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Adventuring Down Under
  • Two to Travel
  • Ahmet Erkun
Dec 2023 – May 2024

Adventuring Down Under

Circumnavigation of Australia aboard Oceania Regatta ... with pre-cruise in Sydney … and a couple of months overland. Read more
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  • Trip start
    December 12, 2023
    Adventuring Down Under
    The itinerary for our extended voyage ... at least as it stands at the time of booking.

    Circumnavigating Australia

    June 20, 2022 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 82 °F

    "Feast your eyes on an astonishing kaleidoscope of visual treats as you circumnavigate Australia for over a month, with highlights including the Great Barrier Reef, the coastal towns of the mesmerizing Outback and pristine Tasmania." 
~~ from the Oceania “Radiant Legacies” Brochure ~~

    We're going to take Oceania's advice in the quote above. This recent addition to our travel plans will wrap up 2023 and kickstart 2024.

    Details to follow ...    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    We visited the "un-starred" ports on RTW2017 ... won't mind revisiting them.

    New-to-Us

    June 25, 2022 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 73 °F

    AusPan — short for “Australian Panorama” — is Oceania’s circumnavigation of Australia … on Regatta … R/T out of Sydney.

    This 35-day Extended Voyage consists of two segments. (1) “Awe of Australia” … 14 days from Sydney to Bali; (2) “Australian Extravaganza” … 21 days from Bali back to Sydney.

    What I really like about this 35-day itinerary is that only 11 days are at sea — that’s just over 30% of the itinerary … enough cruising days to catch our breath between ports of call. The remaining 24 days will see us visiting various ports … mostly in Australia … two in Indonesia. We’ve been to 6 of the ports … 15 will be new-to-us. Yes, the math doesn’t add up to 24 ports. That’s because 3 of them — Brisbane and Perth, Australia, and Bali, Indonesia — will be overnight stops.

    I'm sure we'll add some "land time" pre-cruise to take advantage of springtime in Australia. When and where is TBD. We have plenty of time to make that decision.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    4Splitting the bed made the cabin feel more spacious; I used the window as an enclosed veranda.

    CatC 4052 It Is

    June 27, 2022 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 75 °F

    Normally, we prefer to book veranda cabins as I spend so much of my time on the ship sitting out there ... enjoying the fresh air and the sound of the ocean as the ship cleaves through the water.

    Not this time. With so much of the itinerary calling on ports as we make our way around Australia, we decided to just book an oceanview cabin.

    Here's the funny thing. We unintentionally booked the exact same cabin — #4052 — that we had on Regatta's sister ship Nautica when we did the Northern Glow and Vikings & Czars Grand Voyage in 2019.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    The first itinerary change to our cruise.

    Itinerary Change #1

    November 10, 2022 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 50 °F

    Lost the Brisbane overnight.

    Instead, we will visit Mooloolaba on Christmas Eve.

    We don’t mind the change, actually, as we’ve been to Brisbane before … and we will more than likely go there during the overland part of our Australia trip anyway.

    Thus, the change gives us a "new-to-us port" to explore and we still get 13 hours in Brisbane. The best of both worlds IMHO.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under

    Itinerary Change #2

    January 21, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 28 °F

    We are in Zihuatanejo, Mexico … today’s RTW2023 port of call aboard Oceania’s Insignia. I am writing this footprint from here because, when we returned from our beach break, I found an email from Oceania in my inbox pertaining to our AusPan voyage.

    “Could it be an itinerary change,” I wondered? After all, I’d recently been reading about the impacts of New Zealand’s now-enforced biofouling laws on Regatta’s 2022 Australia circumnavigation.

    It was indeed an itinerary change … but not for the reason I thought. Rather, our time in two of the ports — Mooloolaba and Thursday Island — have been reduced. Not by much. Looks like we’ll have 30 minutes less in each port by departing earlier than was shown on the original itinerary.

    It will be what it will be … we will go with the flow.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under

    Airfare ✔️… YIKES!

    April 3, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 64 °F

    From where we sit on our veranda as Insignia makes its ways to Cape Town, our first South African port of call on RTW2023, we purchased the airfare to get us to/from Sydney! Amazing that we had a wi-fi signal at sea that was good enough for us to do so.

