This week, Neil and I have been in the three largest cities in Australia. The first stop was Brisbane. It is a gorgeous city that has a wonderful botanic garden and miles and miles of bike and hiking trails winding within the urban landscape of a vast downtown expanse. We met many friendly Aussies and they wanted to know all about “the states,” mate.

Next, we traveled to Sydney and I must say it is the most impressive city in which I have ever been. The Sydney Botanic Garden, near the opera house, was remarkable and we later explored St. Mary of the Cross Roman Catholic Church. It was the most substantial church (read: largest) we have visited since we left on our trip from Great Britain.

We were in Sydney two days. The first day we walked about three+ miles into the heart of the city and upon our return it started to rain and then rained dreadfully hard. We were soaked to the bone when we returned to our Ocean Liner. This metropolis of Sydney is vibrant and beautiful. We docked right in the harbor amid the downtown sector of the city. It reminded me a little of the harbor liveliness of downtown Baltimore, MD. There were lights everywhere and it was a beautiful sight—right around the Sydney Opera House and its wonderful architecture.

On our second day in Sydney, Elise Lang’s mother and her husband (Jan and Rodger) met us at Warf 5, and we took a water taxi all the way to Abbotsford. There they treated us to a lovely meal at the Sydney Rowing Club. In addition to a fine meal, we saw a wall with the names of about forty people who over the years had represented Australia in the Olympics from this Rowing Club. It was terrific to see Jan, who has been to the Salado church several times and is planning to visit again in just a few months (editor’s note: unfortunately, all photos of us with Jan are on her phone, but will be forthcoming, probably).

Finally, today we walked around downtown Melbourne, which also has, like Brisbane and Sydney, a large botanic garden downtown. Known as the design and fashion capital of Australia, Melbourne is a hub of trendy eateries and museums. Founded in 1835, it is the second largest city in Australia—after Sydney, of course. Pretty nice place.

We miss everyone on the home front and try to keep in touch with the US news as best we can. So far, people on our ship have been reasonably healthy and we hope this trend continues. See you soon!

Sincerely, your friends,

David and Neil (editor/photographer)

Today is Neil’s 30^th birthday and we are on the northern portion of the eastern side of Australia. Yorkeys Knob is a small beach community that is on the outskirts of Cairns, the regional capital of far north Queensland. It is a small place and because our “Ocean Liner” is so large, it could not go into either Yorkeys Knob or Cairns—the water in each is far too shallow to accommodate our ship. Thus, we dropped anchor a couple of miles out from the shore. We were then “tendered” in by a series of small boats into Yorkeys Knob on Saturday.

Today we were tendered into the town of Airlie Beach—a small town but bounding with many Australian tourists and ship folk like us. They had a place off main street that was called The Lagoon and it was filled with many families there to enjoy the weekend. Between these two relatively small towns—Yorkeys Knob and Airlie Beach—is the Great Barrier Reef. According to Wikipedia:

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system comprised of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over 1,400 miles. The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia. The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from outer space and is the world’s biggest single structure made by living organisms.

The Great Barrier Reef supports a wide diversity of life and was selected as a World Heritage Site—as was Petra, which we visited about a month ago. What is coming next for us is a series of stops at Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne.

We saw a film on our “Ocean Liner” late this afternoon about the early life of J.R.R. Tolkien. I close with a quotation: “It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish.” (The Lord of the Rings).

Sincerely, your friends,

Neil (editor/photographer) and David

Today we alighted in the delightful and relatively small city of Darwin—about 125,000 population. It was named for Charles Darwin who, as we all know, published The Origin of Species in 1859, but mulled over the research for it for several years prior. From what I gathered here today, however, it was only Darwin’s crew several years later that in fact sailed to this port town and not Darwin himself. I guess the crew and town liked the guy!

