Down Under bike race was beginning. We had a picture taking opportunity at Mt. Lofty, ~2,400 ft., where there were good views of Adelaide, the region, and the South Ocean. We drove through so...
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Kangaroo Island, South Australia

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January 12, 2019 After two days across the Great Australian Bight, we anchored in the harbor of Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island.  A small island off the south coast, it is home to seals, penguins, sea lions and, of course, kangaroos. We were told the penguins are out at sea during most of the day fishing and come back to the island at night. Keeping to our reputation of seeing very little wildlife on trips, we saw nothing. We did see another good sunset off our portside cabin on the ship. While in the town we walked on the beach and enjoyed a lunch of fish and chips at a small local restaurant. The owner recommended Tommies as the local fish of choice that day and it was very light and tasty.  Across from the restaurant was a typical Aussie 4-wheel drive vehicle equipped with a snorkel. This allows them to drive through water without ruining the air intake and filter. We were back from town on the tender in time for Jan’s nap and team trivia. 
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Cruising the Great Australian Bight

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January 10 and 11, 2019 There were two sea days to get from Esperance to Kangaroo Island. This part of the ocean, off Southern Australia,  is called the Australian Bight. Nothing south of us but Antarctica about, 6000 km away.  This is probably the closest Jan will get to Antarctica. Ocean and air temperatures are significantly cooler than we experienced in Northern Australia. Very few people at the pool today as it was windy with temps in high 60s. One of our guest speakers this week was Dr. Alan Stern. He is Director of the NASA New Horizons program that explored Pluto and then kept going to reach the Kuiper Belt and the dwarf planet Ultima Thule on January 1.  Amazing technology.  Pluto is the size of a continent on earth while Ultima Thule, where they just did a flyby, is 22 km long. They were exactly on target in reaching both. The spacecraft  travels at 52 Km/per hour. Launched in 2006, it reached Pluto in 2015.  Ultima Thule was  discovered ...
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Esperance, WA and the whitest beach in the world

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January 9, 2019 Yesterday, January 8, was a sea day with the usual activities. The only notable event was winning some shipboard credit at the Cruise Consultant’s presentation. This will go toward reducing Jan’s Canyon Ranch bill! We were able to anchor in the harbor at Esperance and tender in for a tour of this beautiful part of Western Australia. Esperance was founded in the late 1800’s to support the mining industry in WA and is in an isolated part of the country. The city of about 20k is off the Australian electric grid. They have a generator at the harbor that ran on diesel for many years before converting to natural gas. 23 years ago they put in a small wind farm that supported part of their needs. It is close to the end of its useful life and will not be replaced. We visited Australia’s only, and one of four in the world, fish tanning companies.  Who knew you could create strong, dyeable leather from fish skin? All the skins used come from fish caught for human food, ...
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Freemantle and Perth

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January 7, 2019 We arrived at the port of Fremantle in the morning.  At the mouth of the Swan River, Freemantle  is a major cargo terminal for exports of coal, iron ore, nickel and agricultural products. The state of Western Australia, known to locals as WA, occupies about 1/3 of the country’s area with less than 3 million people. The state capital is Perth, about 20 miles up river from Fremantle.  It is known as the world’s most isolated capitol city, being over 4 hours from Sydney by air. We took a tour from Fremantle, stopping at a beautiful beach and driving through some nice suburbs. Beaches were busy here because we are south of where the stingers are in the ocean.  In Perth, we went to the Perth Mint where we saw a demonstration of melting gold to create 2kg solid gold bars. The mint has displays of Australian gold mining that started with their gold rush in 1890. Some of the gold nuggets on display weighed as much as 25kg.  The biggest ever found was o...
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Cruising the Indian Ocean

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January 2-6, 2019 We successfully left busy Benoa harbor, not running aground like a Regent sister ship did last year as it avoided two local fishing boats illegally in the channel.  We watched the departure from the top deck with a passenger who had been on that ship.  They had an extra 4 days in Bali. David left dinner the next night abruptly before dessert not feeling well and laid low for the next day.  Seas were calm so we suspect something he ate.  We skipped the tour in the small town of Broome. Some people took a camel ride along Cable Beach, in the top 5 of the over 10,000 beaches in Australia.  Broome was once a big pearling center and was one of the Australian towns attacked by the Japanese. We were docked at the end of a 2,700 ft. pier built to overcome the difficulties of the 30 foot tidal range.  The next day (Jan. 4) was at sea,  heading further down the western coast toward Exmouth.  This small town was once home to a US mili...
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Bali, Day 2 Happy New Year 🎉

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January 1, 2019 After a brief night’s sleep, we had a room service breakfast and met our guide again for a visit to a large Hindu temple. The Uluwatu temple is located on a cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean, one of the six key temples that serve as the spiritual pillars of Bali. It   is home to a number of aggressive monkeys. We were told to remove our glasses, jewelry, things in pockets. After putting on sarongs, we walked to the temple along the cliffside paths. Two young Chinese tourists who apparently did not read the warning signs (in Chinese) had their glasses stolen and broken by a monkey.  We did not get close to the monkeys, and they did not bother us. We stopped at a little coffee/tea shop where they grow coffee and offered us a sampler of 14 teas and coffees. The only coffee they had a small charge for was Luwak. This coffee comes from special beans that are fed to Luwaks (mongoose) who digest the outer covering and then poop the beans.  The bean poop is c...
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