Adelaide, Australia – March 9

this is more like it!

Overcast, with sunny breaks, 25 degrees


Everyday, things seem to be ready to change...nothing today, but who knows?? We read plenty of online rumors that eventually become truth, so as we read each day we basically expect them to be realized.



A sunny, warm sea morning let us relax before an afternoon on own in

Gobby - the first show we saw

Adelaide. It's actually warm enough to put in a bit of time on the new balcony. We decided to skip the ship's tour of Adelaide to spend time in town in our own. We are on a tour tomorrow repeating what it seems like we would have seen today, so nothing lost...we think. Plus, downtown Adelaide should be hopping today.

walking around the grounds with wine

Adelaide's Fringe Festival is on, which is where we plan to spend the day. A 30 min train ride separates the port and Adelaide's down town. After making it in, and wandering a bit we find the Fringe grounds. It is basically what is usually a park, filled in with tents for shows, food stalls and booze gardens.



After getting a drink and thinking about it..we choose a show (really the show chose us because it was on next), found a loo, got a new show drink and lined up. The show was a 60 minute (typical of Fringe shows) one woman production that played to a full house. The show was good, about the trials of being a young woman.

Simon Taylor, comedian - the second show we saw

Next we checked out the other Fringe area; close, across the street-there seems to be Fringe location A and location B. We bought tickets to a show about 90 minutes away. This gave us time for some pizza and a bottle of wine.



The show was a comedian who was pretty hilarious!! Also, there was no audience participation...something we are deathly afraid of!! Again, this show was less than an hour long, so even if it was terrible it wouldn't be a big time commitment.

Fringe grounds

A 20 minute walk back to the train, a 30 minute ride (accompanied by terrible singing by one fellow passenger, loud talking by others and some kind of charming nasal snorting by yet another) and we were back at the port. I haven't been on the train at home late at night recently, but I suspect it would be equally as colourful.

Portland, Australia – March 8

fire aftermath

Pouring rain while sailing in, then overcast, then sunny, very windy, 19 degrees

Apparently those in charge of the weather didn’t care for my plans to spend the morning on our balcony. Our new balcony hasn’t seen too much action since we moved into this new room – maybe in the end it won’t as our itinerary seems to be

fire aftermath

changing by the day.

Our 7 sea days after Australia en route to Sri Lanka have now turned into 8, as we are definitely skipping Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka said we were welcome to dock, but no crew or passengers could go ashore…nope, the ship decided that wasn’t acceptable, so we are spending one more day at sea…yea! and an extra day in Cochin, India which is an overnight. So far, we’re good with

Glenelg river

that. Not that it would matter if we weren’t. This is the current plan…I suspect things will change tomorrow, as things are changing, and then changing, and then changing.

Portland is the first settlement of the state of Victoria about 200 years ago. It is very small, about 11000 inhabitants call Portland home, most of these people are employed by the town’s aluminum smelter.

A river cruise (we can’t get enough of water apparently) and then a cave

Glenelg river

tour was where we were headed just after lunch. We prepared for cool weather, but in the end didn’t need to be. Once the sun came out it was lovely, still windy, but I think it is always windy here…anytime I see wind turbines, I suspect it’s always windy.

The journey from Portland to Nelson, where we boarded the river boat,

holiday shacks

was about an hour. It was interesting to see the Australian countryside. Much of this area is planted with pine tree plantations. This is like of funny to look at, row upon row of pine trees, all exactly the same size. What wasn’t funny was when we saw row upon row of these trees burned by the recent fires. I tried to

holiday shacks

get some photos from the bus, but bus pics are never the best.

As we were driving a few times a few emus ran across the road in front of the bus. These are about the

caves

size of deer we would see at home. If we didn’t see them closely, we could easily have mistaken them for deer.

The cruise of the river Glenelg took about 1

admiring the huge cave formations

hour. Along the way we saw birds, trees, more trees, some holiday shacks and some other boats. Much of the river that we saw was cut into somewhat of a gorge…cool looking.

caves

At the end of the boat ride was the Princess Margaret Rose Cave. This system of caves is

caves

about 800000 years old, discovered by a couple of kids about 100 years ago. We didn’t travel very far into the caves, the ceiling of the caves was very high, so no crouching or bending was required.

