Singapore Airport Sunday Evening

 

For Comparison Last sunset from the boat

Docked in Darwin sent to me by new friends

Darwin to Singapore

 Yesterday was just a travel day. Up and out of the room by 8a. Off the boat at 9:30a. Hang at a hotel until 1:30p. Taxi to the airport and a 5+hour flight to Singapore. We arrived at the Marriott Tang Plaza around 8p with the recommendation that we go first to the lounge level before they stopped serving free drinks at 8:30p. We were also offered a late check-out at 5p today (Sunday) which is ideal since we fly out tonight just shy of 9p.

Michael wanted to get to the zoo on this his third visit to Singapore but you can see by the picture that it’s a bit rainy. (Not a colorized black and white photo just actually gray)

Michael wanted to get to the Orchard Towers, otherwise known as Four Floors of Whores; but a Google search revealed that they cleared out the strip joints, etc last summer.

So a sad and disappointing turn of events for Michael. 😢

Winding down, Wyndham

I am a day behind. Clearly we are winding down.  The three week mark may be the sweet spot. Yesterday, Thursday, was a very long day with an inland excursion that made the zodiac tours and hikes shine in comparison.

A couple hours on a bus to get to el Questro. Pretty rock, pretty rock.

The presentation by the local indigenous clan was very interesting and informative.  But the boat ride at a virtual snail’s pace on a river to see the water spitting archer fish could have taken a fraction of the time.

Coz lunch was a total of 20 minutes to eat before the call to get back on the vehicles. Another dusty, bumpy drive to a look out point to see the river valley and more rocks. Then back on the bus for two hours back to the ship.  It was just way too much time and too exhausting to be a good last touring day. 

Today was a day at sea.  Packing, etc. Tomorrow we disembark here in Darwin. Hand at the Hilton for a bit and then catch our 4p flight to Singapore. After we leave the ship in the morning, it will just about four days till we are home. 

Meanwhile, the best I can do are these:

See the wallaby on the rock ledge

Find the wallaby on the water’s edge

Waterfall, Rocks, Waterfall, Waterfall

 First, I didn’t really post anything from yesterday. Morning trip was to see a downed plane from WWII. No drama, no combat. Just a pilot who put in the wrong heading and ran out of gas.  Everyone survived.

 Then more rock art at Vansittart Bay. Gwion Gwion style. Much older art depicting tall, thin human figures (not creation beings) dressed in ceremonial garb (headdresses, bracelets, carrying bags etc).  These are so old that the aboriginals do not have any “connection” to them. No lore. No stories. They protect the images but they do not retouch/refresh them.

This morning was our last zodiac cruise. Could go again this afternoon but it has been seven days of zodiacs .  I can skip one more little float about. And tomorrow is a very long day of touring inland so taking the afternoon off.

We are at Koolama Bay. And took a trip up the river to King George Falls. I have been training for the hike to the top of the falls by taking the stairs on the ship. And you can longer hike up there. Darn it. 😉 so could only appreciate the 260ft falls from down below.

This Never Gets Old

View from our cabin.

Heaven touching earth every single time.

Ashmore Reef

Went quite a ways away from the coast overnight to get to Ashmore Reef Marine Park, an Australian External Territory that is closer to Indonesia than Australia. Purportedly, before gps etc,  the Indonesian fisherman used to find the reef by sailing towards the “blue clouds” that were catching the reflection off the reef.

It is a protected area. You can’t land and can only hover your zodiacs in a very limited area off the West Island. 

The nearly 600 sq km reef hosts more than 40 birds species (we saw five or six) with 100,000 seabirds breeding there every year.

(My apologies for the picture quality. I can’t get the internet to connect to the phone I used today so I had to take pictures with my iPad of the pictures on my phone!)

The island with the blue clouds

Birds

Turtle tracks

Swift Bay

 Didn’t make any connection when I quoted Fiddler in the Roof and “swiftly” this morning.  But we are here in Swift Bay visiting two sites of rock paintings.