We are getting to spend a lot of time in Australia as the ports we can land in (or want to) have been severely curtailed. I’m thinking staying healthy is worth whatever disappointment we may have experienced by not landing in any Asian ports apart from Colombo, Sri Lanka. The last few seaports to which we have been—Fremantle, Perth, and Darwin—have had both beautiful parks and people. When Neil and I talk to locals and tell them that we are from Texas and Colorado, they seem to perk right up. These Aussies are about as friendly as you might want. They are quite helpful, and we have gotten into some pretty good and sometimes long conversations with them.

On the days between port landings, we are out at sea. We pass the time reading, walking, and lately, I have discovered that they show movies on the days we are at sea. Some are to my liking; others not too much. I watched “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” “Midway,” “The Farewell,” and “Harriet Tubman”—which by the way, got a standing ovation at its conclusion. Since I rarely go to movies, this exercise has been a real spur for me.

Our beds in our room are splendid. Both of us sleep well each night. Since I do not always sleep ideally at home in the parsonage, this good sleep on the ship has really been a bonus for me. It is very tempting to overeat—as anyone who has ever been on an Ocean Liner knows—but I am trying to eat healthy. I try to eat a lot of fish and chicken but do miss the Texas BBQ so many of us love!

We also miss everyone, but deeply appreciate the gift of time the Salado church and our friends have given us for out excellent adventure. It is a wonderful act of benevolence!

Sincerely, your friends,

Neil (the editor & photographer) and David (the author)

We have been on our “Ocean Liner”—or boat—now for a week straight. The Corona virus, which is obviously a serious issue, caused a lot of caution for people who make important decisions about people’s lives and their health. If this issue was not bizarre enough, we have a person on board now—a big English television star who wrote a letter to an English paper telling them that we passengers were more or less kidnapped and prevented from ever leaving the ship. Here was the headline:

BENIDORM star Crissy Rock is trapped on a cruise ship that has been banned from docking over coronavirus fears.

The article goes on to state:

The 61-year-old actress is quarantined [not true] on board the Queen Mary 2 during her month-long honeymoon cruise with husband Julian Buck. Crissy Rock is quarantined [not true] on the cruise ship with Julian Buck on their honeymoon. Crissy Rock played hotel manager Janey York in Benidorm.

A source close to the star told Mail Online Crissy is “terrified” and “miserable” after her “trip of a lifetime has turned into a complete disaster”. They added: “There’s a lot of panic on board [not true], one passenger fainted yesterday [not true] and no one really knows where they are [not true] or what’s going on [not true]. “No one on the ship has coronavirus but passengers have been banned from leaving the vessel [not true] with food and fuel supplies being provided by smaller boats.”

The actress, known for her role as ruthless Scouse hotel manager Janey York on the hit show, boarded the ship in Dubai on January 31. But Cruise operator Cunard has confirmed the Queen Mary 2 liner will skip scheduled stops due to coronavirus fears. They include Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Phuket [true]. It comes after five million Wuhan residents fled ground-zero before the Chinese city was placed on lockdown [true].

The main thing I know about this lady is she is exceedingly angry and smokes at the back of the ship a lot! Just saying.

Our ship is going to spend extra days in and around Australia—I know that Alise (sp?) Lange will be proud! Today we docked in Fremantle, Western Australia and close to Perth. Fremantle is a quaint old shipping town of about 30,000 people and they have a nice Wesleyan Methodist church which is looking for a pastor. I told them I would check back in ten years or so when my Salado church is begging me to leave.  We also went to a wildlife refuge. In truth, it was more like a kid’s petting zoo. As Neil’s (the editor) photos will reveal, we saw several indigenous Aussie animals and had a very good day of it.

In addition, we met a nice Italian lady from Torino, Italy who had moved to Fremantle about six years ago to open a coffee shop and café. She was very nice and was so excited to visit with some Texans—so she could tell us how great Amarillo is!! She really liked it—went on and on about it.

Tomorrow we go to Perth which is a city of 2 million people. We will be in touch.

