Geelong / Melbourne, Australia – March 6

Australia coat of arms

Partly cloudy, 19 degrees, one spot of rain


What we were told would be a 30-40 minute tender transfer, turned out to be about right. By the time we met our group, boarded the tender and made our way to shore it was about 35 minutes. Although it may seem

tendering us safely to land

long it was very slick, with the time actually on the tender being 15 minutes.



The ride to Melbourne where 5 million people live, we were told would be 2 hours...it was about an hour. apparently we had little traffic due to it being a Friday of a long weekend...Australia’s Labour Day and no one was going INTO the city...it was a different

another tender and our ship in the distance

story going out of the city...about 2 hours.



The prospect of an 8 hour tour was less than appealing to us, but we thought we should see Melbourne. Initially, when the itinerary changed we were scheduled to dock in

canoe and sails

Melbourne and be here overnight. Nope, in the end things were so busy due to ships diverting from Asia, that we had to dock in Geelong a city of about 500000 outside of Melbourne.



The Melbourne museum was our first stop. This is a museum of natural history, plants, animals the European colonization of Australian and indigenous culture. Our visit was

indigenous art

self guided. Self guided isn’t great, because we don’t hear from a guide, but it is relaxed as we wander by ourselves, looking at exhibits and reading about them.



The most interesting thing about our visit was seeing small Australian animals... amphibians, reptiles, insects and a few birds. There was an area set up to mimic the

600 year old tree

Australian bush that housed the animals.



Next was lunch on our own. We were dropped at an area with many, many restaurants side by side....we had Italian.

Melbourne from the 88th floor

Our last stop for the day was the Eureka Skydeck. The Eureka Tower is a

so beautiful it doesn't look read

Melbourne skyscraper with an

can't remember what these are called

observation deck on the 88th floor. It wasn’t the best day to be looking-it was cloudy with a bit of rain, but we could see plenty. We had

Melbourne from waaaaay up

time for a beer up there.



Our drive back to Geelong took twice as long as our trip to

one last pint before heading back to the ship

Melbourne...long weekend, bumper to

beer from the top of the world

bumper...ugh.

AT SEA, Cruising The Tasman Sea – March 5

taste test

Torrential downpour, then rain, then eventually some blue sky, 16 degrees

The plan today was to spend as much time as possible on the balcony. Ha…so much for plans. Once Chris opened the curtains, even from bed, I could see rain bouncing off of the deck! Nope, there would be no balcony time anytime soon.

So…what to do…no real reason to even get out of bed. I made use of the new room’s espresso machine and checked the tweets – as they say. Every morning I check what new and ominous reports there are regarding the corona virus pertaining to cruises.
Speaking of the COVID19, our cruise line (like others) gave passengers the

pilot extrication

opportunity to cancel, and it’s obvious that some did. The maximum capacity of this ship is somewhere around 700; we’ve heard that there is about 450 on right now. There were even less recently when a bunch of people did an overland trip to Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock) not sure how many, but the ship was mighty empty – we’ve never had such attentive dinner service!

We attended a frequent guest ‘event’ right before lunch. Usually these frequent guest events are short shows that are only available to frequent guests – charming and make you feel ‘special’. I don’t need to be made to feel special other than recognizing the number of nights we’ve sailed…it’s subtly obvious (can you be subtly obvious?) that the world cruisers are offered preferential treatment. It’s pretty hard to be offered preferential treatment on this cruise line, where everyone is treated very well, but there’s just something…

Anyway, we were pretty sure this event would be a cheerleading event for the new ship, launched last week. We were skeptical and although typically always go to these events, thought twice…we were right to think twice…it was as we thought…45 minutes I’ll never get back, upper management congratulating themselves on how awesome they are…not our scene. Not even a drink or canapé :0!

It was block part time again, which was nice, because we’ve moved rooms and have new neighbors. Most of the people in our ‘hood believe it or not are Canadians! This was a good time to hear the gossip too, apparently Sri Lanka turned away cruise ships today…ugh! If we missed Sri Lanka we wouldn’t be sad as we’ve been there, but unless we replace it with something else, that would mean 2 additional sea days! Good grief! 

Tonight I had a tasting of American versus Australian beef…interesting! 2 cuts, exactly the same, cooked the same way. Australian – grain fed, American – corn fed. I thought they were EXACTLY THE SAME. Of course I wanted to like the Australia better, but I didn’t.



And yesterday…I forgot to mention, we watched the pilot get off of our boat and onto the pitot boat…it was crazy…it was windy, rainy, watery, and splashy…it seemed like the pilot helper was strapped to the front of the pilot boat. We enjoyed our steak while he was pummelled and waited for the pilot to get onto his boat to get out. It was something.

