Day 5 - At Sea (west of NZ South Island)

Late night partying, the second time zone change plus a mandatory immigration and customs appointment first thing this morning took its toll so another sleep after breakfast was taken.

The afternoon stroll around the promenade deck revealed several Royal Albatross gliding around the stern of the ship (we suspect they were fishing ing the wake of the ship but we never saw any fish being actually caught. We stood watching and photgraphing them for ages - they hardly ever flap their wings and are quite mesmerising to watch. The sports action settings on the camera were very useful at taking some great shots.

Helen once again presented herself at the Health Spa on Deck 8 for her daily ritual in the Thermal Spa whilst taking in the magnificent ocean views as ship continued to journey peacefully across an exceptionally smooth Tasman Sea. The emphasis on smooth - we have been extremely lucky with the weather so far.

We even got out on deck before dinner in time to take the one obligatory sunset photo today.

Following the evenings entertainment we took a stroll around the ship admiring the art works that are on every landing in the stairwells, and around the bars. A few examples are included below.

Floral arrangements also adorn many of the public spaces especially the restaurant foyers as well as on every table in the Buffet. A sample of these arrangements are also included.

Also took photos of the magnificent Dining Room and the Entertainment Lounge / Theatre.

More tomorrow.

Day 4 - At Sea (east of Tasmania)

The miracles continue! The smooth Bass Straight crossing was just a prelude to the start of the Tasman Sea voyage. As we sailed out of the still extremely smooth Bass Straight overnight and into the Tasman sea this morning we’ve continued being spoilt with calm seas. Just a low following sea swell from the south west between 1.25 and 2.50 metres. This size swell is barely moving the ship around and is well within the capability of the ship’s stabilisers. Everyone is feeling and looking comfortable and hardly anyone is looking wobbly walking along the long corridors.

The GPS reports that we’re on a heading of 105 degrees and steaming towards Milford Sound at 34km/hour. We need to get from Eastern Summer Time to New Zealand Summer Time before Sunday so our first time zone shift occurred overnight (moving our clocks forward 1 hour) and another tonight. I have suddenly realised the logic of measuring time using UTC rather than the local time zone). and have begun marking the fixes on my GPS using UTC. This is much less confusing as we move further east.

Not a lot of activity to report today – we have mostly been watching the world pass by (and eating - of course).

You would think that by the end of day 4 we would have the layout of the ship pretty much down pat. Well, for some reason (which I’m still trying to figure out) everyone keeps getting the bow and the stern (the front and the back) mixed up. The result is that much additional walking takes place as you end up at the wrong end of the ship before you realise your mistake.

On top of that we are still getting used to not being able to access the lower level of the main restaurant by getting onto deck 4 and simply walking towards the stern. The reason this is not possible is that the kitchen is situated on this level (forward of the restaurant). So the mantra amongst the passengers around dinner time is “you must go up to go down” (to get to dinner).

More tomorrow.

Day 3 - Burnie

It’s a miracle! The Bass Straight crossing last night was as smooth as silk – just a few little bumps as we slipped past Point Lonsdale at sunset and dropped off the pilot.

Burnie is a port city on the north-west coast of Tasmania. It was originally settled in 1827 as Emu Bay (a much better name than Burnie in my opinion). The proximity to Melbourne has a lot to do with it being the 5th largest container port in Australia. It has a population of around 20,000 which makes it the 4th largest city in Tasmania.

Our arrival in Burnie is a clearly a significant event particularly for the businesses of this northern Tasmanian town. Apart from it’s relative proximity to Cradle Mountain and Lake St Clair National Park, Burnie seems to be the preferred cruise ship destination for northern Tasmania because of its deep water harbour and port facilities.

Mayor welcomes visitors to Burnie

We were allocated the woodchip export wharf (which can also operate as a container facility if necessary). Immediately adjacent to the ship was a massive mound of woodchip. The wood chip’s destination (we were informed) is China where it will be processed into paper pulp.

Woodchip for export

One of the few things about Tasmania that I remember learning at primary school is that paper making was (and still is) a key industry. Australian Paper's Burnie Mill produces up to 130,000 tonnes of copy, laser and offset printing paper per year. One of the town's attractions is the Creative Paper Mill, which features the work of local and visiting artists. The pulp used to produce this paper is the pulp processed in China and imported back. Perhaps the proposed (and controversial) Gunns pulp mill planned for the Tamar Valley will change all this? In the meantime the B-double trucks deliver the woodchip in enclosed containers and are tilted to a very steep angle to be emptied.