Sincerely, your friends,

David and Neil (the editor & photographer)

It is all messed up. The Corona virus has altered just about all our plans and many other people’s as well. Although Neil and I will not be able to stop in any anticipated Asian ports, the anguish caused for many others is far more extreme. For example, my brother, who had a Fulbright Scholar year teaching in Suzhou (between Beijing and Wuhan), has had his year suspended. He has been recalled to the United States. So, for us, we just sail around some more.

Our next port will be Fremantle, Australia, with arrival scheduled on the 18 February 2020. Unless we are in port, we have no internet—so that is why our communication is so spotty. It is difficult to answer all your questions as our access time is so limited. Yet we appreciate hearing from those who are following us.

And yet . . . we have plenty to occupy ourselves. Each night we gather for a two hour or so meal with our tablemates. Believe it or not, I am the baby of the table—besides Neil (the editor) of course. We have seven people at our table besides us. Two couples are from New York state and we also have a New Jersey couple who have transplanted themselves to Florida. The last guy is a widower from Canada. One couple, the Peters are on their 12^th world cruise—which seems to be to be a lot. We have spent a lot of time with these folks and it has been exceedingly enjoyable. On a funny or ironic note, the only person at our table who wants to talk about American politics is the Canadian.

In addition, Neil works out in the gym some and I walk around the 7^th deck as my busy schedule permits. I have been reading a lot and have finished Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad), The Stranger (Albert Camus), One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Alexander Solzhenitsyn), Dave Barry’s Only Travel Guide You’ll Ever Need (Dave Barry), and Love in the Time of Chorea (Gabriel Garcia Marquez). Now I have poured myself into a 1000+ book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (William Shirer)—one of my father’s all-time favorite books. Neil has loaded about 150+ books on my Kindle reader, so I think there is little danger of me running out of reading material. It is first-rate to be able to read for a good portion of my time—when I can work it into my busy schedule.                                 

It looks like from our new itinerary (and this changes, of course, from day to day) that we will spend quite a bit of time in Australia which will be wonderful. We miss everyone, but so far everything is going well—except the Corona virus. We are about 1/3 of the way through our excellent adventure! See you soon.

From your friends,

Neil (the editor) and David

Note from the editor: Not many pictures this time due to avoiding Asia, but more to come in Australia.

I am ashamed to say I had never heard of Muscat or Oman prior to our voyage. Yet, after we arrived and walked around the city of over a million people, as we were told, we found Muscat to be a delightful place. The mostly Muslim people we encountered were quite friendly and easy to engage. We visited a large park and walked three or so miles along a beautiful sea wall. In addition, we went through the city’s souk—which is an Arabic word for “marketplace.” Neither of us are big shoppers, so I am sure we were a disappointment to all the hundreds of shopkeepers and entrepreneurs.

Following our day in Muscat, we were at sea for three days. We can only send messages like the blog back if we are in port. Thus, it can sometimes be sketchy on when we can send you text and photos. During our time at sea, we read, swam, napped, visited with many other passengers, dined, worked out, walked around the deck, and . . . well, you get the idea. We have also had a great collection of what are called “celebrity speakers.” This week we heard a guy lecture about the history of pop/rock music during the 60s and 70s. He was first-rate and talked a lot about the Beatles.

As I am typing this, we have just returned to our ship from a day in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Today is day 27 of our excellent journey. In Colombo, we ended up renting a Tuk Tuk for three hours. A Tuk Tuk is like a tricycle that is placed on a motorcycle frame with two seats in the back and a driver in front. It is comfortable with three occupants, but more than that is well-nigh impossible to visualize. We then toured around Colombo for our rental time and saw Buddhist temples, Islamic Mosques, and Christian churches. We saw schools and a student protest that looked to be comprised of about 3000—4000 thousand students strong. It had something to do with student scholarship endowment as all schools in Sri Lanka are free from tuition. We were told that the population of Colombo proper is about 750,000 people—about the size of greater Fort Worth.

