Welcome page.

Welcome to the S. S. Australis Homepage.

Welcome to my website, which I have built in order to re-unite as many ex-crew and passengers as possible. My love of this great cruise ship stems from when I worked on her as the ships masseur\gym instructor between the years of 1974-`77. I made eight trips around the world and eleven South Pacific cruises, during the first couple of trips the ship called into Las Palmas in the Canary Islands and then Cape Town, South Africa before reaching Fremantle, Western Australia, and then carrying on to Melbourne and Sydney. On the third trip we sailed for the Greek Island of Crete. The Suez Canal had just been re-opened and we were able to traverse the Canal travelling southbound for Australia. Many passengers went on a day trip to Cairo to see the Pyramids, the Sphinx and have their ears nibbled by camels in the bazaars. Mo Horsburh and I had permission to go on one of the trips later on in the year and I can tell you it was really well worth it. The next port of call was Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, not one of my favourite places in the world as I always remember a lot of the locals had vicious looking monkeys on leads, but quite an experience anyway. After leaving Sydney it was on to Auckland, New Zealand-one of my favourite ports which still brings back great memories. I have always been interested in rock music and I used to listen to the radio in most ports, during one trip I decided to record an audio tape of one of the stations to listen to in my cabin, to this day I still have that tape and listen to it on a regular basis. The station was called "Hauraki" and it still exists today. Thanks to the internet and an ex-passenger I now know the history of the station that he was broadcasting from.

The northbound journey would take us to Fiji in the South Pacific, and then a long haul across the Pacific ocean to Acapulco, Mexico where most people would spend far too much money in the harbourside market before heading up to the hotel where people would jump off a high cliff into the sea, and they called that entertainment!! Heading off south would then take us to the Panama Canal and the city of Panama, where on one trip Mo nearly got me into a fight with a boxer when he told him that I was the boxing champ from the ship, I'm still keeping a low profile now just in case!! Through the Canal and on to either the Bahamas, Curacao, Jamaica or Fort Lauderdale, Florida, I fell in love with this particular part of Florida and have been going back there ever since, watching this city grow up into one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. One last place we used to go to was Rotterdam in the Netherlands, not a very interesting city really after visiting so many beautiful ports.

My brother Ray Ironside and my sister Shirley worked on the Queen Frederica and the Amerikanis from 1968 to May 1969. Ray also worked on the Australis from April 1971-April `73, and again from November 1973-November 1974. After which he worked on the Patris from November to December `74. You can contact Ray on the e-mail link below:

Ray Ironside.

Acknowledgements.

I would like to thank the following people for their contributions to this site, namely Steve Mulliss, Darren Byrne, Bill Lee, Steve Tacey, Bill Miller, Dan Trachtenberg, Peter Knego, Ken Rowlinson, Kirsten Hawkes and of course to everyone who has visited my site since it opened back in November 1997. A special thanks goes out to my good friend Mo Horsburgh for sending all those screaming kids down to the "C" deck swimming pool in the afternoon (just to annoy me I'm sure!!) back on the ship. They were great days amd I miss them even now.

Welcome all visitors to the S.S. Australis Website, which has now been online since 1998!

I will continue to update the site if I receive a new story, or if you have interesting photos taken on the ship during your voyage on either the southbound, northbound, or on one of the South Pacific cruises. We used to do those trips several times a year from Melbourne, Sydney and Auckland (New Zealand).

I am deeply moved by the interest and wonderful contributions from the numerous passengers and crew over many years.

You can send an e-mail to me on the link below:

A HUGE THANK YOU

Warm Regards

Ken

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