Cairnes (Pronounced Cans) AU

I knew Aussies didn't know how to pronounce consonants at the end of their words but, they took out half the letters in Cairnes.  The i, r, e and half of the s is missing from their pronounciation. My expectations were not high for this Australian port, after seeing Sydney and Brisbane; however, it turned out to  be one of the better excursions so far. 

There are four parts to this story: 1. mountain and tropical forrest train ride. 2. holding a kuala bear.  3. riding a duck and  4. Aussies buying beer so I almost missed the ship.

KURANDA SCENIC RAILWAY

This narrow gauge railroad (3 ft. 6 in.) built in 1891 is first class in both right-of-way and equipment, going from sea level to 337 metres. It started in Caires but wound it's way up the mountains through 15 tunnels, numerous bridges and by several large waterfalls.  It was well worth the trip.

Locomotive hand-painted by the Djabugay of the Buda-Dji, the Carpet Snake.

These replayed steam. Only 1000 hp each.

Tunnel #8

Rain on a different mountain.

To give you an idea of scale, those are trees on the other side of the canyon, not bushes.

ZOO

At Kuranda Station there was a zoo of Australian animals.  You could walk among the kangaroos and see the more hostile animals, such as snakes and crocodiles in enclosures. I loved the warning sign and even got to hold a koala bear.  They are union bears as they are only to work for 30 minutes a day taking photos with tourists.

Tazmanian Devil

DUCK BOAT

The next part of the day's excursion was to drop down into the rainforest to ride the duck boat through the jungle.  These were made in Detroit in 1942-3 to land Allied troops on shore during amphibious invasions. They too originaly acted as light armour and machine gun support for infantry.

The tour included very interesting talk about many of the rain forest trees and plants, especially the ones that can seriously cut or kill us with poison in just touching them. Most are protected by the government. The driver was reminiesent of my dad when he was a U.S. Forest Service ranger at Blanchard Springs Caverns. He loved talking about nature and the caves.  This guy enjoyed his job too but sadly, he wouldn't let me drive the boat.

ALMOST MISSED THE SHIP

We got back to the ship about 4:00 pm. I showered and headed to a shopping mall about 8 blocks away in the central business district. When I use Facebook messenger to call home, people on the other end were getting feedback so I shopped for some bluetooth headphones that would elimanate that. I found them and then witnessed two teenagers commit a snatch-and-run shoplifting in a skateboard/beach clothing store. It sent clerks and guards running all over the place.

On the way to the mall

In the mall. I think it's a cross between Burger King and Jack-in-the-Box.

I stopped for this selfie and watched the theft in progress.

As I was indentifying the culprets to the police a local guy overheard me. He said,"You're an American." and "You're from the South. I'm from Philadelphia and you are the first American I've seen in weeks." Long story short, Spence and I went into an Irish pub he knew and had a few beers.  I love Australian beer. So good.

People kept buying me beers. There was a live group with a fiddle and guitar playing Irish songs with the whole bar full of people singing with them. They all appeared as though they might have had a drink or two or three. My ship leaves at 7:30, I thought.

At 6:00 pm I heard a loud ship's horn that reverbirated through the buildings. I was sure hoping it was the Europa departing and not my ship, the Insignia. Too late to worry about that, so I had another beer.  That made 6, maybe seven beers.  I'm not sure. So good.

It's a good 15-20 minute walk the the ship but, I'm still recovering a little from my knee injury from jumping out of a perfectly good airplane in Clinton. As I was leaving, a couple of Queensland cops on bicycles rolled up. So naturally I had to start up a conversation.  I kept looking at my watch and told the officers I had to catch a ship out-of-town. Could they point me in the right direction?

I was walking as fast as I could.  It was fortunate that I was somewhat intoxicated (drunk) so that I felt no pain at all in my legs. When I finally made it to the pier, the crew was at the ready to take in the gangway and were waiting on me. "Are you Mr. Beach?"  It was 7:29.  I made it by one minute.

I found out today at dinner that the cruise line had me paged at the airport in Sydney. Marcia had flown in and heard the public address and thought that there couldn't be two Jim Beach. My friends on board heard them paging on the ship at 7:15. Oceania was worried because earlier in the cruise I'd left the ship at Sydney and got back on at Brisbane,  Even though I had prior permission from the company and Australian visa approval, apparently the staff on the ship didn't know.  This time, after I was the only one that hadn't checked in, they thought I was making another side trip.

So good.

