Cruise Part II - Sydney to Cairns

Leaving the isles of New Caledonia, we set sail for two days to Sydney.   Being aboard for that time gives one time to get well rested.  As a result, we were up early enough to hear a boat along side the ship, just outside our balcony.

It turns out that it was the pilot boat, approaching the ship so that the harbour pilot could safely guide the Maasdam to the intended berth.   The fellow you see on the right (starboard) side of the boat at the front jumps onto our ship while both vessels are in motion.  It reminds me of trying to jump across a puddle, but the consequences of not making it are much greater!

As it was not yet dawn, the Sydney city lights were still ablaze, making for a lovely shot amid the very calm waters of the harbour.

We sailed past the Sydney Opera House, and the ambient light offered a very different look than one traditionally seen.

Once ashore, we opted not to take any tours, as Sonya wanted to do a little reccie work (reconnoitering and sightseeing planning) so that we could prepare for our five days back in Sydney at the end of the cruise.
Once back aboard, we noticed that there was still some provisioning of the ship happening – in fact, half a dozen forklifts were running back and forth all day!

Now, if you can see the picture clearly enough, you will note that the provisions to be loaded are near and dear to many of the cruise guests – liquid refreshments!

We will have more to say about Sydney at the end of our stay so, for now, northward along the coast we go.

Our first stop was Airlie Beach.  Of the many options available to us, we chose a tour of the Proserpine River and surrounding area.   I had never heard this name before, so I had to snoop around to find its origins.  It turns out that Proserpine is a Roman goddess.  Many Canadians will be more familiar with her Greek name, Persephone.  If that name does sound familiar to you, it is likely because that was the name of Nick Adonidas’ boat on the long running Canadian TV series called The Beachcombers.

Now, back to the present, the Proserpine River flows backwards for quite some length as the tide rises.  So, with all the toing and froing the water is quite brackish (read salty), making it a nice home to many species of animals and plants.  Check out the baby croc – only 7 inches long!

Mangroves

The trees that you see on either side of the river are part of the mangrove forest that thrive around coastal waters, but only in tropical and sub-tropical latitudes (about 0-35 degrees north or south of the equator), as mangrove trees cannot withstand the cold.  These forests help prevent erosion, provide a home to many species of animals, and can provide a buffer to storm surges, reducing the intensity of tidal flooding in some circumstances.

In today’s world with greenhouse gas awareness and concern, these mangrove ecosystems are one of man’s best friends in term of carbon capture, as they can be up to 10 times more effective than land-based ecosystems at capturing and storing carbon on a long-term basis.    Sadly, some countries are deforesting these areas at a very rapid rate.  Once uprooted, mangroves are very difficult to replant.

After completing the river tour, we came back to homemade Damper bread and Billie tea. 

Damper bread is a traditional soda bread, typically made by drovers (you can google that), stockmen and other travelers.  It is so called damper because it dampens one’s appetite.  Here we had one plain bread and one with sultanas (raisins for those of us from North America).

Billy Tea is tea that is made in a Billycan (you can see the can through the smoke in the picture). The recipe was said to be about 6 litres of boiling water with one cup (mug) of loose tea leaves, in case you want to try this at home over your fireplace!  Most people know that I generally prefer coffee over tea, but this Billy tea was one of the best cups of tea that I remember drinking.  I expect that the place and time add much to the flavour. If you have ever had camp coffee from one of those blue coffee pots that hang over the fire, you will understand.

After a quick cup of tea and a hank of damper bread, we were off in a different version of a wagon train to have look at the land in the surrounding area.

Among the many trees in the area are a species known as melaleuca or paper bark trees, but you may be more familiar with the name Tea Tree as in Tea Tree oil.  Captain Cook (remember him from an earlier blog installment?) named it the tea tree because he observed some of the indigenous people using the leaves of the tree to make tea.  Where you see melaleuca trees, you know that the water is fresh, as they do not thrive in saltwater areas. Locals use the sight of mangroves to know the water is salty, and melaleuca trees to know the water is fresh. The line where it changes is very clear! There are nearly 300 different species of melaleuca plants worldwide, and 200 different species in Australia, many found only in Oz!

