Kimberley Trip, Day 0

Tuesday-Wednesday, May 21-22, 2024

As I have done several times in the past (although it has been a while), I am again blogging a summary of our vacation trip. I will post daily installments offset by six weeks to allow time for editing and review after we return home.

This is one of our most extensive trips. We begin in Bali, Indonesia, cruise via Lindblad Expeditions on the National Geographic Orion, ending up in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, and then fly to Perth, Western Australia, for a few days. The overall trip is just over three weeks. We’re referring to this as the “Kimberley Trip” because much of it will be exploring the northwest coast of Australia, which is referred to as the Kimberley Coast. The main characters here are myself (Jim), my wife Kenna, and our friends Dave and Jan, who are taking the same cruise with us.

Today (I’m calling it two days because we’re crossing the Date Line), Kenna and I are flying from San Francisco via Singapore to Denpasar, Indonesia, the main airport for Bali. Dave and Jan left a day or so earlier.

Our departure from San Francisco was late in the evening (10:40 p.m.), so we had the day to finish a little work, complete packing, and clean up the house before the Lyft driver picked us up at 7 pm. The airport was uncrowded, and we had a relaxing time in an airport lounge. The departure was delayed a bit because the winds were favorable, and we aren’t allowed to land in Singapore too early in the morning.