Truck discharge process (woodchip)

Our program for the day was very low key – sister-in-law Heather and nephew Lucas drove across from Launceston to visit us. We decided to check out the local park. The gardens were very colourful and Lucas was very keen to test some of the play equipment.

Back on board the ship – happy hour (in the Crows Nest Bar) was beckoning us. Our knowledge of cocktails could be written on the back of a postage stamp so our drinks order was 5% intuition and 95% guesswork. We each ordered a different type of cocktail expecting to get two for the price of one (as this was happy hour). To our surprise and momentary sheepishness what arrived were 4 cocktails – 2 of each variety! That’s what they meant by two for one :- ). We didn’t feel so silly when two other groups of passengers sitting near us did exactly the same thing in the next fifteen minutes.

We’ve finally found a favourite dining room waiter (Basuki) that is really switched on to Helen’s special diet and has a terrific sense of humour. The challenge now is to make the daily reservation for a table in his area.

Basuki

The pre-dinner entertainment was comedian (and comedy writer) Marty Brill who’s entertainment career (pre-cruise ship gigs) has been as a writer for M*A*S*H, Mork and Mindy and the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and a show I’ve never heard of called The Merv Griffin Show. Lots of un-PC humour - a very funny and polished performance.

Picture of Marty Brill (coming)

Tomorrow’s the first of two sea days in the Tasman. Could be bumpy – we’ll see . . . .

More tomorrow.

Day 2 - Melbourne

We were greeted to an overcast (typical Melbourne weather) day. Diamond Princess made good time chasing us down the NSW coast and into Bass Straight and was berthing alongside us on Station Pier as we started breakfast. We could now get a really good look at her – a much bigger ship than Volendam and mostly verandah staterooms (that’s cruiseliner talk for cabins).

Diamond Princess

Station Pier is pretty old (opened in 1854) It was originally known as Railway Pier and apparently the first major railway in Australia ran from Melbourne to Station Pier. Like the OPT in Sydney Station Pier was the focal point of the post war migration to Australia particularly from Italy and Greece. It is now the terminal for the ferry service (Spirit of Tasmania) to Tasmania as well as visits from cruise ships like ours.

Station Pier

We caught the 109 tram into Collins Street (took in about 15 minutes) from the terminus opposite Station Pier. The service was great – once again I’m convinced that trams are much better than buses! The tram company staff who were assisting us tourists at the terminus were having a little fun at the expense of the Americans by directing them to the exclusive First Class doors at the front of the tram.

Our first stop once in the city was Federation Square. Completed in the early naughties (sic) using sandstone from the Kimberly Ranges, Federation Square occupies a whole block bounded by Swanston, Flinders, and Russell Streets and the Yarra River. The open public squares are directly opposite Flinders Street Station and St Paul's Cathedral. It was built over the old Jolimont Railway Yard and the Princes Bridge railway station. One of the attractions for locals is the big screen in the main public square. No surprise that the cricket was showing at the time. It’s apparently a very popular venue during the Aust. Open Tennis at the end of the month.

Federation Square

The highlight of our day was to see the enormously entertaining musical “Wicked” at the Regent Theatre in Collins Street. If you haven’t heard about this musical yet, Wicked is about the Wizard of Oz back story (L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) featuring the good witch Galinda - the good witch of the north and Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West.

There were notable appearances by Millsy (Rob Mills from Aust. Idol) and Bert Newton as the Wizard of Oz however the principals were outstanding. Also tremendous staging and lighting effects made the afternoon the huge highlight of the trip so far.

Unfortunately they wouldn’t let me take a photo of the show for you to see :-)

We were all back on board the ship by 5:00pm and we watched the sun set as we steamed across Port Phillip Bay and back out through the heads into Bass Straight.

Helen took in a late night movie (Sex and the City) that didn’t finish until 12:45am. Most of the passengers (me included) were safely tucked up in bed being rocked to sleep by the moderate swell.

Tomorrow we will be visiting Burnie, Tasmania. As the ship’s internet charges are costing an arm and a leg we won’t post again until we visit Dunedin (in three days) so if you’re a regular (and loyal) reader of this blog you get a little break. Y’all come back now?

More from NZ.

Day 1 At Sea (off the NSW / Victorian Coast)

We started our “at sea” day with a sleep in. A lazy start to a lazy (but relaxing) day. The seas and wind during the morning and into the afternoon have been so calm you can see the patterns of currents. Lots of royal albatross had given up trying to get lift under their huge wings off the sea surface that they were all floating just waiting for something to happen. The ship passed Gabo Island and then turned right into Bass Straight around lunchtime.