As you can see the bark does appear to be paper like in quality.  So, if you run out of toilet paper, …

you can peel the bark in thin enough layers to use it as a substitute.  It is very soft to the touch – maybe not quite as soft as Charmin Ultra, but definitely softer than some of the commercial brands that you run across!

The tight thin layers of the bark serve to protect the tree from fire, as the tight layers do not allow oxygen to penetrate, essentially suffocating the fire and preventing too much damage.

As a side note, when on our Western Wildflower tour, we were told that some trees, like the Ponderosa Pine, can shed their bark when on fire and throw it up to 30 feet away from itself.  This poses quite a hazard for firefighters, as they can very easily be within that 30-foot radius of the tree and end up with bark in flames landing right on them!  Isn’t nature fascinating!

Back aboard the ship, we set sail for our next destination as sunset came upon us.

It was a calm evening on the seas, so after dinner we enjoyed a glass of wine on our deck as we gazed at the stars of the southern sky.

On Monday we joined a tour of the rain forest, located about one hour north of Townsville.  Named for a businessman Robert Towns because he financed some of the development in the area including the first seaport, the name makes more sense than Townstown, doesn’t it!

In any case, the Paluma Range National Park rainforest is about 3,000 feet above sea level, and the road to get there is as windy as the Hanna Highway on the island of Maui, but you must add 3,000 feet of altitude gain!   We learned that this rain forest is six to ten times older than the protected rain forests in the Amazon, because Australia, being an island, was geologically isolated from the other continents, so little changed from its original state.

When we walked into the forest, you immediately felt the increased oxygen.  Our guide Ross, seen here beside this very large Quandong tree with its large buttress style roots,

described the workings of a rain forest in a way that neither Sonya nor I had heard, despite having been in several of them before.

At the base is the ground layer, where the foliage that is dropped from all the vegetation and quickly absorbed into what he called crap soil (more on this in a minute).  This foliage is quickly transformed into nutrient compost for re-absorption by the tree roots.

The second layer is the understory layer, or the story beneath the canopy if you prefer.  Trees and shrubs grow in this layer and become dormant and may not grow for 100 – 200 years.  They have nowhere to go up, because the next layer, the canopy, takes up all the space above gathering as much sunlight as possible, leaving little light for the understory layer.  If a storm or something else causes a portion of the canopy layer to collapse, this second layer will shoot up very quickly to take up the available sunlight.  The understory trees are a bit like Prince Charles, patiently waiting years and years, to be King of the Canopy.

The canopy layer consists of trees that are 30-40 metres (100-130 feet) tall and form a roof like structure over the rest of the forest, resulting in little light getting to the understory and ground layers.  This area contains the biggest diversity of plant species

The top layer, known as the emergent layer, tower above the canopy layer, with trees growing from 50-70 metres (150-230 feet) in height. These look like the chimney on your roof.

With respect to the buttress style roots on the trees, these roots are believed to: help the tree take oxygen from the air (yes, trees breath); to corral the  leaf litter around the base to provide needed nutrients; to help stabilize the soggy ground around the tree; and to provide a wider base for the tree to help prevent it from falling over in high wind situations, because the roots are so shallow, as the crap soil is mostly clay.

Now some of the vegetation in the forest are parasites, such as the strangler fig shown above.  The strangler fig starts its life near the top of the canopy.  After the birds eat the fig seeds, they quickly disperse these in the treetops because they essentially get the runs from the seeds.  The seeds then attach to the host tree, and then send their roots down the tree into the ground to get additional nutrients to grow.

This fig will eventually kill its host, and when that happens, both trees collapse to the ground, leaving a hole in the canopy that will quickly be covered in with those dormant trees that sprint in action to take over the new available space.

