Tomorrow morning, the ship will ease its way into Darwin, Australia, gliding into yet another port on this long voyage. Even after all these years of travel, there’s always a slight flutter in my chest on arrival days, not out of excitement for disembarking, necessarily, but because of the choreography of logistics, immigration procedures, and the small rituals that seem to come with every country we enter.
Even with our e-visas for Australia already applied for and approved months ago, there was still the somewhat tedious, time-consuming process of immigration officers boarding the ship. They set up in the dining room on Deck 5, checking visas and passports, making sure all the papers lined up with whatever boxes needed ticking. And, of course, there was yet another form for us to fill out, because no border crossing ever seems complete without one more form.
While Tom headed down to the Promenade Café with our laptops to settle in for his usual morning routine, I stayed behind in the cabin a little longer, gathering my laundry for the wash-and-fold service. It’s one of those small luxuries of cruise life that I hesitate to admit I’ve come to depend on. Once everything was neatly bagged, I left it for our ever-reliable stateroom attendant and made my way to Deck 5. Fortunately, the immigration line moved quickly, filled with the usual mix of sleepy passengers, early-morning chatter, and the soft hum of people fishing through their bags for the required additional documentation.
Even with today’s clearance complete, this won’t be our last tango with immigration on this trip. Once we reach the airport on December 13, we’ll go through Australian immigration again, not to stay, but to head onward to New Zealand. For anyone who hasn’t traveled this part of the world, the geography and politics can be a little confusing. New Zealand may seem close enough to Australia on a map to assume some shared visa or easy transit. Still, it’s an entirely separate country with its own rules, its own immigration procedures, and its own long-established identity.
And then, in a twist that always makes me laugh at the sheer bureaucracy of travel, when we return to Australia two months later to visit Tasmania, we’ll go through Australian immigration yet again. Tasmania, of course, is part of Australia, a full-fledged state, not a separate nation. It’s an island state located south of the mainland, separated from the mainland by the Bass Strait, rich in rugged wilderness, unusual wildlife, and the charming capital city of Hobart. It always amuses me that entering Tasmania from abroad requires the same formalities as entering Sydney or Melbourne, even though one feels like a frontier of wilderness and the other like the heart of bustling civilization.
For travelers new to all of this, these processes can feel overwhelming. The lines, the passport checks, the obscure forms asking questions that seem oddly specific, are enough to make anyone’s head spin. But for us, after thirteen years of full-time world travel, it’s familiar territory. Not necessarily enjoyable, but predictable, and that predictability helps.
One thing that has been less predictable this past month is the sheer number of time zone changes we’ve endured while cruising. Tom, ever the numbers guy, counted ten in total, including last night’s puzzling 30-minute time zone change as we approached the Northern Territory. These half-hour oddities are always a bit jarring, as if time itself decided to shrug and say, “Why not split the difference?”
Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, sits up at the “Top End” of Australia, bordering the Timor Sea. We’ve visited several times over the years, and while it’s a pleasant enough city, the port area doesn’t offer much beyond shopping, most of which will be closed anyway since we arrive on a Sunday. With that in mind, we have no intention of getting off the ship tomorrow. Sometimes, staying aboard is the more peaceful choice, especially when we’ve already been there, done that.
Despite the logistical dance, the time changes, and the length of this voyage, 41 days so far, it’s a long stretch, even for me; we’re still enjoying ourselves. There’s something comforting about settling into shipboard life, finding small routines, and letting the world drift by outside the balcony door.
We’ll share more as we move through this final week aboard Royal Caribbean’s Voyager of the Seas. Until then, may your own travels, wherever they take you, be smooth and pleasant.
Be well.
Photo from ten years ago today, December 6, 2015:
Our guide was prepared to begin backing up as this male elephant in musth moved closer and closer to us. Musth or must is a periodic condition in bull elephants characterized by highly aggressive behavior and accompanied by a large rise in reproductive hormones. Testosterone levels in an elephant in musth can be on average 60 times greater than in the same elephant at other times.
