Singapore, reshape our sailing plans

  April 2013

We left Sydney and waved our Tall Ships friends from the Soren Larsen farewell. We will be back in August! Marty the skipper offered us jobs for the Australian Tall Ships event. We sail from Sydney to Melbourne, to Hobart and back to Sydney. It will be a celebration of the Royal Australian Navy’s centenary and some of the most magnificent Tall Ships will join (also the two Dutch tall Ships Oosterschelde and Europa).

Scoot airlines flew us back to Singapore. Cheap airline were nothing is included so in the end you “world deal ticket” becomes a lot more expensive if you add luggage, food & drinks. After 8 hours in our cramped sitting area, we were relieved to stretch our legs. We booked this time our accommodation via Roomorama. Hotels are so expensive in Singapore that for world travels like us there is the choice to sleep in a closet size room of 10m2 or a bunk bed. Roomorama is a website where you can find private rooms, houses which people rent for short term. When we arrived in our accommodation, we were completely flabbergasted. A complete villa, with swimming pool and a servant all for ourselves!

The day after we figured out that 

the owners of the villa already moved to another house in Singapore and the villa is up for sale. Their daughter is the owner of Roomorama and put her parent’s house on Roomorama.

Check it out yourself for your next trip.

https://www.roomorama.com/vakantiewoningen/singapore/bukit-timah/room/16075?check_in=2013-04-16&check_out=2013-04-23&guests=2&origin=search&q=Singapore

When we left Sydney, we knew that there was another delay in the refit of the Royal Albatross. After twice changing our flights, we told the captain Mark, that we would fly to Singapore anyway and wait for the start. Our intention was to visit the ship and see ourselves how the progress of the refit was coming along. But all this was not needed when we got an email from Mark that they were still facing problems with the stability book and a redo of the painting of the hull. The planned start of our contract and the training of the crew were now postponed to mid May. For us this was absolutely the limit of our patience and we decided; it’s time to move on. Maybe the adventure with the Royal Albatross will never happen. It’s time to go to sea!

 

   

We spend most of the time in and around the villa, enjoying all this luxury. Some days we took the bus to town and discovered more of this wonderful city. We visited the national museum of Singapore. The grand dame of Singapore museum scene, with a magnificent rotunda with crafted pieces of stainless glass. The museum features a wide variety of multimedia exhibits, primarily on Singapore’s history, culture and glory. 

 

Very interesting was the exhibition about the food culture. It is anunderstatement to say “That Singaporeans live to eat and not eat to live”.  They love their hawker centres, open dining areas with food stalls representing all sorts of local cuisine.From Chinese to Malay, Indonesian and Indian.Here you sit down on cheap plastic chairs and wading into a $ 3,- of char kway teow. A dish of noodles, clams and eggs fried in chilli and black beansauce. A “hawker” was once used for a food vendor who moved their wares around in mobile carts, setting up their burners where ever there were customers. Of course this as not acceptable in modern Singapore anymore and now they are all stockade into hawker centres. 

 

We enjoyed some of this Chinese
 food culture in the food courts and
 cooked our own chicken rice
 (without the head and the feet 
of the chicken by the way).

We went to Clarke Quay, one of Singapore’smost popular night haunts.

Enjoyed a beer at Brewerkz, a microbrewery with a list of superb beers. The best thing was their quote on the coaster

 “When I read about the evils of  drinking, I gave up reading”.

A night walks along Singapore River and around Marina Bay to discover colonial and modern Singapore at night. Stunning architecture in a thrilling laser light show
 

The amazing Marina Bay Sands Hotel Towers, with 2.560 rooms and the largest outdoor pool on the rooftop (55^th floor).

Hidden graffiti art in one of the footway tunnels with a critical view on Raffles who brought Singapore under the British colonisation and occupation. He was sighting for a new port to cement British interests in the Malacca Strait and a depot to encounter Dutch power in the area.  Raffles was the one who turned the sparsely populated tiger infested malaria swamp into an economic powerhouse.  And still this Raffesian spirit underpins the tireless drive of the city to be successful.

 

We checked out “Little India” a part of Singapore with wonderful sights, smells and sounds. Go at night time and it is a buzzing area with Indian’s checking out the numerous gold shops, buying fruit & veggies at the little food stalls and enjoy Mustafa’s department store, 24 hours open and they sell literly everything. The best priced Indian dresses you’ll find in the Tekka centre, with an enormous hawker centre on the ground floor (too sketchy & tricky for us to have a meal there).