The foliage of most of the trees in the rain forest are designed to catch moisture in the air and drop it to the ground by way of their ‘drip tips’.

Up to 40% off the moisture that hits the floor of the rain forest comes from these leaves catching the humidity and dripping it to the ground.

Therefore, when countries try and convert rain forest into arable land for growing crops, they lose out twice.  First the forest floor is crap soil as Ross called it, mainly because it is clay sitting atop bedrock, so they lose the leaves that fall to the ground providing compost. (John, with all his dead leaf collecting is really onto something.)  Second, they lose 40% of the moisture that previously fell to the ground. Consequently, the only way to grow crops is by adding fertilizer and irrigation.  So, here’s to hoping that countries with rain forests sit up and pay attention to these facts!

As we were leaving the rain forest, we noted that the area is not that wide. As can be seen below, the surrounding agricultural land in the centre of the photo is not really that far away!

On Tuesday, we pulled into Cairns.

Notice the mangrove all along the coastline?   Just as a person seems to always spot the same type of vehicle they drive after buying it, I now notice the mangrove everywhere we go, having learned about its importance earlier this week!

The port in Cairns is more compact that some of the other ports we have called on, so the ship needed a little nudge on the side from this tug in order to get tucked into the dock.

There are many logistics that come into play when getting a cruise ship into port. This includes providing a gangway for passengers to disembark.  As you can see, they are getting the gangway ready to lift onto the ship for our disembarkation. This one was a least a little sturdier than the last one that swung like a suspension bridge.

This day we were off to the Great Barrier Reef to snorkel.  Here, we and 60 or so of our shipmates were aboard a catamaran to travel almost two hours (56 kilometers) east of Cairns to get to the reef.  It is very strange to go so far away from the mainland and cross deep waters to go to a place that is only a few metres deep, but there you have it!

You will have seen my phone video of the coral in New Caledonia.  Well, here are some snaps of the Great Barrier Reef, up close and personal.

And we almost look like we know what we are doing!

The smile on Sonya's face is so big, I am surprised that her snorkel isn't letting water in!

And we almost do!

Here Sonya was trying to line up a shot of our catamaran, but she had some buoyancy issues and ended up getting a better shot of her fins than of the boat!  Oh well, great fun was had by all, and we take with us memories that we will not forget.

Now dear reader, you would think that the waters between the mainland and the reef would be fairly calm, but you would be wrong.  On the way out, there were several people on board that got rather seasick from the jostling and tossing of the boat.

On the way back, we were equally tossed about and had quite a salty shower thanks to the waves splashing us for much of the journey.

(Click on the video to play.)

It was somewhat like whitewater rafting, except of course that we are about 20 feet above the water on the second floor of the catamaran!   What a great day we had!

That’s all for now folks.  We are now on the ship for three days before we reach our next destination.  Our next installment will start from Darwin – Crocodiles and Dragons!

Take care,

SnP

Holland America Cruise, Part I - Auckland to New Caledonia

After leaving our Outback Spirit travel mates at Perth, we jumped on a New Zealand Air flight overnight to Auckland.   Auckland is five hours ahead of Perth, so we were then 19 hours ahead of Edmonton. Yes, we got closer to Edmonton (i.e. further east), but the time difference increased.  Welcome to the vagaries of the international date line!

Anyway, we caught a few hours’ sleep then walked around the port area.  The last time we were in Auckland was in November 1997.  It was evident that this is a port city, by the types of shops that we passed while walking.  These included Tiffany & Co., Louis Vuitton, Prada, and so on.  It was odd to see people lined up outside these shops waiting patiently to get in just to buy a designer purse! Thankfully we walked on by.

The next day we boarded our home for the next 40 days – the MS Maasdam.  The boarding was easy – too easy we thought!  As it turns out there were only about 200 of us boarding from Auckland, because the ship had departed from Sydney 10 days before to cruise around New Zealand!

