Perth, Australia

2/11/2006

Fremantle – Perth

Perth is the capital of the state of Western Australia. It is larger then Alaska and Texas put together. Fremantle is the twin city and you cannot tell where either begins or ends. This place is far more industrial and business oriented then the other cities. There are about 2 million people in these cities and about three and one half million in the entire state. The harbor has far more container ships then the other harbors. There also seemed to be far too many high rise buildings in the downtown for the number of people. The architecture is much like that of the larger US cities. As in all the other cities we have been to in Australia, everything is very clean and well kept up. It was much warmer here then Albany. The harbor area was strictly business. This was not an area for fancy homes.

This is the biggest day of the year for Western Australia. It is the day of the Melbourne cup horse race. This is their Super Bowl, World Series, and Kentucky Derby rolled into one. We had tickets reserved and a tent luncheon arranged complements of Radisson. This was to take place in the afternoon.

In the morning we took a tour around the town. The place was far more business looking then the other cities and not nearly as hilly. They had only one fairly tall hill and that was a park and lookout. There were very large well cared for parks all over the city. The people we came into contact with, everywhere we have been in the Country, have been friendly. This is not New York.

By the time the tour was supposed to take us to the horse races, it was very hot. Naturally the tents were not air conditioned. After the fiascos on the last two Radisson arranged outings we decided we did not need this. We knew lunch was good at the ship and we were not much into horse racing so we opted to be taken back to the ship. Our other choice would have been to be dropped downtown. Most of the stores and businesses were closed for the races anyhow. Some people we talked to later said they had a good time and some we knew said it was hot, full of mosquitoes that ate them, and they left.

This was our last stop in Australia. This is a great country with great people. If there was no United States, I think this is where I would live. Bobbi agrees except she says she wouldn’t be able to drive here due to their driving on the left sde. Hmmmmm. Maybe I will move.

Wrong Side Drive Sherm Out.

(Posted on behalf of Sherman Rootberg)

Albany, Australia

Albany. This is a small town and has a small town atmosphere. It is much cooler then the other cities we have been to. We were only here from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. There was nothing to do except take a shuttle into town. They dropped us off at he far end of the small down town area. This was also the top of a hill that ran down all the way back to the harbor.

This was a business harbor and not a place for homes. The down town area we were in seemed that it was mostly for tourists. I have no idea what the locals do for their needs. We walked down the hill through the down town. They had not ordered nearly enough shuttle busses and there were long waits so Bobbi and I jumped into a cab to return to the ship. This is not a place where I would be happy to live. I could live in most of the other towns.

This was the big day for Dag. Yes, we have a captain named Dag. On passing I always say Hey Dog. The captain does not like me. This was his 50th birthday and of course the crew and staff had to make a big deal out of it. For lunch they had a special buffet on the pool deck. They had not anything you could think of but everything. Caviar in a hand shaped tub made of ice, lobster, ribs, steak and you name it. They had also invited about 100 local children to come sing Happy Birthday for the Dag. Each had a birthday card for the Dag. At the evening show in the main theater they had a kind of roast for Captain Dag. It never got real roasty. They were a bunch of chickens. It got real corny with pictures of him as a child on up thru college. Far too much of this crap for my likes. Why would I want to honor this guy so lavishly? I paid for this Cruise. He is the employee. He should be honoring me. It is not like he is some national hero. He can barely speak and can’t even say the letter W. Most of the time he is laying around by the pool and not even driving the ship like he is supposed to. This clown doesn’t even have dinners with people invited to his table nightly as other captains do. Big deal. All he is, is some glorified bus driver on a big bus that floats. In fact, when he comes on the intercom he quite often introduces himself as, “this is your driver.” Every morning he comes on the intercom and does his “Verds of Visdom.” He reads a poem in broken Norwegian. Just what I need. Bobbi says , “Oh, it’s very nice. His verds are so inspirational.” Yeah, right. So is stubbing my toe.”

Dag Catcher Sherm Out.

(Posted on behalf of Sherman Rootberg)

Sea Day

A sea day. It was very rough all day. Bobbi went to water colors and some slob spilled water over everything. Bobbi’s flowers were pretty good but now they look like a drowning. Then she went to pencil drawing. Next she went to crafts. She is getting a head start in learning to make license plates.

Yes, she did forget to mail the estimates to the IRS and will have to do hard time. Hopefully my slave got it into the mail today.

Good slave. Use this as your authorization for an extra lump of coal today. I do spoil them, don’t I?

We had a very good comedian/singer this evening, and that was about it.

