NZ-Australia, Feb. 20-22, 2024

Tuesday, Feb. 20 – Cruising Foveaux Strait

The narrow Foveaux Strait separates New Zealand’s South Island from Stewart Island, also known as Rakiura (or “the Land of Growing Skies”) after its Māori name. The small town of Bluff is the South Island’s southernmost settlement and is dominated by Bluff Hill to its west. With a permanent population of less than 400 people, Stewart Island is New Zealand’s third-largest island, ringed with bays and blanketed with lush forests.

The seas stayed rough through the night. It did not really make a problem for us sleeping but the ship was definitely pitching and rolling. We could hear doors or other things slamming in other parts of the ship. It was somewhat disconcerting.

I woke around 7:30am which turned out to be 6:30am because the ship shifted time zones. The seas were quite rough and it was hard to move around. I could still see land in the distance off our starboard but it was obscured by rain and I never could figure out exactly where we were. My iphone location didn’t work through the Starlink wifi connection the ship used, nor did it automatically adjust my clock. I could never tell when we were in the Foveaux Straits nor could I see Stewart Island.

Around 10am the Captain came on the PA to announce that the heavy seas made it impossible for us to reach Hobart in time for our scheduled afternoon of excursions so they were scrapping the Hobart port visit. That meant we were sailing directly to Melbourne but it was a little unclear to me if that meant we were sailing for 3 or 4 days straight. It would be ideal if we could squeeze an extra day in Melbourne but I wasn’t sure that was the case. What seemed more likely was that we’d get into the Melbourne vicinity a few hours early but then like an airplane we would have to idle offshore until it was our time to arrive at port.

At noon the Captain made another announcement about our status and revealed that we were traveling at all of 20 knots, or roughly 23 miles per hour. That helped explain why each of the ports in New Zealand were about 200 knots or 10 hours from each other…but I was hoping they would put a little pedal to the metal for the Tasman Sea crossing. No dice, I guess. The Captain’s announcements this day were, by the way, the first time we heard from him. Evidently there was a ritual announcement every day at noon but since we were always on shore we never heard them. It was only at sea that we would hear from the Captain.

I got into a What’s App discussion with Laurie about our cruise status. The discussion went to the whole Scattergories group and it wasn’t all that deep but I thought I’d capture it.

Laurie: Hey, Bill, how’s it going over on your side of the planet?  Are you enjoying your cruise?

Bill: It’s been good thru NZ. We’re now starting two days of rocky crossing of the Tasman Sea. There’s a lot fewer people at breakfast this morning.

Laurie: Did you get to see a lot of NZ?  What was your favorite thing there?

Bill: I had to think about the NZ question. The scenery, weather and people have all been lovely. We’ve spent a fair amount of time in museums and lectures trying to get a handle on NZ history and relationships between Europeans and Maoris but it’s complicated. Mostly I think we’re realizing we’re not ready to become repeat cruisers as so many of these folks are. It’s kind of a floating retirement home. I suspect that’s a worthy lesson.

Laurie: I imagine it is! How’s the on-board entertainment?

Bill: The entertainment is low key. There are a fair number of lectures from “resident scholars”. Some are quite good. Others I fall asleep in but they’re all recorded and we can watch them (or fall asleep again) later.

Laurie: Ha!  Sounds like retirement. Is the food nice?

Bill: Food is quite good and more than enough of it. No complaints there and the service is very friendly.

Laurie: Any line dancing?

Bill: They just announced that the heavy seas mean we won’t make it to Tasmania on time so we’re skipping that and going straight to Melbourne. So three full days at sea. So be it.

Laurie: Yikes!  On a rough sea at that.  Hope all that nice food stays down.

Bill: No line dancing that I’ve seen but there were a couple of country music shows that I skipped.

The upshot was that I was hard pressed to identify my favorite thing about the cruise so far. It had all been pleasant and everyone we encountered was doing their best to ensure we had a good time and got a good impression of New Zealand. But I was concluding that cruising was not an efficient or effective way to see a country beyond the most superficial level. The most interesting times I’d had so far were mostly while walking around or being in museums on our own time and schedule. Traveling by bus in groups of 40 was rarely much fun or informative no matter how chatty the driver/guide.

