Underway

 

We had out mandatory lifeboat drill at 5:30 and were underway at 6!

We sat on our balcony and watched. 

The ship had to back out of the slip, and into the entrance to Darling Harbour. Local rules require a tug, even though the ship is capable of doing this unassisted.  A pilot boat led the way, stopping small craft traffic so we had room to turn.

pilot boat clearing the way

tug - check this out
he gets to bring his wife or girlfriend
to work (right window)

we approach the bridge
from Darling Harbour

start the turn - at the top of Darling Harbout

We are now turned around facing seaward.

the ANZAC bridge - dedicated to WWII
Australia-New Zealand forces who were our allies

We went from Darling Harbour into the main channel and under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. 

North Sydney, just before
crossing under the bridge

Starting under...

under

North Sydney, viewed from under the bridge

The sun did not cooperate and go behind the clouds -- we were looking back directly into the sun on some of the bridge and Opera House photos.

view from our balcony

sun ducked under a cloud

This was fuzzy, so I took advantage.

The tug stayed with us until just out of the harbor.  

As we turned south, the skyline and the Harbour Bridge came back into view -- right as the sun was setting.

Aboard!!!

 Getting aboard was easy.  As soon as they saw the scooter, they routed us to the “wheelchair” desk and about 10 minutes later, we were on board.  Our cabin was not ready, but Cagney’s (the VIP restaurant) was, so we went to lunch.

Turns out we should have gone through the VIP line, because the Concierge was monitoring guest check-in there.  He did not know we had come aboard until the guys in the restaurant told him.   

We finally got to our suite.  We are on the 9^th deck, all the way aft.

bedroom

living room,
door to balcony

espresso machine, bar

This suite has something we have not had before – a tub with a view!!!

… and a shower with a view. 

 

There is one way glass in these two windows.  As Scott put it, the only time you have to worry is if someone out there waves back at you while you are showering.

You can see a portion of our balcony through the window.

Our cabin overlooked Darling Harbour and the White Bay fuel station… it was a constant flow of ferries, sailboats, powerboats, kayaks, etc.  We spent the afternoon people watching.

 

Transition from independent travel to the cruise

Tomorrow we board NCL Spirit.  As we flew today in we saw a cruise ship at the pier where we will meet the ship.

Funny thing, NCL told us we would be at the Overseas Terminal, right next to Circular Quay in the heart of Sydney.  I had looked it up on the port authority's schedule and they had us at a different pier.  Well on Thursday morning at 1:27 we get a text from NCL telling us that our pier was changing to the White Bay Cruise Terminal.  

At the same time NCL had been telling us that we would be anchoring out and using ships' tenders to get to the pier in Eden, our first port of call.  The same port authority schedule I had seen said we would be pierside.  This morning I looked up the web camera from the ship and, low and behold, it was at the pier.  

We are just hoping that NCL corporate gets its act together...  Scott's gathering data for the after action report.

Time to finish the laundry and take our first ever Covid test. 

Bye for now. 

Spirit at White Bay Cruise Terminal

Field of Lights

 

British Artist Bruce Munro visited Uluru and was inspired by the stark desert and the clear sky.  He took a bulb like this, put it on a stem, and the field of lights was born.  For this installation, there are over 50,000 lights in all sorts of colors, tied together by miles of fiber optic cabling, and run totally by solar power. The result is amazing.  

My pictures cannot begin to capture it.  (This is one time where I wished I had one of the new IPhones with super cameras.)

These were shot with a hand-held camera.  Sometimes the movement is mine, in other pictures it is the fiber optic cables that create the spiderwebs. Google Bruce Munro if you want to see how it really looks.

Scott got out there in the field on his scooter, and I only had to push him out of the sand twice!  When we got back to the bus, there was an extra person there... the night watchman, he said.  It became clear as others talked to him his job was snake wrangler.  

He explained that they have installed a series of electronic spikes that emit a sound the snakes don't like (kind of like the electonic mouse repellers that we have at the Oregon house).  Most of the time they seem to work, but they had reports that in the area we were, a couple of snakes just wrapped themselves around the spike.  He was telling us all about the reptiles in the area... including the iguana the staff had named George, who spends the day on the ramp to the viewing area.  

The Rock, up close and personal

 

Uluru or Ayer's Rock is a sandstone inselberg (island mountain) nearly at the geographic center of Australia. Called the red center, it rises 1142 ft above the surrounding plain, and is about 5 miles in circumfrence.  Together with a nearby feature known locally as the Olgas, it forms the Uluru-Kata Tjula National Park.  Uluru is sacred to the Anangu (aboriginal people of the area).  It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the most recognizable natural landmarks of the continent.

In 1873 it was sighted by a surveyor and named after the Secretary General of South Australia.  In 1993. a dual naming policy was instituted, and it became Ayer's Rock/Uluru.  (The order of the dual names was officially reversed in 2002 at the request of the local tourism council.)  In 1985, the government of Australia returned ownership of the land to the local aboriginal people, with an agreement for a 99 year lease for a national park.  Today the national park is managed by a council of 4 aboriginal males, 4 aboriginal females, and 4 representatives of the government.  

Tourist features that had sprung up in the 1950s were deemed to be having a negative impact on the sacred land, so a plan was developed to move all the activity to a spot 10 miles north of the national park.  The area was developed by a couple of hotels (4 Seasons and Sheraton), but now is totally under one owner -- The Ayers Rock Resort.  

To get to the national park, you either have to have a car, or take one of the tours or shuttle buses provided by the resort.  I apologize for some of the photos, but shooting out of the window of a moving bus has its problems.  We did one loop of the rock, then went to the cultural center.

They do not allow photograpy on some areas of the rock itself due to the religious beliefs of the aboriginal people, as well as in the center itself.   Enough words, here are some of the pictures.

some of the erosion is from water, some is described as chemical

Mutitjulu Waterhole

just east of Mutitjulu

on the south side of Uluru

At this point we ar getting close to the no photos zone.

The indigenous people are so strict on this that they actually went to some of the original web sharing services and asked them to take down photos of this area.   

This goes along with their no climbing policy.  In the 1950s part of the tourist attrraction was to climb the rock; now it is forbidden.

From here we went to the cultural center.

view from parking area
trees are desert oaks

close up of erosion

On the way back to Yularu, the Ayer's Rock Resort:

Our bus driver for this shuttle, introduced himself as "Snakebite" -- he got the nickname because he has been bitten 37 times by snakes, including one incident that put him in hospital for more than 30 days.

It does sort of reinforce the rule that you are supposed to stay on the marked trails.

Digeridoo

Today was busy from before sunrise until well after dark.  I think I will take the three hours on the plane tomorrow to sort photos and organize the blog, so in the meantime enjoy a little music.

As we came back from the national park, we stopped for a beer and ended up right next to the town center amphitheater where one of the indigenous students set up to do a digeridoo hands on workshop.  

explaining the instrument

Here's a short video of the start of his class.  (Best seen in full screen view.)

Sunset, Sunrise

The main activities at this resort revolve around sunrise and sunset... there are camel rides, helicopter rides, and buses which take you to the prime viewing locations.  

After a nap, and dinner we trekked up the path to the nearby lookout for sunset.  Scott even made it up the hill on the dirt path -- with a little push.

Uluru

last rays of sun hit the rock

sunset

Scott riding off into the sunset

After going to bed at 9, we woke up before sunrise, so I decided to venture out and look,.. walking back up to the same lookout

sunrise

perspective - this is how far
the resort is from the rock

rays illuminating our hill and the rock

And walking back to the hotel

you had Scott rolling off into the sunset,
this is me out at sunrise
Uluru is next to the tree on the right