    Not looking forward to the 17-hour flight each way. That’s just the hop across the Pacific Ocean, by the way. With layovers included … well, I don’t even want to think about it! We have no choice but to grin and bear it, however, since our search for a cruise back to the USA to at least avoid the return flight yielded no acceptable options.

    At least, we’ll be flying in comfort in a United Airlines Polaris cabin.

    And, to make the most of the “yikes-inducing” long and expensive flights, we have added a week pre-cruise in Sydney and a month post-cruise to explore bits and pieces of Australia that a ship can’t get to.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    Added a month to our Australia overland.

    Extended!

    July 19, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 72 °F

    It took just 20 pages of reading this morning to jiggle our Australia plans.

    Yesterday, I downloaded an Australia eGuide from the library since neither Mui nor I have been able to find the one I purchased a few years ago. The file has seemingly up and vanished into the ether. Oh well.

    With a lovely morning inviting me to sit on the deck and read, I did just that. I didn’t get far in my reading, however, as it quickly became apparent that giving ourselves just a month to travel around Australia after disembarking Regatta was a mistake. The country/continent is huge and it takes time to get from one place to another. I mentioned my thinking to Mui. Before I could recommend that we extend the trip, he made the suggestion that we do so. Good to be on the same “travel page.”

    Deciding to extend the trip was easy. But that meant we had some logistics to re-think as well. Namely, our air arrangements.

    As it turns out, canceling and rebooking the flights was easy, too.

    In a matter of minutes after clicking the cancel button, the cost of the tickets was in Mui’s Mileage Plus account as a future flight credit. No penalties. No mess. No fuss.

    It was then just a matter of minutes to rebook our airfare using the future flight credit. Same 12 December departure from the US. But moving the return out by a month to 24 March.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    Our third itinerary change ... add a port/remove a port.

    Itinerary Change #3

    July 20, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 72 °F

    Just before the final payment reminder from Oceania showed up in my inbox this morning, I received notification of an itinerary change … the third one since booking our extended voyage a year ago to the day!

    What was to have been a day at sea on 28 December has been replaced by Cooktown, which we missed in 2017 due to weather. The 29th is now a day at sea … thus eliminating Thursday Island.

    We’ll consider adding Thursday Island to our yet-to-be-finessed overland itinerary if we decide to head up north … even though it will still be the rainy season thereabouts.

    As for Cooktown, we’ll keep our fingers crossed that we make it into port this time. I’ll check my research notes for RTW2017 to see what we might want to do there.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    Final payment makes the cruise even more real.

    Cha Ching: Final Payment ✔️

    July 21, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 79 °F

    Done deal.

    Although it was not due until the 24th, I made the final payment for AusPan today.

    Now to scribble in some time and tasks on ToDoist to work on everything else that is pending for our Australia adventure.Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    The Indian Pacific ... Perth to Sydney will be our direction.

    IP Booked

    July 27, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 88 °F

    Grif’s Great Australian Rail Trip was our inspiration.

    Actually, we had looked at booking a rail journey in Australia before we watched the six-episode BBC series. But, we weren’t looking at the route that travels between Sydney and Perth. Rather, we were interested in the Great Southern … between Brisbane and Adelaide; and The Ghan … through Australia’s Red Center.

    After watching the series, however, we decided to take a look at the Indian Pacific … the "IP" in the title of this footprint. This train service is so named because it travels from sea to sea … or rather, from ocean to ocean. Yes, that would be the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.

    The Journey Beyond Rail [JBR] website describes the train journey as … “This famous transcontinental crossing will take you through the country’s arid deserts and goldfields, rocky valleys and lush mountains and, ultimately, to three capital cities.”

    It all sounded fantastic, but we almost decided against booking the IP. Why? Because the only accommodations available — in either direction; for the duration of our time in Australia — were gold single cabins … with shared facilities. In the end, we decided we could live with separate accommodations and shared facilities for three nights and four days.

    This booking accomplished something we’ve been struggling to do thus far. It helped us to figure out a loose itinerary for the overland portion of our time in Australia. Not that the details are fleshed out, mind you. We’ll work on those in the weeks and months ahead.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    Got to get the formalities taken care of.

    AU Visa Applications ✔️

    August 12, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 77 °F

    Received a UA flight change notification today. No big deal; except that we are now leaving from COS @ 7:40a. An already long travel day is now going to be even longer. It is what it is.