Rocky Sherm Out.

(Posted on behalf of Sherman Rootberg)

Hot Fudge and Taxes

Sea day. Bobbi went to pencil sketching in the morning and nails in the afternoon. Nails are very difficult on this ship. You make your appointment a month and a half in advance and then they have it all screwed up when you arrive. So you get your exercise by yelling at the idiots.

It was a cold and windy day and kept getting worse through the night. All these modern ships are built with flat bottoms like a barge. They are also relatively short and wide. This makes for a shallow draft to be able to enter more harbors but makes for a lousy ride in rough seas. When you hit a really big wave the bow gets out of the water enough to get air under it. It then comes back down like a flat pan being slammed into a tub of water. Not only do you get the bang from the flat bottom slamming down, but now the trapped air travels the length of the ship causing it to wiggle violently. This makes for wonderful sleeping and walking conditions, not.

However, to keep our strength up, we managed not to miss any meals. For tonight I had made reservations at Latitudes. For this week it has been decorated as an outback camp. There were tents to eat under and the regular furniture had been replaced with portable tables and outdoor plastic chairs. Aussie folk music was playing. The waiters and waitresses were dressed in Aussie outback clothing and the bus boys were made up like Aborigines with the make up and all. The floors were covered in tree bark and wood chips. There were hay bales and straw mats on the walls. I wouldn’t want to be the one who has to clean up this mess.

Bobbi wanted pictures so a cute little waitress jumped into my lap. I resisted fiercely, not. Darn, something happened and the camera did not take the picture and she had to come back and sit on my lap again.

They had already served kangaroo and crocodile meat in the buffet restaurant. Tonight we had Aussie BBQ. They served us ribs, filet, shrimp, corn on the cob and baked potato. They brought us soup in tin mugs and salad in plastic dishes. We didn’t like the dessert so they went down to the restaurant below and brought up different kinds of ice creams and pots of whip cream and hot fudge.

That was about it except for the excitement earlier in the day. When I had gone down to the computer room in the morning, to send this log, I also read my incoming email. Slave Vicki is taking care of my house and checking my mail while I am gone. Among other various things she wrote about was mention of a particular letter taped to a shelf in my home computer room.

She asked if it was something that was supposed to be put in the mail. It was addressed to the IRS. That made my day. Before we left on this cruise I had to send in two quarterly estimate payments to the IRS, as we will be gone for two quarters. I must have asked Bobbi at least 10 times if she was sure she put it in the mail. She said she was sure she did. Obviously she was not.

I then spent quite some time making up legal forms for her to sign. They pretty much say that she admits she is totally responsible for not paying those taxes and is to be the one going to jail. I also think I now know why that guy might be missing from the Royal Caribbean cruise ship.

Hopefully my slave got the letter I sent, saying to see if it is a check to the IRS and if so to drop everything and hand deliver it to the address on the envelope in Atlanta, GA.

I also explained to Bobbi there would be a large fine besides the jail time so we cannot afford to buy any more junk on this trip. I wonder how long that one will work?

I do keep trying.

Jail Bird Sherm Out.

(Posted on behalf of Sherman Rootberg)

Adelaide, Australia

Today is Adelaide. This city is much different then the last two. It has only about 1½ million people. It is cooler here and very dry. There are a few wetter spots where they grow grapes for wine. These would be on the leeward side of the few low mountains they have. This is the major wine producing area of the country. They also manufacture automobiles here. Mitsubishi and the GM cars called Holden. Right next to the ship dock were hundreds and maybe thousands of cars and light trucks getting ready to be shipped out or had just been shipped in.

The harbor, like the last one in Melbourne shows up on the map as a gap in the land and again a large gap. As we pulled in to dock a three piece band was playing and singing Aussie folk songs. They played for about two hours. It was a nice touch.

Unlike the other two cities, there was not much built around the harbor. The land had been considered too marshy until recently. Now there were some new developments started. Housing costs were about 1/3 of those of the last two cities. The downtown center is about 20 miles away and about 30 minutes by bus or cab.

We took an afternoon tour of the area. The downtown wasn’t much. Some tall buildings but nothing special. They have museums located one next another in the downtown area. The biggest attraction is their single low mountain named Mt. Lofty. It is only 2,100 feet high but it is their only one so they make a big deal about it. There is a park at the top as well as a large lookout with a restaurant and junk shop. Yes, Bobbi bought more junk. She always buys junk. Then I get to shlep it home and when she forgets about it I wait until she is not looking and throw it away. She never says anything about it because she thinks she lost it or misplaced it. Don’t tell!