This morning the western site….most of the paintings are protected down under the ledges of the rocky outcroppings.

Yams, sugar gliders

Creator and protector spirit beings

This one protecting his children

And a couple of revered kangaroo

Unless the  eastern site has anything, that’s remarkably different imagery, I probably won’t bother posting any other images later.

Sunrise. “Moonset”. Swiftly Flow the Days.🎶

 Ten days from now we will be back in the States again. 

I know from experience that these 10 days will, somehow contrary to the laws of nature, go much faster than the first 10 days or the middle 10 days.

It’s a metaphor for life:

That seemingly endless calendar at the beginning of the trip. “This is only our third day. It seems like we have already been gone forever.”

Those steady days in the middle. “Can you believe we still have x days to go?”

And then, the sudden realization that in one very, very, very quick week it will all nearly be behind us and we will be heading home. 

So, for a more contemporary quote,

“Every Second Counts.” - The Bear

Or Michael Paul’s personal favorite, “you can sleep when you’re dead.”

On the Hunt

 On the Hunter River.

Two zodiac tours. Surprising, really, how exhausting it can be balancing on the edge of a zodiac for a total of 5+ hours in a day in the sun. I am really sleepy so just some images to mark the day.

More pretty rocks with a zodiac for perspective.

Mangroves at low tide.

Mudskippers.

Another, different mudskipper.

And a crocodile that just swam along with us for 20-25 minutes.

Night night. Or good morning to most of you.

ZZZZZZZZ

Breakfast View

Best eggs Benedict ever!

Reefs - Depictions of and the Disappearing/Reappearing kind

 After breakfast in the room today, there were two excursions. This morning we landed at Freshwater Cove in Wijingarra butt butt.  After a Welcome to country ceremony from the local indigenous people, I hiked up to see the rock paintings in one of the caves. Yams, fish, birds, but also a cyclone and a depiction of a naughty boy who went off fishing on his own and got stuck on Montgomery Reef. His mother went looking for him and realized he had perished and cried a river of tears causing the tidal phenomenon that is the second part of the reef story.

The real Montgomery Reef is underwater at high tide but as the tide goes out (up to 8 meters difference) the massive reef system “emerges” from the water. Shore birds come over to feed on the exposed sea life. Turtles will get (hopefully) temporarily trapped on the reef. And the water flowing off of the reef creates quite the spectacle of torrents of river and cascading falls of flowing water.  

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/152832/montgomery-reef-revealed

My little video won’t do it justice. And I don’t have adequate internet to even watch a drone video to find one for you, but you can click on one in an instant, I imagine. 

Pretty Rock, Pretty Rock

According to a government website, 1,800 million years ago the Kimberley was a separate land mass that collided with the ancient Pilbara and Yilgarn, forming the core of the future Australian continent. The King Leopold Ranges are the remnants of massive mountains thrown up by the collision and their folded and crumpled rocks tell an important story of the shaping of Australia.

It’s all about the rocks here. 

We also saw green turtle, Australian humpback dolphin, Brahminy kites, red groshawks, sea eagles, rock pigeons, etc and the Kimberley rose (not really a rose) which if legend and our guide Malcolm are to be believed a guy gives to his girlfriend when he wants to break up with her because when she sniffs the flowers to smell their perfume billions of little irritating fibers lodge in her sinuses.  Lovely. 

But it’s all about the rocks.

Mountains of rocks

Ripple rocks that used to be on the sea floor

Curvy rocks

And knobby rocks

Hall Monitor

 That’s what Michael affectionately (yeah, sure, ok, let’s go with “affectionately”) calls me and my tendency to follow the rules and to occasionally point out to him (not the “offenders”) when other folks do not follow the rules. 

