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Pacific Cruise
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Chapter Two Pacific Cruise |
The first real holiday Eileen and I had was on the cruise ship Fairstar. We nearly didn't even make it. The trip was organised through the Rural Youth Group, and several of my friends from Dalby had told us about it. We were all supposed to catch a bus from Brisbane and travel to Sydney to meet the boat, sorry, ship. Eileen and I had stayed with one of my cousins and his parents, and they drove us to the bus depot. Everyone was very agitated when we arrived because they said we had held them up waiting, and they were just about to leave without us. I showed them the piece of paper I had to say what the departure time was, and according to it, we were on time.
The bus trip to Sydney was slow. This was not a modern coach, even for 1973. At least we had two drivers, so that when one was tired, the other would be able to drive. At about 10pm, somewhere along the NSW coast, the driver stopped the bus, and they both went to sleep. We passengers strolled around this roadside stopping point in the middle of the night until one of them felt refreshed enough to continue.
I don't think any of us had ever been to Sydney before, including the drivers. They eventually got us onto the Sydney Harbour Bridge. There was our ship. We could see it below. How were we supposed to get to it before the departure time, which was in about ten minutes time? There's the exit, on the other side of the roadway. Where do we go to turn around? What! Right here! We did a U-turn, in a bus, in the middle of the Sydney Harbour Bridge!
"The bars aboard will be open when we are two miles out to sea," said the announcement over the ship's loudspeakers.
As the mooring lines were cast off, the shutters went up, and we were drinking, nibbling, dancing, happy cruise ship tourists...... All the way to Port Kembla! It appears they had forgotten to fill the ship with fuel before we left.
Finally, there was nothing but clear blue ocean between us and New Caledonia, now called Vanuatu. As we pulled into Port Vila, we got our first glimpse of tropical island life. It was beautiful. We stayed in port for a day, and then we had the company of the renowned P&O cruise ship Himalaya. She had left Sydney two days ahead of us, and despite our detour to Port Kembla, we still beat her to Port Vila by a day. Not that the Himalaya was unusually slow. What had happened was that her crew had gone on strike in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We were allowed to go aboard this famous cruise liner. It was a bit of a let down really. The Himalaya was on her last cruise, while the Fairstar was on her first trip after a refit. So while the Fairstar was all bright and shiny new plastic, the Himalaya showed worn brass and wood, with painted-over pipes and cables suspended by clips from the ceilings.
The next place we docked was Lautoka, Fiji. While a few of us were sightseeing in a local taxi, we experienced a typical tropical deluge. We couldn't see much. The taxi driver couldn't see much. He stopped at a bar near the Nadi International Airport. So far we Queenslanders had been subjected to drinking those foreign NSW beers that were aboard the ship. One of us had the bright idea to ask for our favourite Queensland XXXX brand beer in a foreign country. They had it. We left when the table was jam packed with empty cans.
We sailed around to Suva, the capital of Fiji. Here we were booked in for our only planned tour, the fire walking ceremony. We were taken by bus to what appeared to be a football field in the city, and seated around an area about one half the size of a cricket pitch that was covered with very hot coals. The lights were dimmed, and several traditionally dressed Fijian men walked bare footed through the length of the coals, seemingly without any pain or injury. We were then taken by bus back to the ship. We were underwhelmed. Yes we were impressed by the capability of the firewalkers, but we decided that getting local taxi drivers to show us around led to more natural and exciting experiences.
One driver took four of us up into the mountains to the local villages. Here we saw the real people, and experienced the natural beauty of the rainforest and waterfalls that no one else on the ship got to see.
From Suva we sailed for New Zealand. During this trip we went through an anti-cyclone. This is a severe high-pressure system where the winds blow anti-clockwise in the southern hemisphere, unlike a cyclone, which is a severe low-pressure system where the winds blow clockwise in the southern hemisphere. The ship felt like it was going to blow over. Normal ships hours for us were from about mid-day one day to about sunup next morning. The night before I had had an unusually torrid beer drinking session and went to bed early. I woke up early and Eileen and I proceeded to our dining room for breakfast, something I had not done up until now. There were about fifty tables, and two hundred chairs, but only three people in the room. I have never suffered from seasickness at all, and Eileen very little, but when the lady at a table on her own reached for the paper bag, we left the room. The worst experience I had during this was trying to get about. The crew would walk along with that rolling gait of seasoned sailors, while I was crashing from pillar to post. At least I had a system to get up stairs. When the ship rolled towards the up side of the stairs, I would walk level until the ship rolled the other way.
Then I would simply hang on until it rolled back again and I continued my walk.
We first docked in New Zealand in the Bay of Islands. Why do all of these stories involve beer? Oh well. I was only 19. At a local bar, I asked for a can of the local brew. It tasted terrible. I saw a girl about my age pouring a similar can out onto the rocks. I figured that for those times, a girl drinking beer and not wine or spirits, was probably a bit of a beer connoisseur, and if she thought it was appropriate to pour it out, so could I, without any stigma.
I don't remember much about Auckland apart from One Tree Hill, which I believe is now No Tree Hill. When we arrived back in Sydney we were again faced with the prospect of a bus ride. Not many of us could handle that again, so we borrowed some money from one of the rich farmer's sons, and Eileen and I had our very first aeroplane ride.
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On to Chapter Three - Australian Road trip 