More exploration of the public areas of the ship was high on the agenda but before that we joined 14 families who like us have been participants of an online discussion group on the CruiseCritic (http://cruisecritic.com/ ) website. The site (amongst other things) is a great resource for people researching a cruising holiday.

A small number of the passengers on our cruise have been corresponding on an online discussion forum specifically for this cruise to NZ on Volendam. A “meet and greet” was organised for this morning by one of the correspondents (Bob). The company (Holland America Line - otherwise known as HAL) obliged us by organising a venue especially for us in the Crows Nest Bar and supplied Champagne and OJ and other refreshments and a waiter. So at 11am today we got together and met the people and their partners and kids and relatives behind the online “handles”.

Crows Nest Bar

Crows Nest Bar

Ironically although the CruiseCritic web site is predominantly a resource focused on the American cruising market, all but three of the groups were from Aus.

There was time to play with the TomTom at sea for the first time and I discovered that a good technique is to save a coordinates fix at regular intervals and save these positions as “Favourites”. Makes things a lot easiest working out how far we’ve travelled. Problem is remembering to be awake to take the “fix” at the appropriate time. I learnt today that most of the time we’ve been averaging around 30 km/h.

Fixes of Volendam's position on the GPS

I also spent a fair bit of time in the lounge that is both the library and the internet café. Sorted through yesterday’s photos and completed yesterday’s blog.

Library and the Internet café

Helen booked and took her first Thermal Room experience in the Spa. She says that the best parts of the “treatment” are
- soaking in hot water up to your neck
- the heated ceramic couches (I might get her to expand on this on a later occasion)
- the steam room
- aromatherapy showers
- the ability to go as often as she feels inclined over the next 12 days
- an uninterrupted ocean view from the front of the ship on Lido deck.

She’s just a little bit sad that she can’t share this pampering experience first hand with daughter Emma or good friend Louise (though she has been imagining the groans of delight from them as she was letting out sighs of appreciation.


As the afternoon wore on and we headed for Wilson’s Promontory, we passed the Bass Straight Oil platforms. The unbelievably good weather lasted up until mid afternoon when a south westerly wind sprung up and eventually the ship started to pitch gently over a low swell.

Cheers - until tomorrow.

Day 0 - Embarkation in Sydney

The day of departure started much earlier than planned. I'm not exactly sure whether it was the excitement or the bladder but 5am was a good time to check the Sydney Harbour webcam to watch Volendam glide up the harbour past Fort Dennison and the Opera House. Thirty minutes later still nothing has come into view and I'm beginning to think this was a waste of a couple of hours more sleep.

Suddenly a large shape appears off Bradley's Head. In the next image (the webcam updates every minute) it's pretty obvious it's a ship! In the pre-dawn light it was difficult to make out the shape but it had to be Volendam. A couple more frames and that theory was busted. The big givaway was that the ship on the screen had a white hull and (as you can see in the picture at the bottom and on the right of this page) Volumdam has a black hull.

(Click on photo to see complete image)

It turns out that I missed seeing Volumdam by just over 30 minutes and instead saw Diamond Princess arrive and begin maouvering into the Overseas Passenger Terminal and Circular Quay. A quick check of the Cruise Ship schedule for Sydney Port Corp. and I realised that another Cruise Liner - Millennium had been moved from the OPT across to the bouy off Taronga Zoo in the previous hour and was now visable in the webcam image.

Volendam's departure from Darling Harbour was a little later than scheduled because of Millennium's departure ahead of us and we could see her steaming east into the distance as we turned to leave Port Jackson. In the meantime Diamond Princess was preparing to embark on a similar cruise to New Zealand via Melbourne and Hobart and will catchup with us on Wednesday in Melbourne and pass us somewhere near Napier.

The weather for our departure was the best Sydney has to offer! Brilliant sunshine and a very comfortable temperature for standing outside on the deck just below the bridge and waving to groups of bridge climbers and afternoon sailers.

The seas on our first night were just a tiny bit lumpy but quickly eased as we headed towards a high in Tasman Sea.



Our friends Warren, Michael and Brett (sailing a Farr 65 back from Hobart following the Sydney-Hobart yacht race) rang to say that despite our early optimism we might be passing them closer to Sydney in the afternoon, they had run out of breeze, were motoring and we would pass them @ approx 11pm somewhere off Jervis Bay. Unfortunately we were 30km off the coast by this stage and they would not have seen our lights.

More about the ship tomorrow.