Mt. Lofty has a view of the whole town looking toward the harbor but the harbor was too far away to see the ship. After looking, wasting money on junk, and peeing we went on to the next major attraction, Hahndorf. A town built by German immigrants in the 1800s. It is a street of more junk stores, restaurants, small hotels and gas stations. The entire town is about a mile long. Bobbi did it. To this point she had found didgeridoos costing up to about $150. Most of the larger ones were more like $60. Now she came to a store with not real ones that were made by artists or so they claimed. These cost as much as $1,200, but they included shipping. No matter. She can’t have either. Some were over five feet tall. Even Bobbi couldn’t find anything else to buy after walking around the town for about an hour.

Next it was back to the ship on a slightly different route. Here again the driver was also the guide and speaker. He was very good and admitted he was driving on the wrong side of the road, but said he had too because everyone else was doing it.

There was a free shuttle bus to downtown. This one was provided by the city and not the ship as was usually the case. When we had been there it did not look like there was anything worth going back for so we gave it a pass. Again, every local we encountered was very friendly and eager to give directions. You could tell, right away, you were not in France. While this was not my favorite city, it is a great country.

Mt. Lofty Sherm Out.

(Posted on behalf of Sherman Rootberg)

Classic Car

Sea day again but this was a Seeeeeeeeeeeeeea day. 10 to 15 footers most of the day. You didn’t even have to drink a drop to be bouncing off walls and anything else in your way.

Bobbi went to sketching in the morning. She sketched an old classic car in pencil. It was cheating though. She really traced it but it is very good. In the afternoon she went to water colors class. She finished her clouds picture. She added a beach, tree, ocean, boats and plants. It looks good now. She’s pretty good, and can paint well too.

That’s about it for our exciting day except for the usual lectures etc.

Bouncing Sherm out.

(Posted on behalf of Sherman Rootberg)

Melbourne, Australia

We were supposed to have gone to Phillip Island last night. We would have had to tender in and they were afraid that it would be dangerous to tender up and back at night. So our tour to see the penguins was canceled and rescheduled for a longer tour from Melbourne. Upon closer inspection I found out that it was a two or two and one half hour ride each way and then if conditions were right you could see Fairy Penguins, whatever they are, jump out of the water for 20 minutes at about sunset.. Dinner was included if you could call it dinner. They were to stop at a very ordinary cafeteria and you could buy whatever slop you wanted. Oh num. I’ve seen penguins. I’ve had bus rides. I have eaten in cafeterias. None of the above gets me real excited and surely not excited enough to ride in a bus for four or five hours. The entire tour was supposed to be two and one half hours from Phillip Island.

We did get up before breakfast again and had room service. These morning tours are killing me. I’ve hardly digested the dinners from last night and now I have to get up and eat breakfast. But we did manage to get down to the bus for a three and one half hour tour. It was called the no walking tour. After driving around for about half an hour we stopped at a park and gardens and walked. It was Sunday here and the place was full of people walking and running. Many had dogs of all sizes and some more then one. It got crowded at times and we were continually bumping into people until we figured out these dummies not only drove on the wrong side of the road, they also walked on the wrong side of the side walk. This park was very hilly. I was real good at walking the down hill parts but then started looking for a fork lift to get me back up. Enough of that. This exercise crap can kill you. I won’t try that again.

We continued on and the driver/guide was very good and a real friendly guy. Everyone liked this city even better then Sydney. It is pretty spread out and is a city of about three and a half million people. This town too, is very clean.

There was a free bus from the pier to the center of down town. After lunch Bobbi and I went on that bus alone. There were stores of every kind you can think of from junk to very up scale. We went to a couple of junk stores and got more junk. If you go into these authentic souvenir stores they make up stories about special aborigine tools they want to sell you. All Bobbi needs is a quick story and she wants to buy this junk even if it weighs more then she does. If you need a good laugh just ask me about the special ceremonial potato digging stick and of course the every day special potato digging stick.

We walked around for a couple of hours. Everyone was friendly on these streets. Then we got back on the bus and went back to the ship.

Melbourne is a great town. It had far less rain then Sydney and is quite a bit cooler and still never gets much below 40 or 50 degrees in the winter. This must be true because there are palm trees that could not live in cooler weather. It has a large harbor and many marinas and a river that is navigable for over 50 miles. Anything you can think of seems to be available. If something happened where I got real mad at Bobbi and had to leave her here I wouldn’t have to feel too bad about it at all.

Melbourne Sherm Out

(Posted on behalf of Sherman Rootberg)