Today we were in Newcastle, Australia. In this port, I booked a shore excursion through Celebrity for beach dunning. We were taken to the Stockton Bight Sand Dunes which covers over 6,177 acres along 20 miles. The sand could be up to 162 feet high and slopes up to 60 degrees.
Once we arrived we got into a 12-passenger 4WD vehicle to drive over the sand dunes. The 4WD ride was quite fun. We sat in the back and were bouncing all over the place. It was cool. Our first stop was at the beach to see a pipi. Pipi’s are sea creatures that are similar to clams. They are in a shell and the inside is gooey like a tongue that comes out to bury itself in the sand. To find them, you must dig in the sand.
After that we were off the do some beach dunning. You start from a large hill, get on a board (similar to a sled), and then slide down the sand on the board. It is really fun. The hills are about 30-50 meters high (up to around 150 feet) with slopes up to 60 degrees. They needed a test volunteer to go first down the hill and that was me. (I am not scared of anything anymore after skydiving).
Brian and I sand dunned 4-5 times. It was great fun going down but climbing the sand hill back up was a little bit of a challenge. But it was worth it. The scenery was pretty however today there was a sea mist in the air which made it look hazy and this greatly limited visibility. It helped filter the sun so that it was not as hot, but it also prevented us from getting to see some of the great views we heard about.
Once we were done beaching dunning we got to ride the 4WD vehicle down the dunning hill. That was great! On our drive back, we stopped a Tin City. That is where there were about 10 tin houses in the middle of the sand dunes. Part of the Mad Max movie was filmed here. Some people really live there. I think that is an interesting place to make residence. Not for me, but I guess for some people.
After our excursion, we walked around the city of Newcastle for two hours. We started walking the Bather Way trail around the coast of the city however since there was sea mist in the air the views were hindered. So we decided to walk the Heritage Walk throughout the city. It was neat however there were many hills and we were a bit tired from beach dunning.
We came back to the ship took a shower since we had sand everywhere. Then we went to lunch. After lunch, we had desert on our balcony. Our balcony has been nice already and we have not even had a sea day yet. I was so tired I took a nap before dinner. Tomorrow is a sea day and is the first day we can real sleep in.
Our dinner table experience
On our first night on the ship, we went to dinner and were excited that we were seated at a table of ten. We thought this would be great. We will meet a lot of new people. Only a family of three showed up that night with us. The problem was they did not speak English. They were Italian. That made eating with them a little award. Last night at our table we were the only ones at dinner. The other 8 people (including the Italian family) did not show up. How is this possible? Our head waiter came over and asked if we were lonely. He said he would move us to another dinner table. On our shore excursion today, we met another young couple who invited us to their dinner table. They both live in Melbourne, Australia. So we asked the head waiter if we could switch to their dinner table and it was approved.
We just got back from dinner and it was great to have people to talk to during dinner. It was going to be a long cruise if we only had each other to talk to. We had a great time tonight and are glad that we are no longer eating alone. Tomorrow we are at sea all day. We are looking forward to a relaxing day! Cheers (another common Australian saying with obvious ties to British colonialism)!
