My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
Our first few runs were just sea days in between stops in Brisbane (which was 30 minutes from civilization). We started going to Airlie Beach, then Airlie Beach, Cairns and Port Douglas, then we repositioned to cruise out of Sydney and we would go to Eden and New Castle, then Brisbane, Airlie Beach, Cairns and Port Douglas. Basically we were doing a lot of repeat ports with the occasional Tangalooma thrown in there. After building up to our first official 12 day cruise, we had our 28 day cruise all the way around Australia. Finally we were going to places I’d never been before! Places I’d heard of as being really far away! And lots of places I hadn’t heard of before. I asked my friend Clara and her girlfriend which places I shouldn’t miss, and made sure I’d be able to get off the ship on those days. Our first stop was Darwin.
What I’d heard about Darwin was that the thing to do was to get a tour with snapping crocodiles, but everyone signed up for that tour so they were all filled up. Claudine, my friend from Shore Excursions, said that what she really wanted to do was the cage of death – where you swim in a little plastic tank and crocodiles are on the other side of the plastic wall. We looked into that as well – it was expensive, but it was sold out. After a nice breakfast in the shade, we decided to go to the crocodile place to see if there were any cancellations. What we found on our way was a hot, humid and delightful city. There were cops on segways who rode the segways onto an elevator up to a skywalk. We followed them. We each took turns requesting to stop and look in a shop to find souvenirs and air conditioning. Finally we made our way to Crocosaurus Cove and decided to pay the basic entry fee to get in. We wandered around looking at the tanks of all the different crocodiles and lizards.
Bri decided to pretend she was lecturing the crocodiles
But then they started listening and swimming toward her
Mostly they just hung out in the water, snuggling up on each other.
Half of the production cast was there already. There was a live feeding that we decided to attend. We assumed that they would be feeding crocodiles, but it turned out to be a demonstration of a snake eating a rat. It seemed like the kid doing the lecture was incredibly bored. He delivered his speech as if he made it three times a day and had no idea how many jokes were tucked in there. We were cracking up. Our favorite line was delivered in all seriousness. After going into great detail about what to do if you are bitten by a poisonous snake to avoid death, he said, “of course, the best way to avoid getting bitten by a snake, is to stay far away from snakes.”
We have been quoting him ever since.
I can’t tell you how delighted I was to realize that I’d worn my crocs that day.
We wandered around checking out the crocs from above, and then we went down to observe from below.
As we rounded the corner, we found the cage of death! It didn’t look nearly as fun in real life as it did on the internet! I was very happy about saving that money and just seeing someone else do it.
It looks really cool in the pictures, but in real life, up above in the light of day, we were asking once you’re in that plastic tank and the crocodile is there, then what do you do?
On the way back to the ship we stopped for drinks in a bar with a giant tree in the middle and cheers’d our glasses to our friend Dusan who had been abruptly transshipped that morning. We made our way back through the town and ended up at a wave pool near the ship. I so appreciated the irony of living on the ocean where, at time, everything we do is swayed by the waves, where we can swim in oceans all over the world, and here were were, paying $8 AUS to swim in a pool with fake waves.
We were close enough that I could go back to the ship for cambusa where I can get flats of bottled water to keep in my cabin, and then go back to the wave pool.
On my final return to the ship I found this flower on the ground:
It reminded me of the plastic flowers they sell in Hawaii to put in your hair. It was so pretty and different from the flowers that I’m used to seeing fall on the ground that I really felt like I was on the other side of the world.