Travelling light – along the Rhine and beyond 2024

Travel during the global pandemic had become an artform. After our first ever cruise, from London to Bergen, via North Cape, way above the Arctic Circle, in 2019, we decided to try something very different – a river cruise. We chose a short week-long one from Amsterdam up the Rhine to Basel in Switzerland. Due to the pandemic, this was postponed several times and then finally converted to a cruise in local waters, when Viking started to operate from Australia. It was then postponed again, before we finally sailed. Apart from the many attractions of travelling the length of the Rhine, the trip meant that I saw two cities in two countries I had never seen before – Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Basel in Switzerland.

At the start of 2023, my fellow traveller and I journeyed on a Viking ocean cruise from Sydney to Auckland. It was only our second Viking cruise. Almost three and a half years after our first, and until then, only cruise – from London to Norway in 2019 – it finally happened.

On our return from New Zealand we immediately rebooked the original river cruise for 2024 and persuaded two friends to join us. We’d had years to research it, so we knew exactly what we wanted. Before we knew it we were on our way to join one of the river ships that we had planned to travel on in 2020, four years earlier.

Houses, so familiar from a million films and guidebooks, along the myriad of canals in Amsterdam

Seeing the future
En route from Sydney to Hong Kong, I thought that when you are flying long haul flights, there is a great emphasis on inflight entertainment. For me, I don’t really need it – flying itself is my inflight entertainment. I was also reminded of what I’d said before, when we arrived at Christchurch Airport in 2023, ready to fly home to Sydney – when we walked past the Economy queue for a Qantas flight. Then I suddenly realised that it was not our queue and there was only one single person in the Business Class queue, and there and then I saw my future.

Travelling light – the largest islands in the Pacific 2023

I’ve been to New Zealand only twice – once on a brief stop in Auckland on the way to Tahiti in 2014 and then on a longer trip around the North Island at the end of 2016. On the first trip my fellow traveller was in New Zealand because she wanted to visit Tahiti, whereas I was in Tahiti because I wanted to visit New Zealand - though, mmm, as everyone commented, Tahiti was nice. On the second visit, we had planned to continue on to the South Island – till it became clear this would be biting off more than we could chew. Then, finally, six and a half years later, we were going back to New Zealand – and this time we would visit the South Island. We had sold our house after 12 years and we were on the road again. We were on the train to Sydney. On Tuesday we would board a Viking ship for a two week cruise down the East coast of Australia, across to New Zealand, finishing in Auckland. Then it would be four weeks of trains, ferries and hire cars as we got to know one of our favourite countries even better.

Holed up in Sydney
After our train trip from Canberra to Sydney, we were holed up in the Fullerton Hotel in Martin Place, readying ourselves to board our ship, Viking Mars the next morning. We had been wearing face masks everywhere (probably even more than we usually did at home), because we had to have a negative COVID test within 24 hours of boarding in order to join the cruise. Once we'd had the tests, nothing was going to stop us boarding that ship (except possibly World War III or something of similar magnitude). I’d told everyone I’d be posting commentary and photos regularly for those interested – I’d warned them ‘watch this space’.

Viking Mars anchored in White Bay, alongside Balmain, opposite the Sydney main city centre

While we waited to board our ship for light relief (not to mention food) we went to Bambini Trust Restaurant and Wine Room opposite Hyde Park for lunch. It's an old haunt of ours, where many a dry martini has passed our lips. It's amazing how good zucchini flowers stuffed with four kinds of cheese, spaghettini with prawns and, to finish off, affogato can make you feel – especially with a glass of Gamay. Sigh.

‘The last time we looked out from one of these ships we were staring in amazement at the Norwegian coast. Now we were staring in amazement at Australian shores.’