Australian NSW Railway

This was my first cross-country train trip instead of going port-to-port by my cruise ship. I got off in Sydney, spent the night and got up and took the train to Brisbane (pronounced Briz' ben). I set out on Train 33 at 0708 hours.  It was a 14 hour trip but almost all of it in daylight.

First Class was very comfortable with plenty of space.  I managed to get a seat on the east side of the train so I could watch the ocean views.  The locomotive and train looked like it was built for high speed but, we rarely got over 60 kph, maybe sometimes 100 kph. I'd driven faster than that in New Zealand.

We made quite a few stops at pretty little stations and a couple large ones along the way. We only had to pull into a siding and stop once for an opposing freight. 

We did pass a large number of commuter trains the first couple of hours out of Sydney but, they were on seperate overhead-electrified track.  Most were headed for Sydney rushing by in seconds. However; once we raced a northbound commuter train so that we were paralell and just feet, window to window, with passengers looking across at each other for a couple of miles. One little boy was waving delitedly at us from the other train.

First thing in the morning on the walk from my hotel.

This was the activity at that time of morning.  The tracks all stub in to the right side of this photo.

Smaller middle entrance.

This is actually at this time the tail end of my train.  It has a locomotive on each end and both operate when the train is moving. The engineer (called driver over here) just moves to the other end to come back.

Graffiti is the same everywhere.

There was hard to discribe the scenery all along the route. It was easy to see but, hard to photograph. First because it was all around you and a picture or even a video would not do it justice. Second, everything was going by so fast that by the time you saw something interesting, which was all the tiem, it was gone. Also, the train's windows were tinted blue which was good for viewing with your eyes and it filtered the harshness of the sun but, relected light from inside the train on the photos.

In the hole for a freight.

One tree island.

Once I got into Brisbane that evening I had another cheap motel walking distance from the pier where I my ship came. in. I got up  early in the morning to watch the Insignia pull into the dock on side-thrusters just after the tug boat released her. This was the first time I was on shore watching my ship come in. She had just turned around in the Brisbane River and is facing south and down river .  

I showered, took a nap, ate luch and headed back into Brisbane and toured the Queensland Police HQ (See other entry) I jumped the subway from the shuttle drop of at Central Station, got back to catch the last shuttle back to the ship.  I made it with one minute to spare. I showered again, dressed for dinner and met friends for a reservation at Pollo's, the steakhouse on the ship.

We set out at 7:00 pm while I was seated at a rear facing floor-to-ceiling window over-looking downtown Brisbane.  We passed under a teal lite bridge as the sky darkened. I ate a good medium-rare rib-eye at a table in company with 5 friends. Life is hard.

Morning

Evening.
Bob at our table took this photo.  Passing under this bridge with Brisbane lite up behind it was wonderful.

In the Land Down Under

Australia is a great country. I was informed by a local once we docked in Sydney that the city of 5.2 million was more populous than New Zealand. The entry into port was the most amazing and beautiful of this trip so far.  The approached the city through a narrow channel  curving through a very large bay covered with a hundred sailboats.  It was a perfect 25c outside, sunny with a moderate breeze. I and most of the passengers were on open decks to take it all in.  Breathtaking.

Our channel pilot, harbor patrol and our two tugs had to clear the channel of sailboats in front of us.

Our tugs lining up to attach either side of the Insignia to nuge us through the narrow channel.

We went by the famous Sydney Opera House, next to which we would have docked, except the Queen Elizabeth had priority. We sailed under the famous 1932 bridge that the locals call "the coat hanger." Similar the "Dolly Parton" bridge in Memphis, only with one hump. There were groups of people who climbed the open-air steps (1400 of them) to the crest.  They waved as passed pass.

Just after we passed under the coat hanger. One level for trains the other for cars.

Once tied up I went into downtown, did some shopping, stopped by the New South Wells Police and scoped out the railway staion and had dinner and a good Australian beer there.

Everything was open-air.: the trains on the left, restaurants and services to the right with large arched open entrances on each end, to the trains and center through the services area.

View from my table with a good beer. The Departures Board.

 After scoping out downtown hussle and bussle big-city Sydney pretty cool here, similar to NZ  in that almost all the women wore dresses.  Some skirts, busness dresses, lots of colorful summer dresses and knockout shoes.  Most had their hair done up nice, even when casual. Age wasn't a factoe, it seemed mostly tourists were dressed down.  Most men wore nice shorts and sandels, except for business suits and work uniforms. Very pleasant. One railway employee engaged me in a nice conversation about how he admired Americans.  He kept saying, "And let me tell you just one more thing." repeatedly.  Nice gentleman.

