April 7, 2025
After leaving Cairns we had a port stop at Thursday Island and we chose not to get off the boat. It was a tender port and having been heard last year we knew there was nothing on the island. Also we were only in port until 2pm so seemed like a lot of trouble for very little reward. It was fun listening to passengers come back from Thursday Island saying what a waste of time the stop was and we even heard 1 lady say “it was the worst port ever”. So we did 3 days at sea before our stop today in Darwin.
Darwin is a new port for us and we were warned several times how hot it was going to be. The high today was 92 with high humidity. We docked at 10am and we waited until after the rush to get off. We had no plans for today and Oceania offered a shuttle into town which is 1.2 miles. We decided to walk it and the whole waterfront area is relatively new and like Carins they have a swimming lagoon since not safe to swim in the ocean. They also had a great covered walkway leading into town. On our walk we were talking to a couple and their son who are Australian and on the cruise with us. The women was celebrating her 90th birthday today and her husband was 92 and they were walking into town with us.
The lagoon side is on the left and the ocean is on the right.
Darwin is a peninsula with water on 3 sides. It is also is the gateway to a Unesco world heritage site of Kakadu National Park which is a short drove away. They also have tons of crocodiles and they are known for jumping out of the water after their prey.
The lagoon area surrounded by condos.
The city had lots of murals on the sides of buildings.
These murals are 2 stories high.
We did notice a lot of homeless, mostly indigenous people and there were security guards in most of the stores we went into. While wandering around the grocery store we noticed empty packages and drink containers mixed in with the groceries. We are thinking that people were coming into the store and wandering the aisles and eating and drinking something and then leaving without paying.
Found some cute cutouts. Not sure why I had to be the one being eaten but I was.
We had a late lunch at a pub in town, fish & chips and a local beer before heading back to the boat.
We are now done with Australia and have a day at sea on our way to Indonesia.
Allison, are most of the passengers American and are y’all getting comments on what is happening over here—-either on board or in any of the ports?
We have access to several news channels and they put a paper with all the headlines in your room every night. About half the boat is American. We are well aware of what is happening and it is very scary. We avoid talk of politics and we also have not heard many comments from our other passengers so not sure what their politics are. So far no one has said anything to us in port except on one of the islands in the Pacific in the beginning of the trip and that comment was that he liked our president, he was a strong man. Apparently Australian politics and economy are not much better so we did not hear any comments from them.