I have driven across this country. I have taken the train. I have flown in and out of airports that all look the same and tell you nothing about the place you’re visiting. I once, in a moment of spectacular misjudgement in my twenties, hitchhiked a considerable stretch of the Nullarbor, which I recommend only if you enjoy the company of truck drivers and have no particular attachment to personal comfort.
There are many ways to see Australia. But I am here to make a case – a fairly compelling one, I think – that this particular way might be the finest of all of them.
Holland America Line’s Noordam departs Sydney on November 15 on a 36-day circumnavigation of the entire Australian continent, with a brief and exotic detour into Papua New Guinea along the way. It returns to Sydney on December 20, which means you’ll be home for Christmas and, more importantly, you’ll have seen more of this extraordinary country in five weeks than most Australians manage in a lifetime.
The itinerary alone is worth reading slowly. Sydney, Brisbane, up through Cairns and Townsville, across to Papua New Guinea – Alotau, Kiriwina Island, the Conflict Islands – then back through the Torres Strait to Darwin, down the wild and under-visited northwest coast to Broome, Exmouth, Fremantle, Albany, Adelaide, Kangaroo Island, Melbourne, Phillip Island, Hobart and Port Arthur, before the final run back to Sydney. Twenty ports. Thirty-five nights. One ship.
Let me tell you about the stops I’d be watching from the railing.
There are places in this country that take your breath away the first time and keep doing it every time after. Broome is one of them. Cable Beach is a 22-kilometre stretch of coastline where snow-white sand meets rust-red cliffs and ancient dinosaur footprints emerge in the rocks at Gantheaume Point at low tide. The town carries the weight of a remarkable history – it was once the pearling capital of the world, and heritage buildings, pearl showrooms and shaded streets in Chinatown still reflect Broome’s pearling past, while a visit to Pearl Luggers brings that history to life through the crews and vessels that once worked these waters.
If the timing is right and the tides cooperate, stay on deck as the sun goes down over Roebuck Bay for the phenomenon known as the Staircase to the Moon – the full moon rising over the tidal mudflats creating the illusion of a golden staircase rising from the water to the sky. I have seen photographs of it for years. One day I will see it in person. Perhaps this cruise is that day.
People who haven’t spent time in Fremantle sometimes confuse it with Perth, which is the kind of mistake that annoys the locals enormously and, frankly, is understandable to nobody who has actually been there.
Fremantle is its own thing entirely. The coffee culture here is genuine and serious in a way that most Australian cities only aspire to. The Italian community that settled here in the postwar decades left behind a coffee tradition that is still, in my considered opinion, among the very best this country produces. Find a table at one of the old-school Italian cafes on South Terrace – the strip known locally as the Cappuccino Strip – order a short black and something that involves pastry, and stay for a while. This is not a city that rewards rushing.
The Noordam gives passengers two full days in Fremantle, which is exactly the right amount of time. Walk the port, browse the markets, eat well, drink excellent coffee and try – really try – to see the Fremantle Prison if you haven’t before. It is one of the most extraordinary heritage sites in the country, and most Australians have never been inside it.
Arriving in Darwin by sea is a different experience to arriving by plane, which tends to deliver you into the heat and humidity with something of a shock. From the water, the approach is gradual and the scale of the place becomes apparent – the sheer size of the harbour, the flatness of the land, the intensity of the sky. Darwin is a city that has been through more than most, and wears it without self-pity.
This is the part of the itinerary that genuinely sets this cruise apart. Most circumnavigation voyages hug the coast and stay domestic. This one crosses the Coral Sea to Alotau, Kiriwina Island and the Conflict Islands before returning through the Torres Strait – waters that have their own profound history – to the Australian coast.
The wildlife alone in this part of the world is extraordinary. Tree kangaroos, cassowaries, the riot of birdlife in the rainforest. It is a long way from Sydney, geographically and culturally, and that is entirely the point.
Two stops that deserve far more time than a single day allows, but which reward even a brief visit enormously. Kangaroo Island at the right time of year offers wildlife encounters that feel almost too easy – sea lions on the beach, koalas in the trees, wallabies at dusk. Hobart’s waterfront is one of the most beautiful in Australia, and Port Arthur, just around the coast, is a site of such historical weight that you tend to leave it quieter than you arrived.
The Noordam is a well-appointed ship – the kind of vessel that doesn’t try to be a floating theme park and is much the better for it. Cabins are still available from $18,179 per person twin share, which for 35 nights of accommodation, meals and the simple pleasure of waking up somewhere different every few days, represents rather good value by any reasonable measure.
Australia is a remarkable country. The challenge has always been its size – the distances between places that conspire to make seeing all of it feel like a project requiring several lifetimes. This cruise solves that problem with considerable elegance. You leave Sydney, you circle the continent, and you come back knowing it rather better than you did before.
That seems to me worth doing.
For full details and to book, visit travelat60.com