    For some reason, the notification prompted us to check the length of our stay. Turns out that between our 7-day pre-cruise stay in Sydney + our 35-day AusPan + our 58-day overland, we are going to exceed the 90-day limit for the Australian ETA [Electronic Travel Authorization]. Darn!

    So, this afternoon we applied for the Australian tourist (subclass 600) visa. We requested multi-entry for up to 6 months. There is a higher cost to this visa vs the ETA. But it is what it is … the cost of travel.

    The funny thing is that although today is the 12th here at home, ImmiAccounts — the online portal for visa applications — is showing the date as the 13th. That IDL [International Date Line] thing at play again.

    According to the website, 90% of the applications are processed within 22 days. Fingers crossed as we wait to hear back.

    In the meantime, at least we know that we will not have to go through a mandatory health screening prior to getting our approval. And perhaps the best news? The visa will be attached digitally to our passports, so we won’t have to send them in for processing.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    Got our visas!

    Australia Visas Approved

    August 16, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 91 °F

    So much for a 22-day processing time frame!

    We received our visas within three working days.

    I don’t know if this faster approval is just the norm for US residents. Or if all the extra information we provided regarding dates and such made a difference. Regardless of the reason, we’re delighted to have this all-important step behind us.Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    One more extension ... the overland is now just over 3 months.

    Extended … Again!

    August 17, 2023 in the United States

    Yes, we decided to add more time to our Australia Overland … again!

    The primary reason for extending was so that we could add a few things to our itinerary that our previous in-country dates were forcing us to exclude from our plans. But I’ll write about those additions once the details are worked out.

    I should note that there was one other reason for considering the extension. Mui’s been saying that there will be a lot of driving without much downtime. That is simply not our style.

    As things stand now, between the pre-cruise in Sydney + the AusPan circumnavigation + the overland, our trip will be a total of 138 days … not counting the travel days to/from Australia. This is still way short of our 6-month Australia visa, but if we extended any further, we’d have to give up our RV trip in the USA next year … which we don’t want to do.

    Instead of canceling and rebooking all of our flight arrangements, which would have cost considerably more, we simply changed our return. Making the change was easy peasy and only cost us $4.50. What a bargain!!!    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    Exploring the Kimberleys by sea.

    Kimberleys by Sea

    August 18, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 93 °F

    Exploring the Kimberleys, the northernmost region of Australia, was one of the things we had to exclude from our original itinerary due to timing.

    It wasn’t that we didn’t have time to add it to our plans. Rather, the area is difficult to navigate during the wet season, so tours and such don’t operate until later in the year. We considered flying in, but even that proved to be logistically difficult.

    When we added the entire month of April to our plans, however, we looked at our options for the Kimberleys again. Land tours were still outside of our time range, but cruises were not.

    After doing a bit of research we settled on Coral Expeditions, an Australia-based company that comes highly recommended. That they have smaller ships than companies like Le Ponant, Seabourn, and Silversea was a bonus.

    With the operator selected, our next decision was to pick an itinerary and ship.

    First, we limited our options in April to the 72-passenger Coral Discoverer, the smaller of the two vessels sailing during our time frame. Then we decided to sail from Darwin to Broome instead of vice-versa.

    And voilà. We are booked!    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    We get to travel in comfort through the Red Center of Australia.

    The Ghan Booked

    August 19, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 93 °F

    The Ghan — which runs through the “Red Center” of Australia — is regarded as one of the world’s greatest train journeys.

    Alas, it was another thing that we were going to have to exclude from our plans due to timing issues. It wasn’t “the wet” that was a problem for The Ghan. It was the heat … just too hot to run the train during the height of summer.

    But then we extended our trip to include April. And suddenly the train journey became feasible to include in our plans.

    Instead of booking the 3-day/2-night trip, we booked the 4-day/3 night expedition because the itinerary includes a couple of fun and important-to-us off-train events … and only on departures out of Darwin and not out of Adelaide.

    Thus, we are now booked on another Australian train journey. And unlike on the IP [Indian Pacific] trip, Mui and I will share a gold-premium twin cabin on The Ghan.