 But the main attraction is the fabulous
 Indian food in a range of restaurants.
 We ate curry and naan and Billy tried
 some of the hottest spicy peppers ever!

 

Still trying to find a new sailing adventure, we thought the Singapore boat show could be a good networking activity. It was a sort of millionaires fair for the fortunate who can spend a few millions on a motor yacht with a couple of crew. We were glad to leave this plastic stainless steel world behind us.

In the meanwhile we were working on our new sailing adventure. Checking emails for reactions on our applications and checking flights to potential boating opportunities. We got a positive reaction from the yacht “Infinity”, a 120 ft ketch. She does sailing/ diving adventures in Asia and the Pacific and does projects in sustainably. Check out the website: www.infinityexpeditions.org

Planning in progress of flights, accommodation and how to get there. We will join the yacht “Infinity” in Semporna a little harbour city on the East coast of Sabah, Borneo. We are joining around the 5^th of May so some travel time left to discover Sabah. Exciting to have a new sailing adventure and to discover an island were none of my friends (and they do travel a lot) have ever been. We fly first to Kota Kinabalu, stay for a couple of days and then travel the island further by bus.

Although I regret that the job on the Royal Albatrosss didn’t work out this time, I am really happy that we found a new challenging sailing adventure. With an itinerary of the islands of Malaysia (best diving spots ever) and then to the Philippines, promises a fantastic new experience.

I can’t wait to throw off the mooring lines. Next blog hopefully with a lot of sea salty stories.

Ahoy Charlotte

Part 2 Sailors on wheels; from Darwin to Sydney

March/ April 2013

After part 1 of our road trip, we deserve some rest in a hotel, with a proper bed, a shower and free wireless. Amazing how big the room feels after 11 days sleeping in the back of a Toyota van. How luxurious it is to wake up in the air co and not being attacked by flies and have dinner in a restaurant instead of a roadhouse.

Why do you want to go to the top end and go outback in the Northern territories? The tropical north is a burst of birdlife, wild crocodiles (no swimming anywhere here!), rocky gorges and aboriginal communities. And as cherry on the cake; trillions of mosquito’s!

We followed from Darwin in the North to Adelaide in the south the Stuart highway nr 1. North brings you de humid climate of the rainforest and via the remote desert with sometimes hours no one on the road you arrive in the lush hills of Southern Australia. The route, a little over 6000 km, through the middle from this vast country:

Darwin- Kakadu national Park-Renner springs-Alice Springs-Kings Canyon-Ayers Rock-Coober Pedy-Tanunda-West Wyalong-Botany Bay-Sydney

Check it out on the map of Australia     View this trip

Kakadu national park

Encompassing 20,000 sq kilometres, an adventure in a natural and cultural landscape. A treasure house of natural beauty and aboriginal art. But also a big

Kakadu national park

challenge, because travelling in March, means travelling in the wet season. The big advantage is hardly
any other tourist, but the down side is that you need to check road conditions every day and a 4 WD was a little more appropriate than our little Toyota van. It also means the climate is hot, sticky and wet and impossible to escape the mosquitos.

So we did some survival preparations with

Preparations for survival in the rain forest

adding a rain tent to the camper and mosquito nets in the van. The tent worked fine but the mosquito’s were in such a huge quantities that we were hunting the whole night, got bitten everywhere and the only solution was sleep with all the doors and windowsclosed and go to bed when the sun goes down.

  

Sulpher crested cockatoo

But the beauty of this park is so overwhelming that you forget all the discomfort and enjoy the 

impressive nature.

 

The white settlement in 1863 had a troubled and violent effect on the Aboriginal communities. Most aboriginals were murdered or confined to Christian missions. Today the aboriginals own half of the land in the Northern territories. To really visit the Aboriginal communities is for short term travellers not possible because they like to be left alone. Unfortunately the pictures of Aboriginals in the city’s like Darwin is just an example of these with social problems as drinking & unemployment.

 

Luckily there are aboriginals groups who like to share the culture with tourist and Kakadu has the mind blowing ancient Rock art. For Aboriginal people the rock art is there major source of traditional knowledge and represent their archives and some of them are over 2000 year old. Some paintings have religious power and can influence the succes of the hunt.

  Nabulwinjbulwinj is a dangerous

Nabulwinjbulwinj

 spirit who eats females after   striking them with a yam

The landscape in Kakadu
has it all, from limestone
formations to swamps and
creeks.

We did Gunbarra Pool walk to experience
part of these wonders.

