Today is our third day at sea as we get closer to Darwin, our final stop in Australia. According to Captain Rens, we still have 272 nautical miles to reach the city, but the time had to be adjusted due to congested ship traffic in the harbor. Apparently commercial ships get priority docking, so we will have to wait at least an hour before we are allowed to dock. Since we do not have a tour booked, it makes no difference to us. However, all of the excursions leaving early, will have to be adjusted. That can pose a problem for those who booked independent tours.
Then to complicate matters more, our arrival to Bali, Indonesia, will also be delayed due to the observance of Nyepi, a Day of Silence in the Hindu world. This is the first time our arrival has coincided with this holiday, so it will delay our docking by two or more hours. Once again, tours will be adjusted. Things like this can come up when least expected, so we have learned to go with the flow. The biggest impact would be if an overland was involved and you had set flight times like for an overland safari for instance. That could be a real headache.
After breakfast, one off us went down to the front desk to drop off the Australian landing cards. Later in the day, we all got notices for the Australian tax refund that will be available tomorrow afternoon. And we also got the Indonesian digital arrival declaration to be filed out online now. A detailed letter came with instructions to do this three days prior to arriving to Indonesia. We may need some help with this one.
Today's weather was exactly the same as the last couple of days. Checking on our TV, nothing had changed. The temperature was 81 degrees, the humidity 83% and the winds listed as 0 mph. Now we know that is not so. What was correct was the mention of rain. There were showers off and on most of the day, coming down heavy at times. One of us did the morning promenade walk, and we did make it to the aft pool before noontime. The skies were dark with huge rain clouds, but it did not start to sprinkle until an hour went by. One of our sweet friends came back to talk to us. She and a buddy had gone overland from Sydney to tour Ayers Rock and the area surrounding it. We loved hearing about her experiences, especially how she dealt with the flies. Lucky she brought one of those nets that completely cover your head. However, she did say while putting it on, she believed she accidently swallowed a fly. OMG….the horrors of travel. In that part of Australia, people eat insects all of the time in the Outback. She reported that it was hotter than she could ever imagine, but glad they did it, arriving back to the ship in Cairns. We don't think that HAL offered an overland to Uluru this time, but we could be wrong.
Our day was mostly filled with computer work as always. When the rain started falling heavily, we were glad to have something to occupy our time. There was an interesting special dinner in the Pinnacle Grill tonight. It was called An Evening with Chef Ben McMenamin, a guest chef that specializes in local, sustainable, and healthy cooking. His pop-up dinner was promised to be to memorable and approachable. Pinnacle manager Lelik had given us a copy of the menu for tonight. The meal began at 6pm for everyone and included wine pairing. The first course was pumpkin and ant dukkah tart. Now do you think that really means ants? We do know for a fact that the natives will eat live sugar ants, so it is possible it is on the menu. The second course was veggie crudites, which is acceptable. The third course was cured barramundi, which we have enjoyed on past cruises. However, the fourth course was kangaroo skewers. Yes, we have tasted kangaroo tail before, and thought it was tough, served rare and gamey-tasting. The fifth and last course was a dessert of pavlova, which help you forget you just ate ants and kangaroo. The wines would help with that too. Just a guess, but we think this dinner would set you back $95 plus 18% gratuity. We could not find the price listed anywhere. We understand that if you did not want the wine pairing, the price was adjusted to cover just the food portion.
Our dinner was more our style with shrimp cocktail and a bowl of chicken noodle soup. Mains were supposed to be roasted chicken and a chicken fajitas. The wrong chicken meal arrived which was tandoori chicken with rice. Our waiter disappeared as soon as he set down the plates, so I did not have time to correct the mistake. Oh well, the meal looked fine, so I kept it. And it was good, just a little on the spicy hot side. Dessert was one scoop of vanilla ice cream and a sliced banana.
This last week or so, one of the dining room staff has been jumping the gun and cleaning around the tables before the dining room is closed. When he came close with a dust mop on a broom stick, we made a comment to him to please wait until we leave. That would be just a few minutes later. And we are sure the other diners around the upper railing felt the same way. On our way out, we mentioned this to the head waiter who said that was unacceptable and he would take care of it. The last thing he wanted was for the guests to feel rushed out of here.
There was a show in the World Stage with the singers and dancers doing Celtic Spirit. They promised enchanting ballads, lively jigs, and Celtic music. It seems that the cast do at least one show a week. These days, the cast have other duties to keep them busy during the day.
Tomorrow we will be in Darwin and expect it to be hot with some rain.
Bill & Mary Ann
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