Anyway, we got to our suite and had a leisurely afternoon of actually unpacking our suitcases for the first time in 40 days.  Yay! No more hauling suitcases!

As Sonya was unpacking, she commented that she was pleased with how well she did in coordinating our clothing.  She also let it slip that she had enough clothes for an 80-day cruise.  My brother-in-law, Randy, would say that nothing has changed since we were all last in New Zealand in 1997!  Ah well, some things don’t change, I suppose!

We set sail at 5 pm and had two days of sailing to get to our first port of call, so the Captain called for a gala evening on our second full day of sailing.

Yes, I did pack a tie (two in fact, hence the large suitcases, right Sonya – must be those ties?).

On day four, we reached our first port of call, Mystery Island, Vanuatu.  Now, if you don’t recall the name Vanuatu, you are not alone.  Formally known as the New Hebrides, you will need to google to find the original Hebrides Islands.  For many years, these islands were jointly managed by the French and the English, using what was called a condominium style government.  Apparently, there were a lot of people that referred to it as a pandemonium style government because of the large ‘cracks’ there were in the joint administration!  Imagine the French and English agreeing on anything - let alone government process!

In any case, they attained their independence on July 30, 1980.   Vanuatu is like two different countries.  There are well developed islands like Efate and Santo, where there are roads, electricity, tourism, infrastructure and so forth.  And then there are the other 81 islands, where life goes on without basic infrastructure and the islanders survive on subsistence farming.

Corruption in politics is nothing new since independence, but it came to a head in 2015 when 14 MPs, including Deputy Prime Minister Moan Carcasses were found guilty of bribery and corruption and sent to prison for up to four years!   Not much different than elsewhere, except they actually got prison terms!

Vanuatu is often called the Land of Smiles, because it was once named the world’s happiest place.   Much of Vanuatu’s economy is agricultural, with approximately 80% of the population involved in farming and fishing.  Some exports include copra (dried coconut), beef, cocoa and kava.

Yes John, I hear you – enough of the history lesson and get on with the pictures already!

OK, so you see Mystery Island above and you think, what could possibly be there, right?  Well, not much actually – just a grass airstrip!  The people of the neighbouring island of Aneityum believe that Mystery Island is the home of ghosts, so no one will live there at night.  Many cruise ships stop and tender people to this island, because the beaches are lovely, the snorkeling at the marine reserve off the end of the airstrip is something else!  Our ship was the 61st of the year!

So, our tender dropped us at Mystery Island, and we immediately jumped on another local boat to go to Keamu, a village on the adjacent island of Aneityum.  Here is view of Aneityum from Mystery Island.

We were escorted to the village and, upon arriving, we were challenged by a group of locals sporting clubs and spears as to what our purpose was.  Once it was established that we came in peace, we had to sport a bit of local flora known as Inpa - which means you come in peace.

Fetching, isn’t it?

They showed us much of their traditional way of life, much of which is still applicable today.  The local interpreter told us that he tried working as an electrician’s apprentice for a period of time on one of the more northerly islands, but could not manage his money and did not like the lifestyle, so he moved back to Aneityum to live the more traditional lifestyle.

This is the village chief (roughly akin to our town mayor or tribal elder).  When we spoke with him (in both English and French!), he told us that his prime responsibility is to see to the well-being of the villagers and to keep the peace within the village.  In older times, the chief used to have a group of warriors to protect him and to cook for him, lest a disgruntled villager try to attack him or poison his food.  Today things are much more sedate, but they still hunt and fish for their food, and their buildings are a mix of corrugated steel sided structures, wood-sided buildings and buildings made of bamboo frame covered in woven leaves of various local trees. They still sleep on woven mats – no mattresses here.

Here, one of the village ladies is weaving a basket.  On this island, wives are bartered for with baskets, mats, and perhaps a few small animals, but not for money!  Weaving  is a critical skill that is taught from the time the children are 5 years old.

These delicate hands were weaving an intricate pattern.

