Cruising In Style
There's a lot of buzz in gay travel circles about Australia's first all-gay cruise next year. Departing Sydney, three days going nowhere. While that may appeal to some, discerning gay travellers probably demand something more than a mai tai umbrella to show for their holidays.
Australia's most luxurious cruise company, Orion Expeditions, welcomes travellers of every orientation with equal warmth and consideration. Orion journeys are not cruises in the expected sense; they are devoid of shuffleboard courts and conga lines. MV Orion is a small ship with only fifty luxurious cabins; it offers the opportunity to explore small coves and inlets unreachable by behemoths carrying two thousand passengers. While a trip on Orion is rather expensive, it is not overpriced; you definitely come away feeling you got your money's worth. Orion expeditions are extremely popular--not surprising given the level of attention paid to the passengers--and frequently sell out far in advance. Onboard cuisine is excellent, presentations about places visited are entertaining, and the excitement of a semi-private cruise itself is itself very pleasant. Accommodation on Orion ranges from comfortable staterooms to Owner's Suites, which offer unusual options such as a full bathtub with picture window in one to a separate living room in another. Balcony Suites are have floor-to-ceiling glass doors. Not that one spends much time in the room; Orion's are not lazy cruises by any means. Every day brings another exciting shore excursion in a variety of remote parts of the world, and it's oh so nice to return to the comforts of the ship afterward.
The Kimberley, a region of the state of Western Australia most easily accessible from Darwin, is one of the world's most pristine natural areas, unsullied by damage caused by the modern-day human lifestyle. Sheer red-orange cliffs drop precipitously into the sky-blue sea; the colours are striking in their depth and clarity. An amazing phenomenon is Montgomery Reef, covered by the sea at high tide but exposed at low tide when the immense volume of water running off it creates cascading waterfalls in the middle of the sea. Impressive Aboriginal art sites with fascinating cave paintings are found in Vansittart Bay, Bigge Island, and Raft Point. While the philistines among us may dismiss rock painting as simplistic, full appreciation of the artistic expression and communion with the land and sea comes to those who go to the art rather than have the art come to them in some artificial urban environment. Riding a Zodiac to an uninhabited island hundreds of kilometres from the nearest corner shop, climbing pathless cliffs to reach cool caves sheltered from the midday heat, and rediscovering the evocative art within these caves brings flagrant pleasure to those who get this far. If it all seems to demanding, the flutes of champagne are never far away for Orion's guests.
The turnaround point for Orion's Kimberley expeditions is Broome, one of Western Australia's tourism gems. And if it is a gem, it must be a pearl, for it was the pearling industry that put Broome on the map, attracting a sizable community of Asian pearl divers in the 19th century and now buried in the town's Japanese and Chinese cemeteries. The pearling industry is still big business in this part of the country to this day.
The native peoples of Australia have an intimate relationship with and an intricate understanding of the land; having evolved to survive thousands of years in some of the harshest conditions on the planet, Aboriginal hunters and trackers can tell if crocodile is on the move or if a turtle has just laid some eggs on the beach. Their knowledge of Nature allows them to find water in a sea of sand and find food where none seems obvious to us Woolworth shoppers.
Broome offers several unusual experiences not to be missed. The famous camel sunset rides may sound a bit kitsch to The Jaded Ones, but the animals, sky, and Cable Beach itself are all beautiful and picture perfect. Being somewhat jaded a traveller myself, I was glad to have partaken. Red Sun Camels offers the best option for a sunset ride. Early risers may prefer the morning rides, though it's not unheard of for visitors enchanted by three-metre beasts to ride both morning and evening to see the beach in different lights.
Do you know what a hovercraft is? Not those spaceships that plied the English Channel pre-Chunnel. Instead, think of The Jetsons. Broome Hovercraft offers the only hovercraft rides in the Southern Hemisphere. Try one out and go see the dinosaur footprints revealed in Roebuck Bay's low tide.
Orion offers a whole range of exciting travel experiences taking people to faroff lands. New Guinea cruises allow the MOB (Men On Board) to explore some of the world's most primitive societies and undeveloped inhabited areas while enjoying the comforts of home. While some travellers feel a tinge of irony in this, the alternative is not going at all since the Orion allows for visiting places that would take months of overland travel to reach. If the clash of cultures is too much for you to endure, there is always Orion's Antarctica option, the only Antarctica journey to depart from Australian shores.
For more info visit:
www.orioncruises.com.au
www.redcamelsafaris.com.au
www.broomehovercraft.com.au
On the surface, Finland is not the most immediately welcoming of destinations. Covered in piles of snow for much of the year, the countryside looks as forbidding as the questioning faces of the inhabitants whose stoic countenances belie hearty hospitality concealed beneath. Don't be fooled; Finland is one cool place, and its burgeoning gay scene is one of Europe's happiest. It may be more visible in summer, but no one hibernates during the other ten months of the year; it's just too long to go without. Finland offers some of the most pristine landscapes in Europe, a sophisticated capital city, and a number of unique attractions to keep visitors busy, and not even a snomophobe like me need stay home when Hel(sinki) freezes over; residents and visitors alike simply bundle up and go to the architecturally classic Yrjönkatu Swimming Hall where, thanks to separate times of use for men and women, not only is the sauna clothing-optional but so is the pool itself. 
Well endowed with excellent museums and extensive parklands within the city limits, Helsinki keeps visitors warmly entertained throughout the year. The excellent Theatre Museum in the newly gentrified Cable Factory lets you play dress-up and take the stage in mock realisation of your long overdue fifteen minutes of fame, and the homoerotic Impressionist paintings Faun and Narcissus by Finnish artist Magnus Enckell alone are reason enough to visit the Finnish National Gallery of Art. 
Kemi, on the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, is home to the Snowcastle, the world's original ice hotel, and Sampo www.sampo.fi, the impressive icebreaker ship that crushes all white mass before it and makes a stop mid-ice for passengers to stroll on the frozen Gulf or take a well-insulated swim in the pool cut into the ice. Slip on a rubber and jump in the hole--wouldn't be your first time, would it? For the full effect, you can start off with a snowmobile safari which allows for a self-drive out to meet the ship at its stopping point where you board for the ride back to port. 
Helsinki's gay scene is one of Europe's most freshly emerged. Finland has been a historically more cautious land than its famously open Scandinavian neighbours. This caution is an understandable trait of these considerate people of the north; generations of Russian domination taught the Finns to keep to themselves and ask no questions of strangers, yet the smallest inkling that you are friend not foe will immediately cast the reticence aside in favour of warmth and thoughtfulness. It also explains the live-and-let-live attitude of a society accustomed to minding its own business. 
If you come to Finland in search of artwork of the country's most famous homosexual, Tom Of Finland, you will be disappointed. Tom, whose real name was Touko Laaksonen, gained far more fame and fortune overseas than he did in his native country. While there are occasional temporary exhibits of his work, there is no permanent space displaying his celebrated interpretations of the homoerotic male form. More about Tom can be found on the website of the Los Angeles-based Tom Of Finland Foundation at www.tomoffinlandfoundation.org.