    P.S. For those eagle-eyed readers who might notice the optional upgrade shown on the map to include Uluru … we won’t be doing it. A day trip would not only be incredibly tiring but also not a good cost-benefit value (for us). Instead, we have some other ideas we’re pursuing to visit that iconic landmark, which has great cultural significance to the traditional owners of the land.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    Our liveaboard boat will be the Ocean Quest.

    GBR Liveaboard ✔️

    August 21, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 91 °F

    Mui loves snorkeling.

    So, of course, he’s going to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef [GBR] when Regatta call on Cairns in December … as he did when Insignia stopped there on RTW2017.

    But a day trip out to the GBR is not all that he will be doing on our Australia adventure. No, this time we’ll be doing a “liveaboard” as well. What that means is that we’ll be staying a couple of nights on a boat anchored at the GBR rather than going back and forth on day trips so that Mui can get his snorkeling fix.

    What will I do while he’s snorkeling? Why relax on board the boat, of course. A little reading … a little writing … a little photography … a little doing nothing. And who knows, maybe Mui will convince me to get in the water, too! (I wouldn’t hold my breath on that if I were you 🤔.)    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    Love it when there is a price drop on a cruise.

    Kimberleys: Price Drop

    August 24, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 91 °F

    Received an email from Coral Expeditions last night. I thought it was in response to a query I had submitted. I was wrong.

    Turns out that in conjunction with publishing the 2025 itineraries, Coral Expeditions eliminated the price differential between their vessels for both 2024 and 2025. Thus reducing the fare for our April 2024 expedition.

    Price drops for cruises are not unusual. In fact, I’ve managed to save quite a bit over the years by going back to the cruise line after the initial booking and having a price drop applied.

    But in 20+ years of cruising, this is the first time that the operator has notified us of their own volition and applied the drop automatically. Now, that is unusual … at least in our part of the world.

    The new rate for our Kimberleys expedition saves us almost $2,100 over the original pricing. This is more than the “every penny counts” savings we’ve managed for other bits and pieces of our Australia adventure.

    Thank you Coral Expeditions!    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    Cutting off the circumnavigation in Hobart instead of continuing to Sydney.

    AusPan Hobart Disembark Approved

    August 25, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 68 °F

    Our decision to return to Tasmania after disembarking Regatta in Sydney, prompted us to consider leaving the ship in Hobart instead.

    I did some research, contacted the ship’s agent in Hobart, and he got approval for us to do so from Australian Border Forces.

    But then we needed to put the request to leave Regatta early through the official channels at Oceania. Getting a response took a bit of time. In fact, I had to light a fire under Oceania’s Port Operations Department by sending a second message saying that I already had approval from Border Forces.

    That did the trick and I got the official OK from Oceania today. We now have the approval to leave the ship in writing … with the caveat that once we leave Regatta we will not be able to return. No worries … we don’t plan to.

    True, we will be missing one port of call and one day at sea on the ship en route to Sydney after Hobart. But we won’t have to then fly back to the island for our road trip. We consider that a “win.”

    Now the question is … should we extend our time in Tasmania by the two days we have gained, or should we add those days somewhere else in our overland trip?    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    RV'ing across the south of Australia.

    RV’ing Across Three States

    August 31, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 91 °F

    We’ve got three roads trips planned — loosely, I might add — interspersed amongst other modes of travel to explore Australia.

    One is a road trip around Tasmania. This one will be by car.

    Another road trip will take us from Sydney up to Cairns. Also by car.

    Between these two will be a road trip from Melbourne to Perth. This one will be by RV.

    We were hoping to book a camper van, but none were available for our dates in February. So, we booked a 4-berth Class C motor home instead. The extra space will come in handy for luggage storage and such, so that’s perhaps not a bad thing.

    Not sure what our pace will be. Some say the Nullarbor Plain is dull and boring. If that’s the case, we’ll speed across it. Others say the Nullarbor is amazing and beautiful. If that’s the case, we’ll slow down as we drive across it.

    Aside from wanting to visit a few specific places, we really have no concrete plans, so we can jiggle our way across Victoria, South Australia, and Western Australia.

    Loosey-goosey is the name of the game for this part of our overland trip.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    Indonesian eVOA approved.