One interesting thing we learned about in these caves are helictites. Most of the

caves

formations in caves we’ve visited form from the ceiling down. However, helictites form

bottom has met with the top

sideways or even upwards. These helictites are thought to form through capillaryy action or by the slightest breeze inside the cave.

Today had a very fall feeling about it…sunny but cool, windy and the shadows felt like fall…

burned plot of trees

weird when it’s March.

Portland beach

Phillip Island, Australia – March 7

so close, and active!

Overcast with some sunny breaks in the PM, 19 degrees

Wildlife was the name of the game today. Our ship was anchored a 20 minutes tender ride away from Philip island where 10000 people call home.

I like the koala style!

In the morning we visited Philip Island’s koala conservation centre. This is a 64-hectare reserve where koalas roam pretty much freely, are being cared for and released into the wild. Many koalas injured from the recent fires are also here, we didn't see any as they were too damaged for that...wow :( There are between 20 and 30 koalas in this area. We saw about 10 koalas. While it was fascinating to see them, they don’t do much. Apparently, they spend 20 hours a day sleeping, 1-3 eating and 1-3 moving. We managed to catch one eating, scratching and

galah bird (pink and grey cockatoo)

walking. I learned that koalas don’t drink water, as they get all they need from the eucalyptus trees. I’m not really sure how big 64 hectares actually is, but we walked and walked for what was about 5km and didn’t see the whole reserve.

We also saw plenty of brightly coloured birds and wallabies. We were told to be on the lookout for echidnas but didn’t see any of those. The weather was just about perfect for walking through the wilderness.

We had time for a bit of lunch at the

another galah

conservation centre cafeteria…we didn’t really need this. We had a sausage roll and finally found a meat pie, both of which were good, but we didn’t need a lunch stop. We frequently have tours that go over lunch time and don’t stop for food.

Anyway, with full bellies, we proceeded to a wetland area just off the island’s coast. The only wildlife we saw and here were birds, but they were pretty cool birds. We learned how to spot the call of the kookaburra bird…almost sounds like a monkey call to me. We also learned to recognize wild spinach…we ate

wallaby

some…tasted like…spinach.

After our wetland walk, we headed right back to the ship for a nap and some room service. We had a few hours before we were to meet again

reclining wallaby

for an evening tour. Evening tours are very rare and even more rare as we will have to tender back in the dark.

Phillip island has a colony of little or fairy penguins. There are 32000 of these 33 cm high penguins. Each morning they head out to sea to feed and return to their nests each night to feed their chicks. The same ones don’t return each night – about 1000 return each night, this is called the Penguin Parade. There is an interpretative centre set up for viewing these penguins returning from the sea. There are concrete and steel stands set up for viewers to sit at the edge of the sea. Tonight was very windy, had we known how

wetland walk

windy, we would have brought our toques!

At just about dusk, you could hear murmurs throughout the crowd that someone had spotted the first emerging penguin. Was it a penguin, or just a bit of seaweed…who knows, it was getting dark. But then…it was obvious…penguins! One would emerge, fall over, get sucked back to sea, to emerge again followed by a bunch of his buddies. This happened a few times before we became just frozen enough to

cool looking trees

decide to go.

As we headed back to the interpretative centre we really saw some penguins close up. The stands are built so that the penguins go under them to find their nests; they find these nests by listening for their babies’ calls - which we could totally hear. There are also boardwalks built so that penguins can go under, as we walked back to the interpretive centre we spotted a few toddling through the dark. If it wasn’t for their white bellies, they

giant grey geese

would have been impossible to spot. We were wondering where the 1000 penguins were that we were told come up each night, then we saw them…who knows how many, but a ton…toddling up, stopping, toddling again – over and over…it didn’t matter how cold we were, we were mesmerized!

No picture were allowed, but I borrowed a few from their web site.

penguin!

And just like that our day was over…that is, after a tender ride back to the ship in the dark. I’m always amazed and thoroughly impressed with the tender guys. They are always patient

penguin!!

with people who make me want to

more penguins!!!

snap most days and inspire a ton of confidence. Tonight I was more impressed because one of the guys had to stand on the front of the tender for the whole 20 minute ride – I think this was because of the dark. He got soaked and would have been frozen – impressive.

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.