As I mentioned, they are subsistence farmers and fishers have and have a very unique way of fishing that is quite effective.

They take coconut leaves and split them down the middle and join these two halves together to make a long rope – like what you see above, but considerably longer.   It may be 20-25 metres in circumference so that they can put it in a tidal pool area before the tide starts to recede.  The leaves and the strands of the coconut stand up in the water creating a barrier that the fish will not swim through, so they end up encircled inside the tidal pool.  The villagers then spear the fish and collect the seafood that they need for the next meal or two and then pick up the leaf rope to be used again.  The remaining fish swim in the tidal pool until the tide returns (in about 6 hours) and then swim off and the process repeats itself.  Quite ingenious and very efficient!

They showed us how they make their Kava (alcohol like) drink and how they make their meals on the fire, and then treated us to some of the local delicacies.

  As we were ready to depart, they treated us to one of their traditional dances to send us on our way. (Click the video to play.)

Much of the sound you hear in the video comes from the shells that adorn their feet.

And one last picture of Aneityum Island before we leave, only because I like the symmetry of the picture! Oh and, by the way, that mountain you see is a dormant, possibly extinct, volcano.

OK, a bit more of a  geography lesson before we leave Vanuatu.  The islands of Vanuatu are on the western side of what is known as the Pacific Ring of Fire.   No, this is not a reference to Johnny Cash’s song (although that may be a good theme song), but rather to an area in the Pacific Ocean where earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.  Wikipedia lists 24 volcanoes on the Vanuatu archipelago alone.

The ring is a nearly continuous series of Oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, volcanic belts and plate movements.  Many of you will have heard of the San Andreas fault - in fact, it runs right by our winter get away in Palm Springs.   Well, Vanuatu is on the same Ring of Fire.  Here is a picture of the Pacific Ring of Fire.   (Vanuatu is situated just west of the Tonga trench shown on this picture.)

More than 75% of the world’s active and dormant volcanoes are on the ring.  Remember the earthquake and tsunami of 2004 in Indonesia, and the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan – on the Ring of Fire!

For the next four days we visited the islands of New Caledonia.  James Cook discovered these islands in 1774 and so named them (Caledonia being the Latin name for Scotland), because the terrain very much reminded him of Scotland.  There are so many small islands in this archipelago that experts have given up counting them!

New Caledonia was colonized by the French in 1853 by Emperor Napoleon III. (It is interesting that the British did not object!) The area became a penal colony for France, who was looking for alternatives to their penal settlements in French Guyana in South America.  They sent more than 22,000 prisoners (both criminals and political prisoners) between 1864 and 1897 when the practice ceased.  The hard labour convicts (serving eight years or more) were subject to perpetual residency in the colony after they had served their jail time.  The convicts carried out the colony’s public works and built the cathedral

During this time, nickel was discovered, and mining was to become a large part of the economy.  Today, the islands contain approximately 10% of the world’s nickel reserves, and Vale SA, the world’s top nickel producer announced that it will invest $500 million in the New Caledonia nickel mine between 2019 and 2022.  Their decision is in large part due to the company’s new understanding of the importance of an expected surge in electric vehicle sales.  Nickel is a key input for most types of lithium-ion batteries, including those used in electric cars.

During our four-day tour of these islands, we visited Lifou, Ile de Pins (Ile of Pines), Tadine and the capital, Noumea on the large island.

Our ship, the Maasdam, has never been to Lifou before, so there was a formal welcoming ceremony. In honor, the local chief and some of his entourage, seen here,

were on hand to meet the ship’s Captain.

They all sang, with the ladies keeping time to the two drummers (see the tall wood drums in the last picture)

and several of the warriors, such as this one

danced, perhaps in part to show their agility and prowess.

We took a tour of the local tropical forest.  Our tour guide, seen here

was conducting her first ever tour and in English to boot!  She was, understandably, a little shy and had some challenges with English, so I interpreted a few words here and there to help her along.  It was fun for me and I believe she appreciated my efforts.