As an aside of how English can sometimes be translated and given an unintended meaning, we saw one such sign this afternoon. It read: “Find your dream school—study abroad.” We thought it was comic! Again, we will be at sea for the next few days as we sail to Phuket, Thailand. We will check back with you next Sunday evening, perhaps.

From your friends,

Neil (the editor) and David

We have been at sea until yesterday since we last checked in with our friends on 24 January. Then we set out from the port at Aqaba in Jordan. You might think six consecutive days at sea would be boring—and it certainly has that potential. Yet at least two things helped us keep our sanity and helped us avoid tedium. The first was the fact that the Australian Tennis tournament was on our limited television viewing list. We watched it some each day as it was being played in Melbourne. We will be arriving in Melbourne in about six weeks.

The other thing that garnered our interest and kept us from boredom was that we were traveling through the narrow Bab el Mandeb strait and then entered the Gulf of Aden. Thus, on one side of the ship we could at times see Somalia and on the other side see Yemen. This part of the world is a “high risk” area for piracy and includes the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. And although the shipping line people say the risk is low, they seem to treat it otherwise. It certainly raised the anxiety of many of the passengers. Somalia has long been a staging area for pirates. Neil even saw a Pirate cemetery when he lived in Madagascar and it purportedly accommodated the body of Bluebeard (Editor’s note: It may have been Redbeard, Blackbeard, or some other color beard). Our ship (more correctly, Rita Rice’s ship) was shadowed one afternoon by a British military cruiser. That persuaded me that someone was serious about Pirates!

Neil and I went into Dubai on Thursday and I don’t really know how to describe it. Everything seems very new and tall. There are hundreds of skyscrapers that are 50+ stories high. The Emirates Towers, the Burj Khalifa, the Palm Islands and the world’s second tallest, and most expensive hotel, the Burj Al Arab all dot the scenery of this extremely clean and impressive city of two million people.

We rode a bus around for a whole afternoon and soon realized we could not even hit the highlights of Dubai in under a week. All told, it was a very good day—and I got a haircut. Neil found his favorite fixation on the trip so far—a giant bookstore. I cannot remember ever seeing a larger bookstore. I think Austin’s Book People could have fit in this Dubai bookstore about ten times with room to spare.

Today is Muslim sabbath and we sail on to Oman this afternoon. I hope all is well in Texas and beyond for our friends.

From your friends,

Neil (the editor) and David

On our second day in port at Haifa, Israel, Neil and I traveled about two hours by bus to Jerusalem. For the second day in a row it rained steadily in Israel. Despite this obstacle to photos and such, we went to the Garden of Gethsemane and the church attached to it. Some of the olive trees there are still producing olives after 3000 years. Gethsemane means in Hebrew something like “olive press.” One of the things that surprised me was the steep hills—almost like mountains—in the city of Jerusalem. Evidently, three valleys all converge in the city.

Another feature that was emotive for us was our visit to the “Wailing Wall.” Men and women are separated and can go, touch, and pray there. This western wall was what was left of the Second Temple, destroyed by the Romans in response to a Jewish uprising in Palestine between 66 and 70 CE. This was a deeply moving experience—even in the pouring rain. Well, how many times are you going to be in Israel, after all?

The following two days, we were at sea and then passed through the Suez Canal. It was very cool and took us from 3:30 am until 4:00 pm. Thus, it was much longer and larger than I realized. The Suez Canal had an interesting history deriving from centuries before Christ. The canal and its usefulness also had the attention of people like Napoleon and other middle east potentates. There are two tunnels under the canal, and we sailed right under the only bridge that spans the canal.

Our next port was at Aqaba in the country of Jordan, which I have to say was a great eye opener and, of course, quite captivating. Although we did not get to explore this city of 140,000 people, Neil and I did go to Petra—the UNESCO world heritage site and named one of the seven “modern” wonders of the world. To get to the site, we hiked down and back over seven miles and it was well worth it. When we got off the ship it was 64 degrees F. In Petra, the temperature dropped all the way to 42 degrees F. Neil got some great photos of the site.

