We went to Thursday Island on Wednesday. This has to be one of the strangest places we have ever stopped at. The island is only about three square kilometers and the excursion around the island was only 45 minutes, and that included a stop at the fort on top of the hill. There were no beaches available to us as there were jellyfish and get this – crocodiles! Plus, the ship was only stopping for a very short time.
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We are anchored in a lagoon, surrounded by 133 different islands with three distinctive cultures and dialects. Collectively the islands are referred to as the Torres Shire. The Torres Strait, in which the islands are located, is a body of water between Australia and Papua New Guinea where the Indian Ocean meets the Pacific Ocean. Thirty eight of the islands are inhabited and there isn’t very much here today except fishing. The islands were an important military base for the Australian and American troops during WWII. In the late 1800s, pearls were harvested here by Japanese divers, many of whom died from the bends.
So how did Thursday Island get its name? It was originally named Friday Island and another island was named Thursday. An English cartographer renamed all the islands that had the days of the week so that they would be in order on the map. So Friday Island became Thursday Island – or so the story goes.
It was a very hot and humid day, and there was barely a breeze as we tendered to shore. We were not able to take the excursion as the only one offered was full. So we decided to walk around that town. Well that took about 15 minutes in the sweltering heat. We found a variety store that was air-conditioned so we browsed around to cool off. We were contacted by the shore excursion staff and was told there was space on the noon tour. It was too hot to wait around, so we came back to the ship, quickly changed into bathing suits and jumped into the pool.
We passed the afternoon playing bridge with Pepper and Jim. We were slightly distracted as the Captain announced a delayed departure due to something being broken on the tender so it couldn’t be loaded on to the ship. I suggested to Michael that maybe he could lend a hand in fixing it as he was quite proficient fixing stuff on the Water Walker.
Tonight is the famous Regent “block party,” where at the appointed hour the captain rings the ship’s bell and you go out into the hallway for cocktail hour and to meet your neighbors.
We are off to Darwin, our last stop in Australia.
So how did Thursday Island get its name? It was originally named Friday Island and another island was named Thursday. An English cartographer renamed all the islands that had the days of the week so that they would be in order on the map. So Friday Island became Thursday Island – or so the story goes.
It was a very hot and humid day, and there was barely a breeze as we tendered to shore. We were not able to take the excursion as the only one offered was full. So we decided to walk around that town. Well that took about 15 minutes in the sweltering heat. We found a variety store that was air-conditioned so we browsed around to cool off. We were contacted by the shore excursion staff and was told there was space on the noon tour. It was too hot to wait around, so we came back to the ship, quickly changed into bathing suits and jumped into the pool.
We passed the afternoon playing bridge with Pepper and Jim. We were slightly distracted as the Captain announced a delayed departure due to something being broken on the tender so it couldn’t be loaded on to the ship. I suggested to Michael that maybe he could lend a hand in fixing it as he was quite proficient fixing stuff on the Water Walker.
Tonight is the famous Regent “block party,” where at the appointed hour the captain rings the ship’s bell and you go out into the hallway for cocktail hour and to meet your neighbors.
We are off to Darwin, our last stop in Australia.
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