My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
Though our homeport was Melbourne and we did a few runs of South Australia, I feel like I’ve only dipped my toe in the water. I’ll have to come back again to be able to say that I’ve BEEN to Australia.
Melbourne Turnaround Day. This was the day a lot of people got off the ship (so someone needed to smile and say goodbye) to immediately be replaced by people getting on the ship (so someone was needed to smile and welcome them aboard). Sometimes there were people who sailed Auckland to Auckland or Adelaide to Adelaide, so then we also needed someone to do a music trivia or a bean bag toss. Even if it was our day off, we still had to be back on board ready to work at 2pm. After all the goodbye parties from the night before, I tried to sleep in until 8 or 9am. Plus many of the places I wanted to go weren’t open until then anyway. My mom knows lots of people (and some family friends) in Melbourne who I would have really enjoyed getting together with, but with only a few hours (and usually in the middle of 6 sea days), I usually desperately needed to get some fast internet, snacks from the grocery store and sushi!
Matt found this sushi place that was within walking distance from the port, and it had the best sushi I’d found in the southern hemisphere. It also had good Wifi. It became a Melbourne tradition. The first time we went, we rented bikes from the Melbourne bike share. I got a flat tire, but still had so much fun (especially when I figured out why I seemed to be struggling so much more than Matt). After that, the bikes were gone, so we walked. It was closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which I didn’t realize until the last time I went, which was a Wednesday. My phone still connected to the Wifi, so I hung out outside for my limited chance to connect with the rest of the world, and then set out to find somewhere else. After that, I carefully traded around my Melbourne days off so that I could go get sushi again. Unfortunately, Corona virus shut those plans down early.
Phillip Island Phillip Island was another nice long port, though inconveniently, a water shuttle port. The thing to do here was to watch the penguins come in at sunset. There was a special shore excursion for that– everyone had to be back on board at about 5pm or so, then that tour left at 7pm and came back after 10pm and we would sail at 11pm. My mom saw the penguins and said the experience was awesome. I was never able to finagle my way on to that tour– we had to entertain all of the guests who didn’t go, which was most of them. Sometimes this was the last night of the cruise, which was weird because we like to say goodbye on the last night, but it was a port night. Plus it was really hard on the crew who worked on the bridge and the ones involved with the shuttles. The sail away only started at 11pm (and went later) and then the process of coming into Melbourne started for them at about 3am.
When I had the day off in Phillip Island, I took the water shuttle to the pier. The only thing to do there was to take the wheel shuttle into Cowes, which was apparently a town there. It was a cute town. The first time, I wandered alone looking in the shops for headbands and tule– The Melbourne cup was coming up and we needed to gather supplies to make fascinators. For those of you who haven’t been down under, let me do some interpreting for you (I didn’t realize how much I’d picked up the local language): Cowes sounds like an animal but was actually the name of the town. The Melbourne Cup is a horse race that is a big deal, like a sport. I guess it’s like a super bowl of horse racing. Now that I think about it, I wonder why big sports games are named after dishes. People were very concerned about this cup being on tv– I’ll have to tell you about the actual event in another post. A fascinator is not necessarily a fascinating person, or a fancy button or sticker (or something else that fastens), but a gaudy head piece that women wear to important horse races. Anyway, they didn’t have any of the things I was looking for in Cowes.
Cowes did, however, have free internet in the middle of the street! It worked well enough that I was able to activate my Australian SIM card! Hello data! Though I enjoy going off the grid from time to time, it’s nice to have more options to be connected when I want to be. At the bottom of the hill I found a restaurant that seemed like it was part of a hostel. It had pizza with sweet potato on it. I was sold!
I love when foreign places put weird stuff on pizza! In Italy I was delighted to regularly find on the menu American Pizza– cheese pizza with hot dogs and fries (chips to the Brits) right on top! I’ve never seen this in America! I also loved that every vegetarian pizza was different– some had corn, zucchini (courgette) or eggplant (aubergine). This pizza was delicious. I liked it so much, that the next time I was off at this port months later, I came back with Randi and Lauren. We wanted to find some Koalas or Kangaroos to pet, but we figured out at the last minute (which is when we were making our plans) that this wasn’t the port to do it. We had pizza and pitchers, went for a walk on the beach, and then stopped for ice cream on our way back.
There was also a convenient grocery store in Cowes, which is a huge selling point for crew, as I’ve mentioned. It also seemed that the Aussies weren’t big Trump fans…
Port Lincoln Port Lincoln. It was February and My mom was going to Port Lincoln. We did this run a few times, so I must have been there. I tended to be able to get off the ship in a port about every other time, except when it was cancelled or if I traded it for something. For weeks it vexed me– I could not remember Port Lincoln. Then I got off the ship and it all came flooding back– the first time I had gone there for only a couple of hours in the middle of the night!
