Circumnavigating Australia - week 2, the North coast
The first week of our four week circumnavigation of Australia on Princess Cruises Coral Princess had already take us from the city of Perth in Western Australia up to Kuri bay on the Kimberley coast. In this second week of our voyage we would continue sailing along the Kimberley coast, leaving Western Australia for a stop in the Northern Territory capital of Darwin before three sea days sailing around the northernmost tip of Australia to take us to Cairns, the gateway to the Great Barrier reef.
Having left Kuri bay the previous day we had our first time change of the voyage as we approached Darwin with a sea day along the way. One of the things Helen liked to do on the sea days was go to the port talks with the knowledgable Luka who filled the theatre with passengers keen to find out what they could do in each of the upcoming ports. Other than that we spent the day relaxing in the Sanctuary, walking around the promenade deck and enjoying the bars, food and entertainment on our second formal evening of the voyage.
Arriving into Darwin early the next morning we grabbed a quick breakfast in the International cafe and headed off the ship, trying to beat the heat of the day. We had decided to explore independently, using Uber to pick us up from the port and take us the couple of miles to the other side of town and the deserted Mindl beach. Mindl is a beautiful beach but if felt like God was dangling a carrot with the water looking so enticing but swimming not allowed because of the crocodiles and jelly fish that fill the seas around this part of the coast. We had a wander along the beach and the promenade path before heading across the peninsula into the city, diving into wonderfully air conditioned shops along the way to cool down. At the far end of the city we stumbled upon the Paspaley pearl shop from our pearl farm visit in Kuri Bay and we couldn’t resist popping in to admire the jewellery. Leaving the shopping district we walked to the waterfront via the gorgeous Parliament House and gardens. The waterfront itself was lovely with artificial beaches and lagoons for safe swimming and park gardens with loungers and cafes and restaurants lining the front, linked to the cruise terminal with a covered seafront walkway.
While we were taking our daily sunset walk around the promenade deck the ship set sail from Darwin and we were treated to another gorgeous sunset surrounded by stormy black skies with lightening and rainclouds in the distance. We heard the next day that the Captain had to make a swift departure from Darwin as the storm was coming in so fast and fierce that if we had stayed any longer we may have been stuck there until it passed. When it was time to go to dinner we were delighted that our window table still had the view of the sunset and the gorgeous new moon so we could enjoy it until the last.
The first of three sea days we woke to dark skies and intermittent rain so after a leisurely breakfast Helen headed off to the Cairns port talk also catching the end of the chocolate egg demonstration as we headed into the Easter weekend. Relaxing in the Sanctuary in the afternoon we were about to enjoy our afternoon tea when the Captain announced that we would be doing an emergency medical helicopter evacuation so we decided to get out of the way and go back to our room where we stayed throughout the evacuation, watching the helicopter from our cabin.
We had booked to eat in Coral Princess’ other speciality restaurant, Sabatini’s, that evening so after a pre-dinner cocktail in our favourite Crooner’s bar we arrived at Sabatini’s to a warm welcome by the lovely restaurant manager, Vanja, who showed us to a lovely little table in the corner before bringing us a welcome glass of bubbles. She talked us through their signature dishes, introduced us to Eugene our waiter and left us to decide. Eugene brought us out the arancini amuse bouche and we placed our order, Vanja having convinced us to have four courses. Rich stared with the antipasto pate and Helen had the burrata, then Rich had the lobster ravioli while Helen had her favourite pasta pesto before moving on to the veal ossobuco and lasagne. To finish the meal and us off we both chose the quartet of desert tasters. Absolutely bursting at the seams we just about managed to stagger from Sabatini’s restaurant to the Universe Lounge for the fabulous ‘On the Bayou production show, definitely the best production show we’ve seen in a while, especially in the intimate, cabaret style Universe lounge.
After a relaxing Sunday at sea, we headed into our final sea day before reaching Cairns. But this Easter Monday turned out to be no normal sea day as the wonderful Coral Princess Entertainment Director, Sara (a follower of our YouTube channel) had arranged a backstage tour for us with the cast production manager, Luke, who then introduced us to some of the production team before taking us up to the theatre’s stage. We couldn’t believe it but they had put on a whole experience for us including introducing and showing one of our YouTube videos on the big screen - it was amazing and totally unexpected. Luke then showed us around backstage and the costume room before introducing us to the stage manager, the lighting guy and the sound engineer, what a privilege. Our personalised tour was followed by a Q&A session with the show cast which saw the theatre full of people wanting to know more about this talented team.
After three days relaxing at sea we arrived into Cairns where we had booked a Princess Cruise snorkelling excursion on the Great Barrier Reef. The ship was docked on he waterfront a short walk into the city and a nice stroll along the front to the marina where the catamaran that was taking out to the reef was docked. We all boarded, had our safety briefing and set off for the hour and a half journey out to Millne reef about 56km off the coast of Cairns. The journey over to the reef was quite rough and for the last half an hour it became a bit of an endurance test with a few of us suffering from queasiness. Thankfully when we arrived we soon got over our feelings of sickness and donned our stinger suits to get in the sea and take a look at the corals.
After about an hour swimming around the reef we headed in to the ship for a bit of the delicious food that had been laid out by the crew before jumping on the glass bottom boat for a tour of the reef around the catamaran, giving us a different view of the corals and the marine life. Then we had time for nigh on another couple of hours of snorkelling and with the tide and the winds dropping the coral was even more beautiful than it had been in the morning. It was such a privilege to be able to swim on the reef and it fulfilled a lifelong dream - neither of us wanted to get out of the sea or leave the reef, but we had to. Thankfully the journey back to Cairns was a lot smoother than the one out there and we arrived back to the marina with about an hour before the ship was due to leave, so we had a slow meander back along the lovely waterfront, taking in the lovely views of the ship and the beautiful scenery surrounding Cairns. After such a memorable day, our only regret was that we didn’t get time to explore Cairns itself, it looked like such a lovely city and one we will have to return to one day.
Exhausted from our long day on The Great Barrier Reef we were grateful for another couple of sea days to get to our next destination of Brisbane. Since we had a reef pilot on board to help us navigate our way through the Great Barrier Reef the next morning we had a scenic sail by of Willis island, a beautiful little atol that is home to a significant weather monitoring station responsible for identifying potential cyclones that could hit the east coast of Australia. he weather for the whole of Australia and the surrounding region. That night was another formal night so we put on our glad rags and headed out for pre-dinner drinks in Crooners before heading down to the restaurant for the gala dinner, followed by another production show, Encore. And so we had come to the mid point of our four week voyage, ready for the next stage exploring the east coast of Australia.
We would like to say thank you to Princess cruises for inviting us to join the Chef’s table in Sabatini’s. All other costs on this trip were paid for by us.
For part one of this voyage click here. For part three click here and for part four click here.
If you enjoyed this article you may also enjoy our New Zealand blogs, North Island and South Island, or our 72 hours in Sydney blog.
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