I’ve just been in touch with 2 travel companies and it’s not going to be possible (or at least it’s going to be very difficult) to get from Singapore to either Australia or New Zealand. There are no cargo ships from Singapore to Australia (at all!) and the only passenger ferry leaves in December (and that’s it). The only other option is to get a cargo ship from Hong Kong to Brisbane or Auckland, but that would mean travelling from Singapore to Hong Kong, just to start the journey. This is going to be more difficult than I thought.

The first possibility, a cruise liner, would leave on the 11th December 2012 (with similar dates in 2013) and arrive in Fremantle (Perth) on the 18th December 2012. Although this gets me to Australia, it leaves at an inconvenient time of year and leaves me in part of Australia that I don’t want to be in. The up-side is that it gets me to Australia, the down-side is that it costs $3200 and leaves in December.

The second possibility, a freighter cruise, leaves from Hong Kong once every 42 days. I would have to get there, but it would cost $1500 for the single birth (of which there is only one) and take 11 days to get to Brisbane. If it was stopping in Hong Kong, then a second Chinese visa may be required. It’s more practical, but would mean that I would have to back-track, just to get to the starting point. The whole trip could take about 16 days.

There is a 3rd option and that it to ‘intercept’ a cruise which is heading from Singapore to Fremantle via Bangkok. This would mean getting to Lombok in Indonesia, where I could board. As this is a cruise liner, a room could be anywhere up to $10000, but if the cost was reasonable, this is definitely something that could be a possibility.

At the moment, I’m definitely preferring option 2, as it seems the most straightforward and realistic. As none of the options are particularly straightforward or realistic, I think I’m going to plan to keep researching this as I go along and fall back on a plane if I need to. It’s not something that I want to do, but at least it’s an option!

For reference, the two travel companies I used were:

• The Cruise People [http://cruisepeople.co.uk/]
• Strand Voyages [http://www.strandtravelltd.co.uk/].

As far as I know, these are the only two bookings companies that arrange these types of journeys in the UK.