As we were leaving this enchanted isle, Sonya caught a representative picture of the island’s beauty.

We were both reminded of how much this area makes us think of the Caribbean.   And later that evening aboard ship, she managed to catch this shot.

The next morning, we arrived at Ile des Pins (Isle of Pines) for a short tour of the island.  We were welcomed once again by some dancers.  This time they had a youngster in training as well!

Naturally, Sonya could not resist getting a memory of this little one! This island is where one of the French Missionaries (Marists) landed and celebrated Holy Mass to bring the Christian religion to the area.  This site

is where the mass was celebrated and a commemorative statue was erected, together with the local people’s totems, as you can see here.  An interesting blend of Christianity and traditional beliefs.
We were then shown some of their traditional boats.

As you can see, the locals are a bit tinier on the backside than some of us!  To this was added an outrigger for stability. It turns out that they still carve boats from trees here, but they have adapted their traditional boats a bit.

As you can see, they added a platform to the boat and outrigger for additional stability.  They do use the sails (the far boat) but getting back for dinner on time would seem to be important, as they  added an outboard motor for surety!

On Sunday day we went out on the Zodiac inflatable boats to see some coral that surrounded the island of Tadine. We were on the first boarded Zodiac, so the guide / driver took us to the front of the ship for a different viewpoint.

After that we were off to the coral reefs. They have cones to look through so that you can see the coral clearly.  Here are our travel colleagues on another Zodiac.

Here is a closer look at one of those cones and the resulting view of the coral.

Now, our guide had suggested that one of the things that we “could try” was to put a phone camera on video mode and put it at the bottom of the cone and shoot some of the coral.  Here is the result (click the video to play):

Cool right!

When the Zodiac tour was finished, we went ashore for a reconnaissance walk of the island, then back to the ship offshore.

On Monday (Happy Thanksgiving Canada!), we landed in Noumea, the Capital City of the Island Country – population 100,000 – and the only city in New Caledonia with traffic lights.  This is quite a cosmopolitan city, in large part thanks to the Australian, New Zealand and, especially, the American troops that landed here from 1942 to 1946 as part of WWII defense against Japan.

The American armed forces provided a complete shift in the way of life of this island nation.  Until the war, the islands were a colony of France and indigenous population had few rights or privileges.  After the fall of France, the general counsel of New Caledonia voted unanimously to support the French Free Government (think French Resistance).  The territory became an important Allied base in 1942 with the help of the Australians.  And momentously, the US South Pacific Fleet moved to Noumea in 1942-43. At that time, the city had approximately 11,000 inhabitants.  On one day alone 17,000 Americans landed and, from 1942 to 1946, more than 1,000,000 troops had cycled through the armed forces facilities stationed here.

The two airports of Noumea (regional and international) were built by the Americans.  The Americans employed all of the locals, including the Indigenous peoples, who had been underpaid and underemployed until that time, offered them all health care, …forever changing the fabric of this sleepy French colony.

This example was in the World War II museum, built in an original American made Quonset. Perhaps not quite the same scale of operations that Malta provided for those that have read our Malta blog installment, but this place was equally pivotal for the Battle of the Coral Sea, as the Pacific Fleet was based in Noumea.

In 1946, New Caledonia became a French Territory, an upgrade from colony status, with all residents given the right to vote.  In 1986, the United Nations put New Caledonia on a decolonization list.   In response, New Caledonia held a referendum on independence in November 2018, narrowly voting to maintain their ties with France (54%-46%).  There will be two more referendums in 2020 and 2022 to see if they wish to become independent. Interestingly, they are members of the EU by virtue of being a French colony, but don’t use the Euro. Wonder, if they vote for independence if they lose the EU status …. maybe as complicated as Brexit.

As we bid adieu to this lovely group of islands, we leave you with a view of the full moon from our deck.

Sailing onward to Sydney … the circumnavigation begins! See you in the next blog installment!

SnP