The most tourist trap in this park is of course the dangerous salt water crocodiles. As a must see we boarded the boat for a tour on the yellow river at 7 in the morning to spot the wild life. Camera’s ready although the guide started with excuses that the crocs are normally not easy to find in the wet season. So we started with the nicest bird species in these wetlands and YES after 1 hour we found the croc and the guide could be happy that everyone got the value for money.

White breasted eagle

 Kakadu national Park- Renner Springs-Alice Springs- Kings Canyon

We were really happy to leave the rainforest. The hot sticky nights in the van and the army of Mosquito’s. The long haul to the red centre was 1919 km with stops in Renner Springs and Alice springs. Endless stretches of desert and red earth.

Alice Springs was the first camp spot where it was a little busier than what we experienced so far. Fun to meet fellow travellers; backpackers in cheaply bough cars (which they hope to sell for more at the end of their trip), camping in tiny tents and professional Australian campers with huge trucks with TV and freezer.  The only thing we enjoyed was finding camp spots with WIFI (hardly exist) and a camp kitchen for some extra comfort to cook our meals.

 

Kings Canyon

Part of the Watarrka national park and rated as one of the highlights of the red centre is the Kings Canyon. We were absolutely delighted to be in the desert with the hot dry days and nice cool nights with billions of stars.

The Kings Canyon rim walk awarded us with awesome views and giant rocks and boulders. The light is spectacular and the colours seem to change every half hour with the progressing of the day. We started early to avoid a heat stroke and see the most optimal effects of the sun colouring the rocks.

 

Kings Canyon

Uluru (Ayers Rock) & Kata Tjuta

Uluru is one of the “must see” spots of Australia and a world heritage listed icon. So you should be prepared for the big bus loads with Japanese and European tourist who sees this as their Australian pilgrimage.

Our Ayers Rock camp spot

 

In the distance, but we save her for tomorrows sunrise

So we did, wake up early in the morning to be at the rock before the sunrise at 6.55. The leaving cars from the camping woke us up and checking the clock we decided to sleep a little longer. One big flow of cars and busses trying to get the best photo spot, took for us away the mystery of this rock. And of course we didn’t climb the rock! It is a sacred place of the Aboriginals and it can’t be trampled by human feet.  In the category of “we have seen it, we got the picture”.

Busloads of tourists watching

Sunrise in the morning, 6.55 hour

After a strong coffee we went to Kata Tjuta. These rocks, meaning “many heads” are far more impressive and walking in the “Valley of Winds” gave us that supreme spiritual feeling. We met a local guide who introduced us to the wonders of nature and met his group with of course a couple of Duchies in it.

On our way to the Barossa valley

We start our way south and realize that a couple of days desert and a lot of kilometres are needed to get us back to the civilized world of Southern Australia. We made a stop in a place Coober Pedy, where people look for opals and a lot of dreams and hopes on fortune are scattered. Mainly was to make as much kilometres a day and with a schedule of 2 hours driving, fuel up (always get fuel when the tank is halfway, because you never know where the next station is), get a drink and change drivers.

And then slowly the landscape changes. We see rolling hills with corn fields and vineyards. After all the weeks outback and national parks, we lingered for some nice food & wine. Where can you be better than in the Barroso Valley? An old German settlement where they love food (cheeses, mettwurst and schnitzel) and the great Shiraz.

Tanunda winetasting

The wines we bought

      We book a tour on a minivan and visited 5 or 6 micro vineries where we tasted fantastic whites and reds. Not  profession wine tasting, so just swallowing the wine, resulted in a nice buzz around mid day. A  lunch with cheeses and cold meats and relish in one of the vineyards, reminded me of being in Tuscany. The best tasted wines we bought and took home, for some lovely evening at the camp spots.

Botany Bay & Sydney

Starting with the last 3 days of our road trip, we all got sentimental to end our sleeping in the back of the van and the watching of the stars from the rear window. The last stop was Botany Bay, where James Cook made his landfall.  A nice beach with the skyline of Sydney in the background.

After 1 month in the camper van, still in love

Botany Bay where James Cook made landfall

 





In great spirits e arrived in Sydney on my birthday. Booked a nice apartment hotel so that we could organize a party and invite our crew friends from the Soren Larsen.After 9313 km we are back in Sydney. A fantastic journey and we are ready for our next adventure.

Sydney

Ready to go to sea and join the Royal Albatross in Singapore. The next blog I will tell you more about our sailing plans. It all went different, changed and got a complete new direction!

Ahoy Charlotte