Sydney Harbor
It’s February 28, and we stand on Queen Anne’s bow. Apollo peeks in preparation of riding across the open sky eyeing all that glorious blue water: It’s the start of a beautiful day! The tugboats: One shoots two streams in the air announcing Queen Anne to the harbor. Then the one twirls as we come through the harbor with water spraying everywhere.
GJT and I stand in the third row from the handrail and suddenly one man shouts, “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie” The crowd responds shouting back, “Oi! Oi! Oi!” Then I hear giggles. Two people dressed as Koalas are on deck. And of course I had to meet them.
Day One: Excursion
Due to immigration our 9 AM tour starts at 11:30 AM. Finally, our excursion begins.
Our tour guide explains, “We can’t park close to the Opera House due to new rules so we have to walk and we have to hurry- we only have the guide until 1:15.”
It was noon. “What?”
We trickle into the packed space below the structure to meet our Opera House tour guide, a small brusque man whose behaviors remind me of some New Yorkers. A German man walks up to the guide, having mistakenly boarded the wrong bus.
“The ship specifically knows this tour is in English,” the guide says dismissing him. Someone tries to translate for the man, but our guide says, “Don’t translate near me. This tour has so many specifics I need to keep my head clear.”
The guide then looks at me with my hanging purse, a sweater tied around my hips, headphones, a camera and the battery pack around my neck. He walks to me and plugs my battery into the headphones saying, “Generation Z they just expect everything to be wi-fi or bluetooth!”
We sneak into a cast change rehearsal and hear the opera voices. Magnificent! And then we file into the symphony hall because no one is doing anything there today. Amazing!!!
Day One: Night Vision
Tour over. Dinner eaten on Queen Anne and off we go again to walk to the Opera House at night where they project images and stories onto the Opera House.
Day Two: The Royal Gardens & the Art Museum
In 85˚F with 75% humidity we decide to walk through the Royal Gardens to reach our goal, the art museum. We sit under a fig tree to rest for a bit. There are fewer flowers than I had thought there would be, but we spy a wild, lone cockatoo who likes to sip water atop a bubbling fountain statue.
The art gallery showcased so many Aboriginal informative works and then there were the figures outside.
Alfred
And the Captain says: “Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen. This is Captain Thorhaug. I apologize for interrupting your afternoon, but you need to know that we will not be going to Brisbane because of cyclone Alfred.”
What cyclone? I quickly turn on the tv to see Sky TV weather.
“Instead,” Captain Thorhaug continues, “we will have another day at sea tomorrow arriving in Airlie Beach on Tuesday, March 4, and will proceed from there to Yorky’s Knob and then have two days in Darwin instead of Brisbane. You also need to know that the seas will start to get rough around 9 PM tonight and will continue into the early morning hours tomorrow. Please take extra care as you move around the ship. And finally, I recognize that twelve of you were getting off in Brisbane. Please know we are doing are very best to assist you with the change in schedule. Thank you.”
“Well, bring on the Dramamine!” I say.
GJT goes to get us more water. When he comes back he says, “In the Golden Lion Pub they are all swaying and singing, ‘We Will- We Will Rock you!’”
We both laughed.
The Dramamine kicked in and sleep came. I may have had sinus from the windy send off in Sydney, but I didn’t get seasick! And it became quite pleasant for the ship to be rocking around the clock starting at 11 and circling around the clock clockwise as we sailed through the outer remnants of Alfred.