Gym's Ramblings: Hasta la Vista Australia

The intrepid couple found themselves up very early on May 9th, it was 5:15AM Sydney time. On a premonition, Mrs. Gym pulled back the hotel room curtains and peered down at Sydney Harbour. And there it was, the Insignia, rounding the point behind the Sydney Opera House and pulling into the cruise ship terminal. She turned to Gym and announced matter-of-factly that their ride had just arrived.

A few hours later, they checked out of the Four Seasons Hotel and pulled their suitcases down to the terminal that was no more than 250 meters from the hotel lobby. The luggage was handed over to the Oceania porters and the would-be cruisers registered as new guests of the MS Insignia. Once up the ramp Gym and Mrs. Gym boarded the 6th of 6 ships in the Oceania fleet. They had begun adventures on all of Oceania's ships.

Tragically, immediately upon boarding, our hero and his lovely sidekick learned that the next two ports of call had been cancelled. With that news it quickly dawned on them that they had just left Australian soil for the last time on this trip. Melbourne and Tasmania had been wiped from the itinerary. How could this be? The simple answer was a familiar foe to our adventurers. An ugly low pressure system was spinning towards southeast Australia and the captain later reported that 9 meter swells with 60 knot winds were expected at the cancelled destinations.. Sadly, the new passengers were now on their way to New Zealand, instead of spending three more days exploring more of Australia.

Erasing those two ports-of-call did not end the amendments to the itinerary. The Captain had to lay a patch and make tracks in a northeasterly direction to stay in front of the storm. The Insignia would now sail around the top of New Zealand to stay ahead of the storm and Oceania would reverse the order of the ports that we would visit in that country. Fortunately, no other port would be canceled because of this extreme weather event.

The Captain did a pretty good job staying ahead of the storm but Mrs Gym still had to visit the reception desk where they handed out 4-packs of happy pills, within a few hours of the Insignia's commencement across the Tasman Sea. She would be relatively well stabilized for the next four days while we crossed the "Ditch", as the Aussies and Kiwis referred to it. Suddenly, Gym came to the realization that he hadn't seen a kangaroo during his time in Australia. He would have four days at sea to weep about it.