    Indonesian eVOA for AusPan ✔️

    November 1, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 57 °F

    After spending 7 weeks visiting family in Turkey, we are on our way back home to the USA. Instead of flying, however, we embarked Holland America’s Oosterdam in İstanbul for a TransAtlantic cruise … with a bit of sightseeing in Europe along the way.

    Today is our second day in Barcelona. At the moment, having visited the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Sant Pau, we are back on the ship. With time on our hands before sail away, we took advantage of the strong cell signal from shore to take care of a visa requirement for AusPan.

    Indonesia requires a VOA [visa on arrival] for US residents. This used to be handled by the ship in the past. Now, Indonesia has implemented a system to apply for the visa online to receive an e-VOA in advance of the ship’s arrival in port.

    It took us all of 20 minutes to prepare the files they required us to upload, complete and submit two applications, and pay for the visas. No sooner was the credit card payment approved that we each heard a ding on our phones … heralding the arrival of our approved visas via email. Easy peasy.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    SeaLink's Sealion 2000 will take us from mainland Australia to KI.

    KI Getaway

    November 23, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 39 °F

    Kangaroo Island — KI as the locals refer to it — is one of the ports of call on our AusPan itinerary. Not sure if we’ll make it ashore, however, as it is a tender port that gets canceled more often than not.

    The island has more to see and explore than one can reasonably do in one day anyway. So, we added KI to our itinerary as a getaway during our overland trip.

    The only way to get to Kangaroo Island is by ferry from Cape Jervis.

    The only way to get to Cape Jervis from Adelaide, where we detrain from The Ghan, is by car … because the bus service seems to be limited to once a day. But, even if that were not the case, having our own wheels will give us not only flexibility along the way, but we will also have our own wheels to explore the island.

    And of course, once we get to KI, we need a place to stay.

    Ferry booking …✔️
    Car rental booking …✔️
    Accommodations booking …✔️

    Looks like we’re ready for KI!

    Another mode of travel — a car ferry — has now been added to our overland trip.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    26 days to go and we have our cruise vacation guide.

    Cruise Vacation Guide ✔️

    November 24, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 19 °F

    The fancy folder with the general travel and onboard information for our AusPan circumnavigation arrived in the mail today.

    While the booklet doesn’t have anything that is critical to our voyage, its arrival is a signal that we are getting ever closer to embarking the ship. In this case, Regatta … in Sydney.

    Counting down … 26 days to go before we are once again asea.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    Uluru — the iconic landmark of the Anangu.

    Squeezed in Uluru-Kata Tjuta

    November 25, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 27 °F

    The addition came at the cost of losing the Bungle-Bungles of Kimberley, but Uluru — the iconic landmark of the Anangu — is now on the itinerary.

    Our flights from Sydney to Yulara, the service village outside the national park, and back to Sydney are booked. As are our accommodations at the Ayers Rock Resort.

    We are giving ourselves three full days to explore not just Uluru, but also Kata Tjuta National Park, “… a living cultural landscape where earth and memories exist as one.” Uluru is, in fact, part of the national park, and though it seems to overshadow everything else in the minds of most visitors, there is plenty more to see and experience within the park.

    Next up, we need to look at the tour and activity options. And also purchase a park pass. I’ll do so over the next few days.

    Oh, and of course, I need to make sure we pack our hat nets … we’re going to need them to keep the pesky flies off our face! Fingers crossed they are not as bad as they can be during the hot Australian summer.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under
    Boarding passes downloaded and printed.

    AusPan Boarding Passes ✔️

    November 30, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 39 °F

    Online check-in for AusPan opened today. It took all of 10 minutes to complete the required information and watch the safety video. Easy Peasy.

    Also received the final documents for the cruise. The itinerary shows some minor changes to our times in port. Gained an hour here … lost a half hour there. Nothing that will impact our plans ashore.

    Time to embarkation is now 21 days and counting.    Read more

  • Adventuring Down Under

    Choosing Meals

    December 8, 2023 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 34 °F

    Well, that's a first!

    Not in the sense that airline passengers have not always had the option to choose a special meal. They have. But the email we received last night from United Airlines [UA] asked if we wanted to pre-select our dinner for the IAH-SYD flight ... from a list of specific dishes.

    We both opted for the shrimp.

    We are not locked into our choices, though. The email confirming our selections said we could always change our minds after we are onboard. Who knows? We might even opt to go directly to sleep!    Read more

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