Since yesterday was another travel day : up at 3:30a, shuttle at 5a, flight at 7:30a, hospitality room until boarding, sorry embarking the ship, line to sign this, line to swipe that, then orientation and safety drills then orientation for expeditions/excursion process….. anyway, just not a lot to gush about.

So here are a few examples of my adorable eccentricity.

Baggage allowances. This trip involves eight different airlines. So different baggage allowances apply. Dimensions. Weights etc. and the charter flights in PNG specified only soft-sided, lockable bags. I happened to have an old duffel bag and Amazon provided some cable locks.  So in Port Moresby we selected only the items we would need for the inland tour and left the hard roll aboards at the hotel in Port Moresby. Of course at that point we didn’t realize we were effectively on a private tour. In a nine seat charter plane. Just the two of us.  We could have taken a couple of cassowaries with us! Everyone remarked. This is all you have? Really? Nobody follows this rule. Well done, me!

Declarations upon arrival. There is also the attention to what you can bring in to each country. Sure, prescription drugs have to be in their original labeled vials. And your arrival declaration form for Australia requires that you declare them in case you have anything Australia considers illegal. So I checked yes to that box. Doesn’t everyone? Had the bags checked. Passed through with thanks for declaring. Well done, me!

Wood. The USA isn’t keen on wood products coming into the country, we know that even from shipping our stuff back from the Caribbean. But Australia is really against it which was an important consideration since wood carvings were on the shopping list for PNG. We asked from the beginning about shipping our purchase back to the States directly from PNG which we did from Mt Hagen. Of course, contrary to my best hall monitor intentions, on our last night in PNG Michael went off to change back the bit of local currency we had. He returned saying he was forced to spend the money in the adjacent mall! Some wet wipes. Appreciated. A ball cap. Gotcha. And a little carved wood. Cool….. wait! What? I was beside myself. After all that planning, we had to check the “declaring wood” box entering Australia again and for a $3 piece of crap balsa wood. Why? Why? Why?

You might think I was being unnecessarily concerned but in my defense not uncharacteristically respectful of the rules. As an illustration of that, I had read somewhere that all shoes and hiking poles etc should be fastidiously cleaned of all soil, seeds, plant materials etc. so our last night in PNG I used my airplane-provided toothbrush and soap and water and carefully cleaned out all of the treads and nooks and crannies of all of those items. Well done, me??? 

First excursion at Talbot Bay later. Passed through the narrows on our way.

Perth

 Wrapping up our two days in Perth.  Mostly hanging and resting but did some walking about.  It’s a very cosmopolitan city. Name an ethnic cuisine and you can find it within two blocks. Stellar weather. Cool enough to be comfortable, mostly sunny with only an occasional drizzle.

Just a few pics.

One of the kangaroo sculptures “drinking” from the fountain in the Central Business District at the gardens.

The Bell Tower at Barrack Square 

We also switched rooms today to move to the one associated with the cruise group. This one is a lovely room. Still spacious for your average hotel room. But quite downsized….one toilet and one sink instead of two toilets and four sinks!  However, the robe is just the same. 🥰. Anyway, now the view is of St Mary’s Cathedral. 

Luckily we retain executive lounge access so we can still easily feed ourselves which is good because for the first two weeks of this trip (yes, we are at the midway point now) we have eaten where and when instructed.

Five a.m. shuttle tomorrow back to the airport for our 12th flight of this trip. This one to Broome to get on the ship. 

I Don’t Think We are in Kansas Anymore, Michael.

 Yesterday was a tough day.  Coach seats (gasp) Port Moresby to Brisbane and then on to Perth arriving at the Westin hotel at 2am Port Moresby time. 

Let me stipulate here that Michael and I always wanted to travel more not fancier. If we could spend our travel dollars on two budget-accomodation trips rather than one luxury one, that was the goal. Clean and safe was all we wanted in a place to lay our heads. Never cared about other stuff (enough to pay for it).

