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Darwin, December 20


Was nice to arrive in Australia this morning at 7 am.  Would have been even better had there been a cool breeze but we can’t have everything.  And from what I hear it’s also really hot in Adelaide.  Darwin looked really good from the ship and people were ready to disembark early for their tours.  We did have a face to face with immigration which should have been fairly straightforward but it took the locals so long to get the gangways sorted that nothing happened until after 9am.  George went on tour ‘Darwin’s Military Past’ and I took the shuttle into town. Was just a 10 minute ride and I was really impressed with the tidiness of the city and the beautifully groomed gardens along the way.  We’ve been here in the last 10-12 years but I also came to Darwin many times in the 60/70’s before cyclone Tracey and it was such a different  place then. 

So now we are at sea for 3 days - for some reason we’re not going to Thursday Island, it hasn’t been explained and probably won’t be! We don’t get a lot of info from our Captain, his English isn’t great and he seems to keep to himself!  So that’s when rumours start of course!!!!! Seems the reason we’re going to Newcastle instead of Brisbane is because Carnival (who control most of the bigger ships coming to Australia) have booked the port out, leaving no space for the likes of Regent, Silver Sea and Viking.  I did Google it and I think I’m right.  

We had dinner with our English friends again tonight, went to Prime which is the specialty steak restaurant.  I had a seafood plateau which consisted of a lobster tail, four juicy prawns, two crab claws and some crab meat. Followed by the fabulous caramel popcorn icecream!  No wonder my clothes have shrunk!  

The show afterwards was good, I’ve now seen it three times as they do it on each sector - songs from some of the top musicals.  

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