A Beautiful Trip to Australia
February 2 - 21, 2024
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I want to share with you my first and probably only around-the-world trip. If my
math is correct it looks like we traveled 22495 miles by air and 2516 by sea
(give or take). The circumference of the earth at the equator is said to be
24,901 miles.
On our trip to Iceland the summer of 2023, we met friends who live in
Wollongong, NSW, Australia. A month or so after our return home we got a message
inviting us to visit Australia and join them on a cruise from Sydney to Perth on
the Azamara Journey. After some consideration, we jumped on the idea and made it
happen. How crazy are we? It’s a long time to spend in an airplane. Deb and Karl
said: “Welcome to our world.” When ever they want to go anywhere there is always
a long flight involved.
Our plan had us leaving Columbus on February 2 on a late day flight (3 hours).
We connected with our international flight (17 hours) in Dallas departing about
9:15pm. That’s a long time to be in an airplane. We landed in Sydney early on
Sunday morning, February 4. So just where did we lose a day? Oh, we crossed the
international date line and we also crossed the equator and many time zones.
Did I say, that’s a long time to be in an airplane? And nearly all of it was
over water. Sunrise chased us from Dallas finally catching up with the plane as
we approached Australia.
We spent two wonderful days in Sydney before boarding the ship Azamara Journey.
We have been on this ship several times before. We spent the next 14 days
traveling from Sydney to Melbourne, then to Portland, Kangaroo Island, Adelaide,
Esperance, Albany, Busselton, and finally Fremantle (the port city for Perth).
We spent two days in Adelaide and Fremantle and 3 days sailing on the open sea.
Coming home, we left Perth on Tuesday, February 20 about 10:45 pm. connecting
with other flights in Doha, Qatar and Philadelphia before arriving in Columbus
on Wednesday, February 21 about 8:30 pm. At first look you say that’s less than
22 hours. Don’t forget the 16 time zones crossed and layovers thus the advertised
elapsed time is about 35 hours. Kind of make my head spin. It did take a few
days to unwind both the physical body and the mind from all this travel.
It was summer in Australia. So some days were plenty hot. A few times the
thermometer bounced around 100˚F. I did not take any long sleeve shirts and one
night it was cool enough I wish I had. We were warned a few times about the hole
in the ozone layer so protecting skin from the UV radiation from the sun was
very important. Lots of sunscreen was required.
This was a beautiful trip with lots of scenery, wonderful people, and great food
and drink. I hope we can return and enjoy even more of Australia in the not too
distant future. Many thanks go to Deb and Karl for their encouragement and
hospitality.
I’ve broken the images into 6 parts. I always say this, but I do hope you enjoy
the images from this trip as much as I enjoyed making them. As usual, I have
included a few images that are of questionable quality because even at that,
they tell an interesting story. Enjoy!.
I sure hope you enjoy these images. I had a blast making them and totally
enjoyed every part of this trip. Sit back and pretend you were at my side when I
made the images.