I must have been IPM (had to work) a couple of times, and then when I was finally able to go the port before it was cancelled, or we sailed away late, so my day off turned out to be a surprise sea day, though we did end up getting in to Port Lincoln at about 5pm. Arriving at 4 or 5 didn’t mean that’s when we could get off the ship yet– they had to set up the gangway and stuff. With activities starting at 7pm (you know, since we’d supposedly had the whole day off) I didn’t have time to get off before the evening. I finished at 9:30pm, changed my shoes, took off my name tag, and Lauren and I headed out. We would be in Port Lincoln overnight, and I was IPM the next day, so this was my chance! It was a ‘short’ walk into town that as much as we tried to convince ourselves it was shorter and worth it, was actually closer to an hour. There were literally two businesses open. We met the other crew who had gotten off work at 6pm at a hotel bar. We laughed and I finished Emily’s food (the Captain’s Circle Host). I had two drinks that cost four times as much as they would have on the ship– but they were local and from the tap! Then I walked home making sure I got in before midnight.
When I arrived the next time in the daytime, the shuttle bus was waiting. I skipped the long walk into town and went searching for sushi. It was one of those days where I had been supervising the shuttles all morning, ran into Henry who also wanted to get Sushi. We would change and meet at the gangway. I got a call from Yukie who was also off that day, and she asked if I wanted to go out with her. Sure! She came with Gareth (the newest cruise staff on the team), and the 4 of us headed out. There was no good sushi (only a takeaway place that was also offered Chinese food). I looked up suggestions on tripadvisor and led my crew to the best food in Port Lincoln. There we ran into a singer and one of the dancers. They loved this place– they went every Port Lincoln (they get off the ship more often than we do).
Now fed, we split up and I hit the grocery store before heading back to the ship for a nap that couldn’t be postponed any longer.
Kangaroo Island I heard that Kangaroo Island was beautiful. Some people booked their cruise just to go to Kangaroo Island. I never made it there. The first time we were supposed to go was on Halloween. I had gotten on a tour so I negotiated and traded activities so that I could go, but then it was deemed too rocky and the port day became a sea day. It was cancelled two more times (because of the fires– Austrailia had had a rough year and it was only March when I left it), so I gave up on getting to go. I was ready for the last one to be cancelled, but it wasn’t. Unfortunately, it was my turn to be IPM.
Adelaide AdelAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIDE! So many of our guests were from Adelaide, and they all wanted to show us the town when we were there! Once again, the theme recurs– there’s stuff to do in the morning, we have to be back by a certain time, there’s a train to get into the city that can have us waiting for an hour to an hour and a half, so it’s hard to plan a way to get together in advance. I definitely didn’t see enough of Adelaide. The first time I went, I was in desperate need of a city. I ran around, walking to grocery stores and other errands of civilization that you can’t find on a ship and rushed back to find out that we would be there overnight. That might have been the same night or it might have been a different night. The night we were there overnight, I traded some activities around so I could have dinner with Matt ON LAND! Where did we go? Sushi!
[Insert Picture] Matt took a picture of me eating sushi that I found incredibly unflattering. I told him to delete it, so obviously he showed it to anyone who would look at it. He also shared it in a presentation for a bunch of people I don’t know, but when I asked him to send me the picture so I could share it with you, he said it was on a USB that was not in his possession. So sorry! You don’t get to see the picture I hate of me eating sushi in Adelaide.
After dinner we met up with some of the cast and their plus one’s at a secret bar. It was dark and the door was unlabeled and hard to find. In port there is always the nagging awareness of making sure we are able to get back on the ship on time. It’s unsettling on the rare occasions when that deadline of needing to be somewhere has been extended to the next day. We still made it back at a reasonable hour.
My final time in Adelaide, Lauren and I were again going to try to pet Kangaroos or Koalas but we didn’t plan anything ahead of time. With only a couple of hours to spare, we found ourselves on a rooftop bar near the train station enjoying a beautiful day.
As you may have gathered, on the ship we’re always busy– planning for events and activities on board and doing those events and activities on board– so when we have a moment to breathe, we breathe. The moments are so hectic that it’s really hard to plan anything in advance. On top of that, so many things change at the last minute– we don’t get our schedule until the night before, so even if we know what days we’ll be in a certain place, we don’t know how long or when we can get off. And that time is also usually the only time we have to catch up on rest. And if we want to be in contact with the people on shore, by the time we have this information, we don’t have cell service, or the internet stops working. If I get the chance to go to Australia again, I will do more research about the places I want to go and the things I want to see, and I’ll make loose plans with the people I want to visit. And maybe I’ll get to see a real Koala.