Burnie, Tasmania, Australia – March 4

new itinerary

Overcast, windy, 17 degrees

What did I know about Tasmania? Very little other than that it is close to the bottom of the world and of

course is the home of the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes. I’m not even sure I knew Tasmania was part of Australia, and likely couldn’t spot it on an unmarked map until last week!

bus snacks

So…in a nutshell, Tasmania is an island off the south east coast of Australia. It is the 26^th largest island in the world where 530000 people live and is relatively rural.

hello pademelon!!

We saw a lot of the rural landscape as we drove to our 3 tour spots today. A Tasmanian cheese factory was first on the list – despite passing countless sheep on the way, the cheese at the factory was cow’s milk cheese. Tasmania prides itself on

the fact that their cows live entirely outside, never being sheltered due to the mild climate, this lets the cows graze rather than being fed. The factory aspect was underwhelming.

interesting plant at the vineyard

The cheese tasting (learning about what I’m tasting as I taste it) was more like cheese sampling (eating a bit of each of their chesses.) I’ll never turn down an opportunity to eat cheese, but I was hoping to learn a bit.

Our visit to a chocolate shop was equally meh. The best part of stopping here was seeing my first Australian animal! I learned that it was a

goodbye pademelon

pademelon – a small marsupial. I just thought it was a tiny kangaroo, until our guide said it was a ‘pademelon’. It was just hanging around under the bushes outside of the chocolate shop, snacking on their shrubberies…I loved seeing it, but I wonder if the shop's gardeners feel the same.

Wine is also an agricultural product in Tasmania and tasting this was our last event of the morning. The buildings were very chic and the grounds were beautiful, but like the visits we made in New Zealand, we

winery visit

didn’t learn much.

All in all, this visit to Tasmania was interesting…we got to see a lot of the island as we drove from spot to spot.

We learned about a thing called a ‘penguin fence’ – these are about a foot high between the sea and the highway and are designed to keep the fairy penguins from becoming roadkill! Where am I, I thought to

row upon row of vines

myself! Fairy penguins are about 8 inches high and come back to land each night after being in the sea feeding all day. We didn’t see any but have a penguin excursion

most of the vines were heavy with fruit

planned for a few days from now.

AT SEA, Cruising The Tasman Sea – March 3

Overcast, 17 degrees, windy

My plans to spend the day on our new balcony were mostly realized. It wasn’t the perfect day for balcony time, but as I thought yesterday…I forced it. In addition to being huge and off of the back of the ship, our

balcony is sheltered from the wind.

Australian lunch

We were on our balcony until we went for cool by the pool and lunch – WOW, it was like a hurricane on the pool deck and was cold – we felt none of this on our balcony.

After lunch inside it was time for me to do some work. I always create a spreadsheet / calendar for our trips detailing our itinerary. I find this is a great way to always know what’s on the go for each day. When we are on a cruise, there’s quite a bit to keep

view from bed

track of each day; I include each day’s port or ‘at sea’, excursions and their lengths, dinner reservations, and if we are at anchor. I also include any flight, hotel, and transfer details. It’s a lot of work before we leave, but this really keeps us organized with we are travelling. As things change to our plans as we go, I just change by hand. However, this itinerary change we are experiencing is the biggest one ever for us. So, the work for me today is to make changes to and print the new version at the ship’s business

dining table and living area

centre. Mission accomplished it was time for a beer.

As usual, the ship has a selection of local beers. After my successful printing we did some blogging and reading in one of the ship’s lounges. We have been less than impressed with Australian beer. The pubs we visited in Sydney had some interesting beers and many on tap, but not as much variety as we’d find at home or in the UK – I did find that one delicious cider, nothing dark for

desk/bar/coffee area

Chris (not in the summer we are told.) The ship has about 6 bottled and they mostly seem the same. We only had 2, but I think we had the most flavourful ones. I can’t believe I’m doing a beer editorial other than to say ‘blech’, but I’m becoming a bit of a beer drinker (I won’t quite yet say beer lover.

One perk that comes with having a butler (yes, we have a butler in this

BALCONY!!!!!

new room!) is that he will bring us ‘evening canapés. The last thing we need on a cruise is more food, plus the timing of these is during our getting ready or nap time, so we usually say ‘no thanks’. However, today being a sea we thought we’d have them. Of course they were delicious and it gave us a chance to

dinner invitation

chat with Rajib. 
Another thing we hardly need is a butler…I can’t believe I’m writing about having a butler. This is the third time we’ve had a butler and we don’t find we use them too much. However…Rajib totally came through and got the ship’s flax seed ground for me. Without going into too much detail, I’ll say that my tummy needs a fair amount of fiber…travelling and fiber don’t really go together. I try to eat All Bran cereal for breakfast, but would love to just have plain yogurt and flax. The ship has flax, but I can’t seem to

blogging and beer

get anyone to grind it for me…Rajib totally came through!

We had dinner tonight with 2 of the ship’s electrical officers…as usual

updated spreadsheet

when we chat with staff…very interesting.