A lot of this had to do with the logistics of moving 500-600 people through an activity in very limited time periods. That’s how many people on average take the “included” or free excursion in each port. I suppose there was an argument to be made for choosing the paid excursions which by definition were smaller groups but my High Country Explorer experience was hardly better for costing $400.

Barb was also none too impressed with the overall cruise experience. I don’t think either of us are eager to do more. I watched a presentation of upcoming Viking cruises for 2025-26 and frankly none of them were especially appealing. It’s an expensive but useful lesson learned, and should save us buckets of future vacation dollars. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that our Ireland vacation with a personal driver/guide will prove more fruitful.

At 12:15pm, Barb and I wandered into the Team Trivia competition and won it in a bonus round when a guy next to me blurted out that the capital of Malta is Valletta. We would have won outright if I had listened to Barb and gone with Ireland rather than Sweden as the winner of the most Eurovision Song Contests. Winning a contest with 13 out of 16 correct did not speak highly of the skill level of the audience, present company included.

The good news was the sea calmed down in the afternoon. It was much easier to move about the ship though I had nowhere in particular to go. I was mostly content to hole up in the cabin close to my computer, the TV and Barb’s Diet Cokes. Barb spent the day on a couch on the pool deck, reading and snoozing…plus having tea and attending an opal discussion/sales pitch.

In the evening we had dinner with Karen and Barb at the World Cafe, comparing notes on our day. Barb’s friend Ann was supposed to join us but didn’t show up; we learned later she was seasick. Such was our first day at sea.

Wednesday, Feb. 21 – Cruising Tasman Sea

“Cross the ditch” as you sail today, a term coined to refer to a voyage on the Tasman Sea, just as many Americans and Europeans refer to a trans-Atlantic journey as “hopping the pond.” Admire the views as you sail today and enjoy an al fresco dining experience. The Aquavit Terrace serves a range of International fare and casual dining favorites, as well as a range of superb cocktails inspired by our destinations.

Barb and I both woke early as we set our clocks back one more hour en route to Australia. We had a good breakfast (I had some fun making a smiley face on my plate) then settled down in a quiet spot on deck 7 to while away our day at sea.

It was hard to contemplate doing this for two more full days. I scanned the much calmer seas for wildlife and spotted lots of birds. I thought I momentarily saw the fin of an Orca whale break the water in the distance but it only surfaced once and I can’t swear it was a confirmed sighting or my imagination.

The captain made an announcement at 9:30am that we would fortunately be allowed to dock in Melbourne a half day early, so we would effectively have one more sea day tomorrow then should be in port at Melbourne by 2pm on Friday. There would be no planned excursions on Friday, I presumed, but there should be shuttle buses into town so we could explore and get some dinner. That was something to look forward to. If anything, I was happy to trade a half day in Hobart for an extra afternoon and evening in Melbourne. That said, even though the seas were much calmer the captain reported our speed was down to 20mph. It was maddeningly slow but seemed to be par for the course for cruise ships.

I listened to podcasts for a while before attending a cooking demonstration at 11am followed by another Team Trivia contest at 12:15pm. This time Karen joined us but the game was identifying countries by photos of landmarks. Most were easy, the one we (and everyone) missed was of the Adolphe Bridge in Luxembourg, and we got lucky with a couple of Persian Gulf sites. We made it to the tiebreaker round again but lost to the other team that was quicker identifying the Manila Cathedral in the Philippines. It was a good guess because Harry the emcee was from the Philippines and we had joked that it had to be one of the answers.

After lunch (where we saw a large pod of dolphins churning up the water a few hundred yards away), Barb went for a tour of the Bayeaux Tapestry artwork on the ship, then at 2:50pm we met for our behind the scenes tour of the bridge. 

The bridge tour was informative, about 30 minutes long, led by one of the Second Officers. He confirmed that coming out of Port Chalmers we faced wind gusts of up to 60 knots (69 mph or tropical storm strength) and seas topping at 4-5 meters (13-16 feet). That considerably slowed our effective speed which in turn delayed our projected arrival in Hobart. The mate said it was the first time in the past year that he’s been on the ship that they’ve had to skip a port.