This railway map was imbedded into the floor of the staion when it was built in 1906.

I went back to the ship and packed a couple of change of clothes in alittle backpack and headed out to my cheap hotel.  My train didn't leave until the next morning and Insignia left port at 7:00 pm. After I checked in I hit the local entertainment district near the train station. It was interesting to notice that on the sidewalks, like on the roads here, people tended to pass on the left and stay on the left side of the walkways.

I found a sports bar that looked lively and found that they had all three major sports going on the big screen TVs: football (soccer), rugby and cricket.  They are serious, serious about all three.

There a lot of late night Indonesian massage parlors and Chinese .noodle shops

My hotel was cheap but, so was the room.  It was bare minimum.  It was like a college dorm room before the semester started: clean but bare.  It was just a short sleep anyway since I had to get up at 0600 hours and walk 15 minutes back to the train station.

Queensland Police

I rode the train up from Sydney and spent the night in Brisbane. The next day I took the #7 subway to Roma St., right to the Headquarters of the Queensland Police. 

It took awhile to get inside the secure part of the building, so I visited the police museum on the first floor while I waited.  It was a very good museum crowded with civilians, mostly uniformed high school kids being chauffeured around by museum personal.  They had a courtroom where they held a mock trail.  They had a mock crime scene where the teenagers had to guess from the evidence what occurred and other fine exhibits.

Just inside the main entrance. Check out the literature.

Sgt Peta came down and took me around the very large modern building.  Their communications center was next to none.  She introduced me around to her boss as well as to dispatchers actively working calls. It was an impresssive system and connected everyone who should be on a call for service together and all the information they needed.  She walked me through a couple of calls as they were occurring.

The inspector walked in while her boss, Paul, the overall commander of the center, located in a ring of screens in the middle of the large complex, explained his functions. The Inspector said he was checking to make sure Paul was doing his job.  I broke in said the Paul had just asked what the hell I was doing there with all the activity that was going on and was about to throw me out. Paul agreed smiling and he let it go.

Sgt. Peta.

Sgt. Peta showed me the Incident Command Center.  I forgot how many millions of dollars it cost.  She said it was thanks to a then impending visit from Obama that the state came up with the money. They've used it many times since for large events and situations. It is one thing I couldn't take a photo of but, believe me it was first rate and had consoles for a couple of dozen officers, a light board conference/planning table and access to everything they might need.

She walked me around and pointed out the different investigative divisions, even the Police Superintendent as he was walking out with the Fire Superintendent.

One of the interesting discusions was about gun violence in the U.S. They were under the impression that we were all being shot at everyday, all the time. They thought we all took our uniforms off at the end of shift before we went home.  I told him some departments did but, not most.  I said the biggest issue was having to be in a highened state of alert at all times, even having coffee, lunch or casual contacts.  It was taking its toll on officers and that many large cities were have trouble retaining and in hiring of officers.  I was told one officer came over from Seattle. Considering their politicians, that makes sense.

I asked if outlawing guns had been sucessful.  To my surprize, they all agreed that yes it had.  Shootings were rare and when they did happen, they made the national news. I told them I thought there were too many guns in the U.S. to be able to eliminate them except from law-abiding citizens. 

There is room full of dispatchers outside his ring, to the left one side of the Brisbane River the right side the other.

Cut right off a uniform.

Main entrance.

Mock Courtroom

Karen Cranky looks an awlful lot like the museum director.

I remember the card slider system (top left photo insert) when I worked dispatch on Memphis PD.

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

Gallipoli was a First World War failed campaign in 1915 to take the Dardanelles from the Turks so the Allies could get supplies to the Russians. It was an ill planned British battle that utilized Austrailan and New Zealand forces as well as other Commonwealth countries. The Dardanelles were never taken.

The museum has a huge display about the disasterous battle in which almost 10,000 AUSNZ where killed in a stalemate turned into trench warfare before evacuating.  Both countries consider this the point where each nation became independent nation and not just British commonwealths.

The most amazing part of this display were the 10-15 foot tall dioramas, where just the faces were almost 4 feet tall. Notice the people around the displays in these photographs.  The detail was astonishing.

He looks to be quite angry at me.

Trick used to make Turks think they were still being fired on during the evacuation. Hole in top helmet to drip water to second one eventually fired rifle.

Indigious people, Maroi carving.