I booked us these two nights here because the “pre cruise “ night with silversea is at this hotel Tuesday night.  Michael had points. I don’t even know what room I picked initially.  I only remember that I checked a month or so ago and the rewards points needed had dropped about 30% so I rebooked it for less.   (Momma didn’t raise no fool.) When we checked in the desk clerk told us that we had been upgraded to a club level suite (free breakfast, club lounge access, cocktails and bites in the evening etc).  Lovely thanks.

I mentioned that we would be here three nights…the third with the cruise and she said that night wouldn’t be in this level room. Did we mind moving or did we want to be in the cruise room the whole time. I laughed, “ do you want to know if we want a lesser room than the one you’re offering us? Because we are very tired, but we are not stupid.”

So here we are on the 22nd floor in a corner club level suite that is 1130 ft.² of crazy luxury. There are so many light switches privacy blinds, sheer blinds, amenities, and the most magically lightweight, but cozy, but fuzzy, but silky, soft robe I’ve ever snuggled in in my life.

We had no particular plans to do anything today, but to regroup and to recover from the first part of our trip. So we are going to make the best use of this sweet suite that we possibly can.

No, Dorothy. Quite right. Not Kansas.

I believe THIS place is called OZ!

Back in Civilization (aka the land of fruit and wifi)

Don’t get me wrong. I did not expect any cellular connectivity in the highlands or lowlands of Papua New Guinea. But then the gods tease you with “H+” or whatever and one is right back to wanting something that isn’t there.  Coincidentally we received an email from our provider back home. We are getting increased speeds from the 300mbps we had to 500mbps. At one point Michael was going to contact TMobile about “buying” access to faster speeds (more than our unlimited lesser speed) but I think 3G may be as good as it gets here anyway so I didn’t really see the point.

Nevertheless, we are back in Port Moresby to fly on to Perth tomorrow.  I am a bit tired but I will try to catch you up.

Karawari river housing

Karawari river transport

Kundiman people doing fish dance

Michael shopping

(Even here everyone thinks the woman shops.  Having discussed the fact that also I don’t cook or take pictures usually…I suggested to the one guide that he must be wondering what useful purpose I actually serve)

Melpa chief Jacob Wei

And the Blue Bird of Paradise

Also saw a Superb Bird of Paradise and a Princess Stephanie’s Astrapia.

Palm cockatoo. Sea eagles. Whistling kites.  

I don’t know. A bunch of birds.

And we are all caught up. 

Drums and Hornbills

This morning hearing drums and lots of birds. one of the guys came to the room to point out the hornbills in the breadfruit tree. 

Kundiman Tribe

This area of the Karawari belongs to the Kundiman people. They were cannibals until the 1960s when foreigners threatened them out of the practice but the blood stones (where the 'sacrifices' took place) still stand in front of the old spirit houses. 

Their diet consist primarily of pancakes (like tortillas) and porridge or soup made from sago palm starch, fish, greens, and fruit. 

This morning we got up early cuz we were going to go in search of another bird of paradise. Unfortunately it rained all night and while the Bird of Paradise is undoubtedly still out there somewhere, he's not going to display on a dreary day when he's all wet and not feeling his best. So the guide, Paul, and the other guys and I were chatting and looking through the Bird book. And I don't remember which bird Paul was talking about but that Bird apparently loves eating mayflies.

So the conversation had taken off to mayflies. And I mentioned when we were in Ethiopia camping in the middle of nowhere in jinka that the mayflies hatched. And that they were just thick everywhere like a carpet on the ground when they died. And Paul offered up that they're actually delicious. That they eat them. A delicacy really.

I said unfortunately we didn't try eating the mayflies. That that night we'd had spaghetti. And he and the other guys thought that was just funny, funny, funny. I know that humor, especially my humor, doesn't always translate well. So it was nice that this joke landed. 

Vista 2 - Some Lake PNG

Vista 1 on the way over - limestone peaks

En Route

The Arrivals Terminal