rojaan19

If you are 6'4" you can do what ever you damn well like !! 😊 🙄 🥂 🤭

Sent you a email mysty !! 🙃

On our last Moon cruise -54 days, there was a couple and he had a lovely opera length string of pearls, he would wear on formal nights. He was tall and thin, usually wore black, so the pearls stood out. He used to be model for Versace.

Entertainment on board is about to change ! Nobody knows just how much, as yet, so your question can't really be answered. We are all waiting for a review of the new entertainers 🤩

Well Mysty I am jumping in here with an article that was in an australian newspaper today - on Thursday Island !! It is written by an Irish man now living in Australia who is a "travel expert" and got a free cruise on Viking ! "This is why a good cruise is so exhilarating: you can arrive somewhere remote without making much effort. Getting to Thursday Island isn’t otherwise easy. You can fly from Cairns to Horn Island and transfer by ferry, or you can take a ferry from Cape York – though you’ll have to get there first. Viking Orion has nipped over from Darwin while I was sleeping, conveying me in comfort to a place most Australians have heard about but never visited. Anyone determined to see their own country should add it to their bucket list. Green Hill Fort. As we drift towards the quay in tender boats, I see the tidy settlement is larger than it looked from the ship. Decent solid houses sit on hillsides lush with wanton tropical greenery and trees that blossom in explosions of orange and yellow. I follow a great footpath that leads me around the coast. The setting is wonderful: a wide bay embraced in the arms of several islands. A brisk breeze mitigates the humidity. Clouds drift like galleons across a moody sky. I pass the Grand Hotel and post office, backed by a small settlement that has those intriguing shops of remote places that sell generators and chainsaws and satellite dishes. Then the town falls behind me, replaced by mangroves. Thursday Island’s melancholy and charming cemetery spreads over an entire hillside. The 1880s tombs of Japanese pearl divers are crumpled and tilted by time. So are the piously sentimental, colonial-era tombstones lopsided under eucalyptus trees further up the hillside, recording shockingly youthful lives. Decima Clark died here in 1901 aged 37. She has a pointy tombstone (“God is Love”) decorated with stone-carved lilies and surrounded by rusting railings. Dead leaves are her only remaining tribute. View from Green Hill Fort. The newer graves of the Torres Strait Islanders are lovingly tended and lavish. Angels and crocodiles and an abundance of plastic flowers in riots of colour decorate their gleaming black slabs. Photos show those lodged inside. There are Chinese and Muslim names and faces, and solidly English ones, and often extravagantly long names that mix cultures. The cemetery has a memorial to Bernard Namok, who designed the Torres Strait flag. For Indigenous inhabitants, this is the heartland. For the rest of us, this is where Australia ends, or perhaps where Indonesia or Melanesia begins. The Torres Strait Islands are a marvellously intermediate place with a fusion culture and cuisine you won’t find anywhere else. Torres Strait, Aboriginal, European and Asian elements mingle. European missionaries and Japanese pearl fisherman came here nearly 150 years ago. World War II saw an influx of American and mainland Australian military personnel. The gun emplacements of Green Hill Fort now provide a marvellous outlook over slumped green islands and turquoise seas scattered with warplane wrecks. The best sight is Gab Titui Cultural Centre. It displays historical artefacts and contemporary Torres Strait art, and also has a lively program of Indigenous music and dance. Thursday Island has every tropical island cliche but no big hotel developments or cocktail bars. It’s a laidback, barefoot place for fishing charters and sunset beers. Despite its cultural density, you can walk around its 3.5 square kilometres in a day and stop along the way to chat to locals. The kids are shy, flashing hellos before pedalling off on their bikes. Thursday Island is the perfect cruise destination: hard to get to, interesting to visit, small enough to see in a few hours. But as we sail away, I know I’d like to return one day. "

DEFINITELY !!! 🤩 🥂 🤩

YES !! We will be in Bali then, we get on the Muse 18th March sailing to Japan !! We arrive in Bali on 15 March, staying for 3 days before we get on the Muse.

Mysty I will be able to tell you all about Thursday island as we will be there on 20th November this year ! We are on the Muse Japan - Singapore - Cairns 44 nights ! As to Cairns make sure you have a good hat and bug spray - it will be very hot and humid - so keep the fluids up !! It was 30C on the same day this year, so very warm for a Canadian !! 🙃

We have travelled a lot in Japan. We always do the luggage forewarding - it works perfectly in Japan. Makes it easy using the trains with only carry ons !! We usually have enough clothes in our carry on for two hotel stays and send the luggage on to the hotel 2 stays away. It is called Takubin. Just ask at the desk when checking in and they will tell you who in the hotel organises it - super easy ! "With the famous Takkyubin delivery service, it is possible to send luggage between two addresses in Japan and have them delivered within 48 hours maximum " https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2278.html

We cruised with Jannie back in April 2016, on the Caledonian Sky ! He was CD on that ship at the time - it was a cruise around Japan for cherry blossom time organised by an English/Australian Horticultural Club. The gardens were fantastic - the ship was not ! but Jannie was excellent -so glad he joined Silverseas !!

Now there is a face I could love .... what a cutie !!

Well Mysty at $US 150 per perspn for the tour I think that is over priced. Last October Ron and I spent the weekend in Newcastle for a conference - we had not been back to the Hunter Valley in a very long time. I did not recognise Newcastle - so much had changed ! What other tour choices do you have ?

Oh Mysty - we lived in the Hunter Valley for 18 years and our son went to Newcastle Grammar School, geez there is sooooo much wrong - I dont know the Newcastle you have described !! Ron will chime in !

Mysty - what is it made out of ?? The top picture it looks like marble balls - and I thought that would be heavy !! but the other picture it looks like silky material ??

We are another couple who ALWAYS arrive at the boarding port a day or 2 before the cruise starts !

"No one in Australia refers to the rock as anything but Uluru." That is not quite true ! Older Australians will still refer to it as Ayers Rock ! Ayers Rock was the most widely used name until 1993, when the rock was officially renamed Ayers Rock / Uluru – the first feature in the Northern Territory to be given dual names.In 2002 these names were reversed at the request of the Regional Tourism Association in Alice Springs and the rock took on the official name of Uluru / Ayers Rock, which it still has today. That means you can use either Uluru or Ayers Rock to refer to the rock.

Totally right Chris !!!

Hasn't this thread been done to death ! I am no longer looking at it 🤦‍♀️

HOLEY cow, I put on weight just reading this thread !! 🤦‍♀️😮🤦‍♀️

I presume your summer as ours is too bloody hot there for cruising 🤦‍♀️😮🤦‍♀️

Rachel and George you will love the Kimberleys !! We did it back in 2009 - it was our third cruise and got us hooked on the expedition cruises !

This is the website of Beyond Travel - the company that does the rail trips. https://www.journeybeyondrail.com.au/australia-by-land-and-sea/

No Lola, we already have next years cruises booked, but it is something to think about down the track - as I havent seen the JourneyBeyond people use Silversea before, they also use Ponant, Coral Princess and QE2. We did have Sydney to Perth train trip booked for a family xmas trip - us, son, DIL and 3 grandkids but all that was cancelled when covid hit. The Ghan, Indian Pacific, Great Southern and The Overland all ceased running over covid and it has only been this year they have started up again !