Kramer's Big Adventure: Iconic Landmarks of Ausrailia

Tuesday, January 21,2025

Off the coast of Australia

We are off on another big adventure. This one is a little farther away than most of our trips! We left Portland on Sunday, Jan 12. We had a 2 hour flight to Los Angeles, a 14 1/2 hour flight to Sydney, Australia and a 3 hour flight to Cairns, Australia. Because of the international dateline or all those time zones, we arrived in Cairns on the 14th completely missing Monday - it kind of messes with your mind. We then took a van, an hour south, to Port Douglas a charming coastal town near the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree National Park. We joined our pre-cruise tour group at the beautiful Marriott Grand Mirage Resort. Upon our arrival, we had time to rest a while and also took a nice walk on the beach.

Arriving in Cairns

Pools at the Marriott Grand Mirage

Four mile beach at Port Douglas

The next day, Wednesday, our group went out to the Great Barrier Reef and snorkeled at 2 different sites. It was totally amazing to see the beautiful and colorful coral and fish.

"Stinger suits" to prevent jelly fish stings

Thursday we drove to Daintree National Park and visited the Mossman Gorge. The park is co-managed by the national park and the indigenous people and we were greeted to the park with an indigenous welcoming ceremony. Then we walked on an elevated walkway to see the rainforest and the Mossman gorge. It was quite lovely. However it was quite hot with a temperature of 93 degrees and humidity about that high! Next we went to the Daintree River and took a boat ride. We saw 2 crocodiles and a crocodile nest. We also learned a lot about the ecology of the river and how @39 species of mangroves grow in the region.

Welcoming smoke ceremony at National Park

Elevated Walkway

Mossman Gorge

Mangroves on the Daintree River

Ranger explaining Indigenous People's food

We left the resort at 3:15am Friday and drove back to Cairns. We caught a flight to Brisbane followed by another flight to Ayers Rock. We stayed at Sails in the Desert Resort. We had some lunch and then some free time to catch up on our sleep. At 6:30 pm our group left to go see the sunset on Uluru ( or Ayers Rock) in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. We went to a viewpoint and drank champagne and ate appetizers and watched the beautiful sunset.

The next morning, we went to see the sunrise over Ayers Rock at 4:20 am. We first saw the Field of Lights, a huge light installation by Bruce Munro. It covers over seven football fields in size and has 50,000 spindles of light which changed into waves of different colors across the field. First, we saw it from above and then walked down among the lights. It was very beautiful.

Later in the morning we went back into the national park and took 2 different trails right next to the rock. We saw sacred caves that were meant for either men or women. Some had petroglyphs. We saw a water hole that had water in it from a rain a few days ago. We heard aborigine stories and went to the park cultural center. We drove all around the rock. The rock is just as incredible when your are right next to it.

It was another hot day - 103 degrees, but a dry heat. Tonight we watched the sun set and then ate dinner (which included kangaroo meat) under the stars. After dinner, an astonomer presented a star program and pointed out the different constellations including the Southern Cross. She also told us stories of how the aborigines used the stars. The sky was so clear.

Sunday, January 19, we flew back to Sydney and went directly from the airport to the Sydney harbor for a sunset dinner cruise. We saw the waterfront with lots of tall skyscrapers, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Sydney Opera and lots of beautiful parks. It was a really nice boat ride.

Monday, we left the hotel at 8:30 am for a city tour of Sydney. What a beautiful, bustling city with a combination of old and new architecture. Our first major stop was the Sydney Opera house. We had a very nice tour and learned all about the history of the building and got to see several of the beautiful auditoriums. We ended our morning with a quick tour of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. We visited a new gallery with many examples of beautiful Aborigine art.

Inside the Opera theater

Aborigine art

Close up of the opera house

That concluded our pre-cruise tour and the bus dropped us off at the cruise terminal at 12:30 pm to start our 30 day cruise on the Viking Venus to circumnavigate Australia.