Sydney, Australia – March 2

vintage beer poster

Clear, 35 degrees - HOT

I woke up in a new bed this morning…and a new room with lots of room. It’s interesting how the new room’s room is distributed. This room is more than twice the size of our last room, but other than the balcony, we won’t use much of the additional space – that’s not shy we decided to upgrade.

name seems apropos

whisky bar

 There isn’t a bedroom, but a bed ‘niche’ with 3 walls –either side of the bed is pretty narrow and we’re not very wide (although we are widening.) The bathroom is exactly the same size as our last smaller room. This is odd, the bathroom is OK for space, but on the tight side, considering how much extra room there is to work with, extra room in the bathroom would be great.

Anyway…I can’t wait for tomorrow’s sea day…my plan is to spend as much time as possible on the balcony! The weather isn’t supposed to be great, but I’ll force it.

vintage beer poster

Today’s activity was a walking tour of an area we were yesterday – ‘The Rocks’ - apparently Sydney’s

more stairs

birthplace dating back as far back as the late 1700s. There were only 10 of us including the guide on the tour today – perfect. A handful of pubs here all claim to be the oldest – depending on how you measure the oldest and what constitutes a pub.

We spent 2 hours with a guide wandering and listening to stories. After the tour we were very hot and in need of refreshment…we found a

Sydney's oldest pub, was Paul Hogan's local

pub. I had a delicious cider – cloudy and not at all sweet. We thought food would be a good idea too, but as it was Monday – the pub only served burgers…I’m not the biggest fan of burgers, so we split one…it was quite tasty…the fries were excellent too. We are on a hunt for a meat pie…we’ve been told Australian meat pies are a thing…but I’m not sure where they are a thing, because

so far we’ve found none – we had one in New Zealand that was delicious, another thing I’m

many to choose from

not usually a fan of, but maybe I’ve just not had the right meat pie or burger!?!

The guide took us to many very cool little nooks and crannies, each with a story, many of which I’m not sure were factual, but were fun to hear – we’ve learned to take all of what guides tell us with a huge grain of salt, but again…truthful or not…fun. Many of these hidden spots turned out to be bars that will be fun to explore more deeply on our next trip. We learned why Sydney’s pubs’ last

more stairs

call used to be 6PM and why there were ladies’ areas…won’t recount here…I’m sure it’s on the Google or maybe not?!? Many of the streets here are cobbled and there were lots

can't get enough of the skyline

of stairs – good for some exertion. We also learned to spot vintage beer posters outside many of the old pubs…what I walked ignorantly by yesterday, I today stopped to admire.

We learned from our guide that our ship is moored at an inconvenient dock because it is small enough to fit under the Harbour Bridge…if this is

burger and a pint

true, I think just because you’re big doesn’t mean you should get the best spot! It sure would have been more convenient to be able to walk off the ship and be right in town, like some of the big ships are – however, getting back and forth on a

more posters

shuttle is better that tendering, which we saw some ships doing.

The shuttle stop is about a 15-minute walk from The Rocks. On our way back the 35-degree heat, we had to

Luna Park - amusement park

stop for a pint…and one fish and chips…this time…the fries and the fish were only meh.

Sydney, Australia – March 1

the Bridge

Clear, 30 degrees – the heat is back!

Today is the third of four transition days we will experience – transitions days are when some passengers

disembark, and others embark. As remaining passengers, transition days are

Opera house

glorious – we get up as usual without having the task of getting on a flight or any other travel ahead of us. We learn that more passengers got off than got on – there are now about 450 passengers out of a possible 700.

Moving actually was on our agenda today as we moved rooms, or someone else moved rooms for us. Everything went extremely smoothly

Bridge and Opera House

– I was impressed. As we had been told, everything would be moved for us – and it was, most things were even put in similar spots to those we had them in originally.

When we returned to the ship all we had to do was get a new room card and go to our new room. Once we got there the room had already been ‘turned down’ for the night, so the curtains were closed…I couldn’t wait to fling them open to see the BALCONY! And what a balcony it was!!! Yup, good decision. The room is very spacious – almost too spacious…

some of Sydney's priciest mansions

old room 300 square feet, new room 630 square feet! We have to give a big

reloading

shout out to our travel agent for facilitating this upgrade for us.

This morning we boarded a smaller boat for a harbour cruise. It was a glorious morning to cruise around Sydney’s harbour seeing and hearing about various buildings that make up Sydney’s skyline, harbour front mansions and beaches. Sydney’s harbour is a very busy place – we see boats from the smallest point A to point B boats, to mega yachts, to cruise ships bigger than ours, not to mention sea planes and helicopters.

Sydney skyline

The rest of the day was spent with one of Chris’ old friends who has lived in Sydney for over 20 years and his wife. It was great to spend time with locals, wandering around Sydney’s popular areas, having a beer here and a beer there.

interesting way to prune