I attended a Q&A session with the Resident Astronomer, Alan Wright. He has proven to be by far the most engaging and erudite of our guest lecturers. I enjoyed the wide ranging discussion of all sorts of astronomical topics from Dark Matter to radio telescopes to his involvement in sparking the movie The Dish about the Parkes Radio Telescope where he worked for decades. 

Barb and I took it easy for the evening, catching up on the days recorded lectures on TV and had dinner at The Restaurant, a satisfying spread of shrimp and salad for Barb, Thai soup, dumplings and a small slab of beef for me.

Thursday, Feb. 22 – Cruising Tasman Sea and Bass Strait

Separating mainland Australia from the island of Tasmania, the Bass Strait was discovered by British explorers George Bass and Matthew Flinders in 1799. This discovery allowed merchants and explorers to cut 700 miles off their journeys from Europe or India. The largest archipelago in the waterway’s eastern reaches, the Furneaux Islands, once formed a land bridge between Tasmania and Australia. In the strait’s western region, King Island hosts several settlements and is on the migration route of several bird species.

We had another full day at sea…this was supposed to be our Hobart, Tasmania day but instead we remained en route to Melbourne. The day was cloudy and gray with a bit more breeze but we plugged along and did not rock too much even though the captain said the wind got up to 40mph. Since this was supposed to be a shore day there were not many shipboard activities planned. The resident experts pulled out additional lectures but mostly it was another day of laying low. Barb napped by the pool for the morning. I listened to podcasts and watched the waves to make sure we stayed on course.

Our expectations dwindled to looking forward to the trivia contest at 12:15pm and a prospective dinner of fish and chips presented poolside this evening. Otherwise it was a day of enforced captivity and feeding on our fabulous floating retirement home. There was little choice but to roll with it. It was a good opportunity to do laundry and study up on Melbourne which I did in the afternoon.

Barb and I kicked butt at the general knowledge trivia contest, winning outright with 15 of 16 points. We had developed a reputation. I think our success spoke more to the level of our competition. It occurred to me that maybe we did well because it was only our first cruise. Perhaps the more cruises you did the softer and more out of touch your brain got.

As we were getting on an elevator, one lady asked Barb if she was a cheerleader in her youth “because you’re so perky.”  Both of us were pretty sure this was not meant as a compliment. 

I went to the 4:30pm port talk about Melbourne and learned very little about what we could or should do with our newly found time in the city. Instead, the talk was their canned discussion of Melbourne and our regular excursions planned for the next day. Quite a number of people were perturbed by the news that we would need to completely empty the ship for Australian Immigrations upon arrival. Only after everyone has been interviewed and accounted for would they let people board again. 

After the port talk, I went to a Q&A discussion about AUKUS and what it means for Australia. I had only vaguely heard of AUKUS and read up on it for a few minutes in Wikipedia. I’m pretty sure that made me more of an expert than most of the people in the room. My sense of it was that it was a tissue-thin wrapper on a deal for Australia to build next-generation submarines from American and UK designs rather than French. It may form the basis of a broader coalition of nations to counterbalance Chinese interests in Asia but it doesn’t seem to be a full fledged NATO equivalent or anything like it. Nevertheless, it seems to be a bigger deal in Australia than anywhere else. The moderator gave a few minutes overview of the newly minted (a year ago) military pact then opened the floor to questions and discussions. There were a number of ill-informed questions and comments with very little in the way of informed answers. I stayed for about 20 minutes and decided I didn’t need to wallow in other peoples’ fears and ignorance. I got enough of that by reading newspaper headlines. 

We had our first sighting of Australian land in the late afternoon, spotting Tasmania on the port side and two of its Furneaux Islands, Clarke and Cape Barren starboard. Excitement!

We coasted into fish and chips night, meeting Barb and Karen for the meal at 7pm. We dissected their various physical ailments and discussed the day passed and days ahead, including how inconvenient Melbourne would be for them…but then most anything is inconvenient for someone in a wheelchair. 

There was a decent sunset around 8pm. It was the first real sunset I’d seen on this trip. It was not as nice as I’d hoped but there was a clear horizon and at least a bit of cloud cover for some pinkness. Still the greatest show on earth. 

After dinner I checked the stars but there was little to be seen on a mostly cloudy night. I had a dwindling number of nights to see the Southern Cross. I lingered for a while in the Explorer’s Lounge before returning to the room and a replay of the day’s lectures.

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