We are doing well and meeting very interesting people from many different countries. It is going well for us so far. (From the editor: We will be at sea for the next six days with no access to internet.)

From your friends,

David and Neil

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It is odd, after being a Christian and a church-type for so many years, to wake up on the Sabbath and physically travel to places like Nazareth and Galilee. We awoke rather early today and caught a bus to Nazareth. There we got a look at the Basilica of the Annunciation which experts repute to be the largest church in the Middle East.

The Basilica of the Annunciation may well be that, but we saw much larger basilicas in both Lisbon and Messina earlier this week. We also visited the Mount of the Beatitudes (Sermon on the Mount), the church of the Multiplication (fishes and loaves), and finally the “exact” place where John the Baptizer baptized Jesus.

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Later, we dined for lunch at a kibbutz. I’m not sure what everything we ate was—but it was irrefutably good. I have not seen much b-b-que around here, but maybe in the future.  A lady serving food told me they rarely have people ask for pork ribs!! (Note from the editor, Neil, this never actually happened).

As you can imagine, security is superabundant here in Israel and I am worn-out from taking my belt off and putting it back all the while being told to “move it along.” We disembarked in Haifa this morning in the rain and discovered that Haifa is Israel’s third largest city. It is a large industrial center. I was surprised we did not see more signs in English. There are some, but for the most part they are all in Hebrew—which one would expect. I also saw a lot of Russian, Macedonian, and Greek script here and there on our trip today.

By far the best part of the day—and of our trip so far—was going to Capernaum and the Sea of Galilee. In the city of Capernaum, we saw the “exact” place where Jesus preached in the Capernaum synagogue. We also walked down to the edge of the Sea of Galilee and saw the “exact” place that Jesus called the first disciples, Simon Peter and Andrew (Matthew 4:18-20). Interestingly, because of earthquakes and war, many of the earliest churches had collapsed and then built over. During the last say seventy years, a lot of work has been done to uncover the original and ancient structures. At the same time more modern churches—with the same names—have been built on top of the originals and used for modern worship. Thus, we saw some superb architecture both ancient and modern.

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Tomorrow we head to Jerusalem.

From your friends,

Neil and David

Neil pushed me vigorously in Lisbon a few days ago (in a caring way, of course). We did our own walking tour of this remarkable and quirky city. It is built, as the locals told us, on seven hills—as is Rome if my memory serves me well. All in all, my trusty Fitbit revealed that we walked 9.87 miles. I have no idea how many kilometers that is, but it seems like a lot—and it all seemed uphill! Remarkably, I had no ill effects physically or psychologically from the experience. And now I have a baseline for what I can do in terms of walking about.

Our assigned dining table each night has nine people—from New York, Canada, Florida, and us—from Texas. Other times we just randomly meet people at meals and most of them are not only pleasant but helpful. A man who has been on 11 world cruises—this one is number 12—has been a font of information and entertaining. We ask him questions about each of the destinations we are approaching, and he is more than happy to help us anticipate the things that will enhance our awareness and understanding. Regrettably, I did meet a well-educated American woman from Oregon at breakfast two days ago who said she loathed Texas. She told me that the politics in Texas offended her so much so that she refused to come to the state. I said “Surely, you joke.” She replied as proof that her daughter lived in Houston for three years and she refused to visit for this reason. All I could think of was “what a way to live.” Fortunately, almost all the people we have encountered have been lovely. The Brits are exceedingly interesting and of good cheer. The Germans speak German.

In the beginning, we were to dock in Naples, Italy, but because of repairs to its port, we are landing in Messina, Italy, instead. Messina has an extensive and intense history. Greeks and Romans dominated its rich past. As in Lisbon, Messina is dotted with a remarkable set of churches and Renaissance cathedrals. Many city roofs are of red tile and there are fountains galore. If you are one who values museums, you would relish time in this place.

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I will write all about Messina and Haifa in our next upcoming post. We hope all is well!

From your friends,

Neil and David